Divi and Elementor are both popular choices for creating stunning custom websites. In this article, we're going to compare these two page builders across the following areas:

• Popularity / Adoption Rate
• Pricing
• Performance
• User Interface
• Styling Options
• Theme Building
• AI Capabilities
• Pre-designed Templates
• Modules & Widgets
• Unique Features
• Extensibility and Compatibility
• Support
• Final Thoughts

1. Divi vs Elementor: Adoption Rate

Before diving into specific features, let's look at the usage of these two page builders among the top 1 million websites over time—a good indicator of overall popularity:

Looking at this chart, you'll immediately notice Elementor's incredibly rapid growth. Soon after its launch in 2017, its adoption rate soared, quickly overtaking Divi.

Why did Elementor experience such fast growth? A major factor was undoubtedly its generous free version. This allowed a huge number of users to try it without any initial investment. Its clean, fixed-sidebar interface also seemed to click with many users right away (more details in the next section). 

Looking at the more recent data, you'll see a slight change in the trend. Elementor's steep growth has plateaued and shows a small decline from its peak around 2023. Divi's numbers have also shown a slight dip in recent years.

What might be the cause of this shift? Several factors could be at play. The WordPress market is maturing, and competition from newer page builders like Breakdance is increasing. There's also more focus now on website performance, and some users are leaning toward lighter alternatives like Oxygen.

Still, both Divi and Elementor continue to evolve with each new update, so it will be interesting to see how they perform in the years ahead.

2. Divi vs Elementor: Pricing

We seldom place pricing near the top of our articles on page builders because there's so much else to consider, but these key differences are important to some readers:

• Elementor is the only one of these two builders to offer a free version, which you can genuinely use for simple sites. However, if you want things like built-in forms, popups, custom headers/footers, etc., you'll have to go Pro.
• Divi is the only one to offer a lifetime license, which can save you a lot of money in the long term.

The rest of the pricing details are summarized in this table:

Product	Plan	Sites	Annual Price	Notes
Divi (Elegant Themes)	Divi Yearly	Unlimited	$89.00	Theme + Builder + all ET products; unlimited usage.
Divi (Elegant Themes)	Divi Lifetime (one-time)	Unlimited	—	One-time $249 for lifetime updates & support.
Divi (Elegant Themes)	Divi Pro (annual)	Unlimited	$277.00	Adds Divi AI, Divi Cloud, VIP, 4 Teams seats.
Divi (Elegant Themes)	Divi Lifetime + Pro Services	Unlimited	$212.00/yr*	*Pay $297 today (lifetime license) + Pro services renew $212/yr.
Elementor (Plugin)	Essential	1	$59.00	Core Pro features for a single site.
Elementor (Plugin)	Advanced Solo	1	$79.00	Single-site with ecommerce features; adds forms/popup/ACF/CPT.
Elementor (Plugin)	Advanced	Up to 3	$99.00	Pro for up to 3 sites.
Elementor (Plugin)	Expert	Up to 25	$199.00	Pro for up to 25 sites.
Elementor (Plugin)	Agency	Up to 1000	$399.00	Plugin plan for large agencies.

3. Divi vs Elementor: Performance & Speed

Website speed is incredibly important for keeping visitors happy and helping your site rank well in search engines.

To compare the performance of Divi vs Elementor, we conducted extensive tests. Here are the main conclusions from these tests on frontend performance (i.e., what end users experience):

• Both Divi and Elementor perform well on pages of simple and moderate complexity.
• The current version of Divi shows poor performance on complex pages.
• Elementor performs much better than Divi on complex pages, though not as well as modern page builders like Breakdance or Oxygen.

What do we mean when we say Divi shows "poor performance on complex pages"? Here's the Page Speed report:

The First Contentful Paint (FCP) is taking 50% longer than it should, and the Largest Contentful Paint is 30% longer. That's not acceptable.

Here are our conclusions on backend performance (i.e., what designers experience):

• Divi handles only simple pages well, with its problems growing worse as you move from moderate to complex pages.
• Elementor only struggles with complex pages, and much less so than Divi.

In summary, Elementor wins the performance battle when compared to Divi, though they both leave a lot to be desired when handling complex pages.

4. Divi vs Elementor: User Interface

The interface is where you'll spend most of your time when building pages, so how easy and comfortable it is affects your workflow.

Both Divi and Elementor offer visual drag-and-drop editing, but they take different approaches to how you interact with widgets and settings. To quickly show you what we mean, let's look at how you might perform a common task in each builder.

For example, here is how you add a heading module in Divi:

You click on the “+” icon that appears on the canvas and then select the module from the list. The settings appear in a movable popup window that floats over your design. Divi's interface gives you a complete view of your design and offers flexibility in arranging your workspace with these floating panels.

By comparison, here is how Elementor handles a similar task:

In Elementor, you drag the widget from the sidebar on the left and then adjust its settings within that same sidebar area. The canvas on the right provides a live preview of your design. Elementor's interface keeps your widgets and settings predictably in one place, offering a very structured workflow.

Which interface is better? That depends on how you like to work. Divi's floating UI provides a dynamic, full-canvas view, while Elementor's fixed sidebar offers a consistent, anchored experience. However, neither matches the advanced features found in Breakdance.

To get a much more in-depth look at all the specific interface features, editing options, and structural views each builder offers, please see our detailed Divi vs Elementor interface comparison article.

5. Divi vs Elementor: Styling Options

Styling is key to making your website unique, and both Divi and Elementor offer deep control over visual properties like colors, typography, spacing, and effects. While each offers comprehensive options, they approach global design settings with different workflows.

Divi, for example, offers Divi Presets. They allow you to save a custom look you've created for a module and quickly apply it to other modules of the same type throughout your site. This speeds up your workflow and ensures visual consistency for recurring elements. 

When you want to make any change, you can do it in one place, and all instances where the preset is applied are automatically updated.

Elementor, on the other hand, excels with its powerful Global Styling features. Features like Theme Style, Global Colors, and Global Fonts allow you to define and consistently manage design elements across your entire site from a central location. This makes it easy to maintain brand consistency and make site-wide design updates quickly.

Beyond these core styling differences, both builders organize their styling options within editing panels using clear tabs. Divi organizes its settings into tabs like Content, Design, and Advanced within its movable popup windows.

In Elementor, you'll typically find options across Content, Style, and Advanced tabs in the fixed sidebar. 

These tabs are where you'll access the bulk of the controls to fine-tune the look of your elements. Both builders also let you easily adjust styles for different screen sizes to ensure you have a responsive design.

To get a much more in-depth look at all the specific styling options, including how these tabs and editing panels are structured and used in each builder, please see our detailed Divi vs Elementor interface comparison article.

6. Divi vs Elementor: Theme Building

With today's page builders, you're no longer limited by your theme's design for areas like headers, footers, and blog post layouts. Theme builder features allow you to visually design every part of your WordPress site using the familiar drag-and-drop interface.

Both Divi and Elementor come with theme building features, but they have some differences in their approach.

Divi introduced its Theme Builder with version 4.0 in October 2019. It uses a backend view initially to select the template type and set the display conditions. You can then create custom templates for various parts of your site, including:

• Headers
• Footers
• Pages
• Posts
• Archive Pages (like blog or custom post types)
• WooCommerce Pages
• Products
• Projects
• Search Results
• 404 Page

The actual design and editing of these pages happens inside the same Divi Builder interface, but with access to special Theme Builder modules such as Post Title, Person, Site Logo, Comments, and more.

Elementor, on the other hand, was the first to bring full theme building to the visual editor space, offering this feature in its Pro version since April 2018. It uses a slightly different workflow but includes support for template types that closely match those offered in Divi. 

Just like Divi, you design the template using the familiar visual Elementor editor.

After your template is ready, you can set Display Conditions to decide exactly where the template should show up across your site.

A key difference shows up when you want granular control over dynamic content lists, like blog posts on an archive page. 

Divi has a Blog module that allows you to display posts, but your design options are mostly limited to what's built in.

In Elementor, you get a dedicated Loop Builder. This allows you to design the layout for just one card in your list using any Elementor widgets, and then Elementor repeats that design for all items in the query. This gives you a lot of visual freedom to create unique archive layouts or custom grids exactly how you want them.

7. Divi vs Elementor: AI Capabilities

AI is quickly changing how we build websites, helping us speed up tasks and boost creativity. Both Divi and Elementor are embracing this shift and integrating AI features directly into their page builders.

They let you use AI assistants for various tasks within the builder, including layout design, text generation, image creation and editing, code generation, and more.

For example, in Divi, AI is integrated when you add a new section:

You can click the "Generate Section With AI" button and describe what you need using a text prompt. Divi AI will put together a new section, complete with rows, modules, and even some initial content.

Divi AI also lets you generate an entire page layout from just a text description.

Now, let's look at how Elementor handles generating layouts:

Elementor also adds a dedicated AI button right where you add a new section. You just describe the type of layout you're looking for using text, and the AI will build out the container framework for you. It offers a few different layout options to choose from, giving you a quick starting point for your design.

Beyond these features, both builders use AI to generate layouts in other powerful ways. Divi includes a unique Quick Sites feature that allows you to generate an entire website based on a single text prompt. Elementor offers AI Copilot to suggest layout structures and a separate AI Site Planner for generating website wireframes.

What we've shared here is just a glimpse of how Divi and Elementor use AI for layout designs. For a complete comparison of all their AI features, be sure to check out our detailed Divi vs Elementor AI Features article.

8. Divi vs Elementor: Pre-designed Templates

While both builders offer integrated AI to help you with layout designs, some users might still prefer pre-designed layouts for their attention to detail.

Divi Builder and Elementor both offer rich libraries of templates that you can easily import and customize to speed up your workflow. The big difference lies in how they organize and present these ready-made designs.

Divi organizes its massive collection of pre-designed templates into Layout Packs, containing individual full-page templates. A layout pack is a collection of multiple themed templates specifically put together for a particular type of website.

Divi offers hundreds of these Layout Packs, containing 2500+ individual page layouts in total. This makes it super easy to import a full set of pages for an entire website in one go. You can also save your own custom designs to build your personal template library.

Elementor takes a different approach and provides a library with different types of pre-made designs. You'll find full Page templates, which give you a complete layout for an entire page, and Block templates, which are designs for individual sections that you can mix and match.

Elementor also groups some templates into Template Kits. These work like Layout Packs and help you build a whole, cohesive website around a single theme. 

The free version gives you access to a good number of templates, while Elementor Pro unlocks a much larger collection, including 300+ full-page templates and 100+ Template Kits. Of course, like Divi, you can also easily save any of your own designs to reuse later.

9. Divi vs Elementor: Modules & Widgets

The core of any page builder lies in the elements it includes. Think of these as the building blocks that let you add all sorts of different design features and content to your pages.

A great collection of these elements means you can create almost any kind of section or layout without needing custom code or hunting for extra plugins. Divi calls these elements Modules, while Elementor calls them Widgets.

At its core, Divi uses Sections and Rows to structure a page, and within these, you add your Modules. 

It comes loaded with over 68 built-in modules right out of the box with any premium license. These include around 40 content modules for standard stuff like text and images, along with 25 modules specifically for WooCommerce and 3 structural modules.

Divi also has a third-party add-ons marketplace that gives you access to additional modules if you ever need something specific.

Elementor takes a different approach and uses Flexbox Containers and Grids to organize the page structure, and within these, you place Widgets.

The free version of Elementor gives you over 30 basic widgets covering all the essentials like headings, text, images, buttons, and icons. If you use Elementor Pro, you unlock a much larger library of 70+ additional widgets for things like forms, portfolios, price tables, and more. 

Like Divi, it also offers dedicated widgets for theme building and WooCommerce in its higher-tier plans, plus there's a huge marketplace of third-party add-ons if you ever need something specific.

If you want to go beyond these capabilities, you'll need something like Breakdance's Element Studio, which supports the visual creation and modification of custom elements within the builder itself. Learn more about it here:

10. Divi vs Elementor: Unique Features Comparison

While Divi and Elementor share a lot of core features, they also each come with their own set of unique features or things they do particularly well. Sometimes, these specific differences can really help you decide which builder is the best fit for what you need.

For a complete breakdown of all the unique features both builders offer, including what each feature does and why it might be helpful for your projects, please see our detailed article.

Here, we'll share one standout feature from each that showcases their distinct strengths.

Divi packs some unique features into its visual builder, often focusing on making your workflow more efficient or adding helpful marketing tools. One of its most distinctive features is the integrated Split Testing.

This feature makes it easy to test different versions of things like headlines or buttons against each other to see which one gets better results, based on goals you set.

Beyond Split Testing, it also offers features like:

• Wireframe View
• User Role Editor
• Contact Form Conditional Logic
• Multi-Select and Bulk Editing
• Find & Replace Styles
• Extend Styles
• Searchable Settings

Elementor also includes some really powerful features, especially if you're using the Pro version. A great example is its built-in Popup Builder.

This feature lets you design all sorts of popups, like modals or slide-ins, right there using the familiar Elementor interface and all your widgets. You can even set up advanced rules for when and where they show up, which is a really valuable tool without needing a separate plugin.

It also includes other unique features such as:

• Loop Builder & Query Builder
• Notes for collaboration
• Maintenance Mode / Coming Soon page
• Link in Bio Widget collection
• Copy & Paste between sites

As you can see, both builders bring their own unique set of features to the table. To explore all of these in more detail, we recommend taking a look at our detailed article.

11. Divi vs Elementor: Extensibility and Compatibility

Building a fully functional website usually means using other plugins for things like SEO, security, or special features. Your choice of page builder is the main tool for design, so it's really important that it plays nicely with all those other plugins you need.

Divi is offered both as a theme with a built-in builder and as a standalone Divi Builder plugin. While the Divi Theme is designed to be a complete, all-in-one package, you can use the Divi Builder plugin with other WordPress themes if you prefer.

Elegant Themes also has its own marketplace where you can find third-party extensions made specifically for Divi. These include new modules, child themes, and layout packs. In terms of compatibility, Divi works well with most standard WordPress plugins you'd need, like those for SEO, caching, or security.

Since Elementor is primarily a plugin, it generally works well with most WordPress themes. You can use it with popular ones like Astra or GeneratePress, or even its own lightweight "Hello" theme.

One of Elementor’s major strengths is its vast and active add-on ecosystem. These add-ons bring in tons of new widgets, template libraries, and advanced features, expanding Elementor's capabilities way beyond its standard offerings. Plus, Elementor works well with most standard WordPress plugins you'd need, like those for SEO, caching, or security.

12. Divi vs Elementor: Support

Like with any plugin you use on your website, there might be times when you have questions or need a little help. Having reliable support available can save you a ton of time and cut down on frustration. Both Divi and Elementor understand this and offer support channels for their users, though they approach it slightly differently.

Divi, being a premium-only product, provides support to everyone with an active Elegant Themes license. You get 24/7 live chat support, so you can get real-time help whenever you run into an issue. On top of the live chat, Divi also offers documentation and a knowledge base to help you find solutions.

Elementor, on the other hand, offers different levels of support depending on whether you're using the free version or Elementor Pro. If you're using the free plugin, you can find answers in their online documentation and get help from the active Elementor community.

If you're an Elementor Pro customer with an active license, you get access to premium support. This typically includes 24/7 support via a ticket system. You can submit your queries and get help directly from the Elementor support team. While the ticketing system is there, it's worth noting that some users have reported finding the support less helpful than they hoped.

Div vs Elementor: Final Thoughts

We've explored Divi and Elementor across many key areas, from how they look and feel to their features, performance, and pricing. Both are incredibly powerful and popular page builders, but neither builder is definitively better than the other in every single way.

Choosing between them really comes down to what matters most for your specific needs and how you prefer to work.

If you build or manage multiple websites, Divi's unlimited website usage with its Yearly or Lifetime license can offer significant value. Its pre-designed Layout Packs make it incredibly fast to create on-brand websites, and its full-screen visual editor and unique workflow features might just click with how you like to build.

On the other hand, if you're just starting out or working on a single site with a budget in mind, Elementor's free version is a fantastic way to get started. Its predictable, fixed sidebar interface is easy to learn for beginners, and its wide range of widgets makes it a good fit for most websites.

If you want to go beyond these capabilities, you'll have to turn to a page builder like Breakdance.

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