Editor’s Rating
- Ease of Use 4
- Functionality 5
- Value for Money 5
- Documentation & Support 4.5
Summary
Divi combines great looks with a wealth of impressive features to deliver a truly useful multipurpose WordPress theme. A great range of page templates and an easy to use page builder will suit both those looking for an out-of-the-box solution, as well as anyone who wants to create custom designs without coding.
Pros
- Truly multipurpose theme suitable for any project.
- High-quality editable templates.
- Powerful page builder tool.
- Lots of helpful documentation.
- Good value purchase options.
Cons
- Takes time to fully master the page builder.
- This much creative freedom has the potential to be overwhelming.
- Not the fastest WordPress theme in world.
Divi is the flagship theme from Elegant Themes and it’s also one of the most popular WordPress themes available today. As it’s a multipurpose theme, it was created to be suitable for any type of website you might want to build with WordPress.
Over the years, Divi has been regularly updated and improved. The theme now includes a powerful drag-and-drop page builder tool, hundreds of website templates, and countless customization options and settings as well as a few other useful features. It’s competitively priced, too.
Divi definitely looks good on paper, but is it the right theme for your WordPress website? That’s the question we’ll help you answer in this Divi review.
By exploring the features and user experience of this theme, you’ll be able to make an informed decision on whether Divi is the best choice for your project.
Let’s get started.
About the Divi WordPress Theme
As mentioned, Divi has been produced by the Elegant Themes team and is their flagship product. Divi was first launched in 2013 but has been constantly updated, refined, and improved to remain a competitive option in the multipurpose WordPress themes category.
There is actually a Divi plugin available too, which is officially called Divi Builder and is also available from the Elegant Themes team. This plugin enables you to add the page builder of the Divi theme to any WordPress website, regardless of which theme you’re using. For this Divi review, though, we’re evaluating the WordPress theme rather than the plugin.
However, if you like what you see in this review, but are already using a theme that you’re happy with, you can gain access to most of the impressive features of Divi we’re about to explore, such as the content templates, page builder, and split testing tool, simply by installing the Divi Builder plugin.
We’ll cover the pricing options of Divi at the end of this review. However, it’s worth mentioning that the Divi theme and the Divi plugin — not to mention some other useful products — come as a package, so you don’t have to choose between one or the other. Instead, for a relatively low price, you get access to all of the Elegant Themes products for use on an unlimited number of websites.
Hopefully, that clears up some of the common questions about the different versions of Divi, so now let’s find out how good (or bad) this theme really is!
Divi Overview
While this Divi review explores the main features of this theme in enough detail to help you decide if is right for you, here’s a brief overview of some of the highlights to give you a quick indication of whether or not this is the type of theme you’re looking for:
- Large library of high-quality templates: Divi comes with hundreds of editable templates for all types of websites.
- Powerful content editor: the Divi Builder tool is one of the most feature-rich drag-and-drop content editors for WordPress.
- Split testing content optimization tool: the Divi Leads feature gives you the ability to optimize your content for the highest conversion rates possible by running A/B tests.
- Comes with additional themes and plugins: all purchases of Divi come with the Extra theme plus a few useful WordPress plugins.
As you can see, if you choose Divi, you get access to a huge and growing selection of pre-built page templates, a powerful visual content editor, and some other useful features to help you ensure that your content not only looks great but helps you achieve your business goals.
Now, let’s explore those features and more, to show you exactly what you get for your money if you purchase Divi.
The Best Features of Divi
This is definitely a feature-packed WordPress theme, so to keep things a concise as possible, here’s a detailed look at the most important features of Divi.
High-Quality Content Templates
The two main highlights of Divi are arguably its template library and the page builder tool. If you want to create a custom WordPress website design from scratch then the Divi Builder tool will be of most interest to you. However, for everyone else, the pre-designed content templates will play a large part in whether or not you choose this theme for your website.
If you do want some help with creating your new website, then you’ll be pleased to know that Divi probably has the largest selection of high-quality page templates out of any WordPress theme available today.
These templates cover a wide range of projects, from business websites to yoga studios and ecommerce stores to learning management systems.
There really is a set of templates for almost every type of project, so whatever website you want to create, it’s worth taking a look at the Divi layouts to see what’s available.
While some themes provide you with a library of individual templates, Divi comes with layout packs that have been designed for a specific type of website. These packs generally include homepage, about, contact, and landing page templates, giving you a quick way to start your new website with all the content you might need.
You don’t have to stick to one layout pack, though. With Divi, you’re free to pick and choose any template you want to use on your website, from any of the available layout packs.
The layouts are all editable, too, making them ideal for use as the starting point for your own custom designs. Alternatively, you can use them as they are and just change the text and images where necessary via the content editor.
Drag-and-Drop Content Editor (Divi Builder)
When it comes to making changes to the templates or creating new content designs from scratch, this work takes place in the Divi Builder. This tool has been updated many times over the years and is now one of the most powerful and impressive page builders available for WordPress.
Some of the key features of the Divi Builder include:
- WYSIWYG visual editor for creating custom page designs.
- Ability to create custom theme templates.
- A useful selection of content modules.
- Ability to create reusable sections for use throughout your site.
- Wireframe mode for providing a clear overview of page structure.
- History panel for undoing and redoing actions.
- Range of viewports for previewing content on smartphones, tablets, and desktops.
- Plus lots more…
The Divi Builder uses rows and columns to help you build your page layouts. You can then insert a wide range of useful modules into your layouts, including call-to-action buttons, sliders, and video players, to name just a few. All of these modules can be customized to ensure they work with your website design and have the right appearance for your project.
Reusable Custom Content
Anything you create in the Divi Builder can be saved for use throughout your site via the global modules feature. This includes any modules that you edit or customize. When creating reusable assets, you can control how they’re updated, including creating dynamic assets that allow you to update all instances at the touch of a button.
Portability
Divi is highly portable too, making it easy to transfer your layouts and other assets between WordPress websites. If you plan to create multiple websites with Divi, it has some great time-saving features that can help make your workflow more efficient.
Ease of Use
All this new functionality, power, and creative freedom do come with a price though, and that’s the relatively steep learning curve of mastering the new user interface. Although it’s not badly implemented in any way, the Divi Builder user experience is very different from the default WordPress one. Due to this, you will need to learn a new way of working if you want to get the most from the page builder.
This is to be expected though, as you now have so many new features at your fingertips. However, it’s worth mentioning this, as you might not be able to do everything you want to in the Divi Builder without first spending some time familiarizing yourself with the new interface.
Full Creative Control
All aspects of your content can be customized through the Divi Builder interface, giving you full control over the design of your posts and pages. However, after a recent update, the newly added Theme Builder tool gives you full control over the other parts of your website, too.
Divi Theme Builder
Most WordPress themes that include page builders give you the ability to create custom post and pages designs. However, they don’t often allow you to customize the other parts of your site, such as the header, footer, and theme templates.
In the past, that was true of Divi, but thanks to a recent update, you’re no longer constrained to just the content areas. Now you can customize all aspects of your WordPress website via the Theme Builder feature.
Create Custom Headers and Footers
The Theme Builder is a really impressive feature of Divi. Not only does it let you design unique headers and footers for your website but you can also create custom templates for your blog posts, portfolio items, ecommerce products, 404 error pages, and much more.
Build Unique Blog Post and Archive Templates
Thanks to the template support, the page on your website that displays your latest blog posts can be customized with the Divi Theme Builder.
As well as creating a custom layout, you can choose what content from each blog post is displayed, such as the title, featured image, author, date, and more. Not only that but you can create multiple templates for displaying your blog posts and then control when each one is used.
Through the template settings, you can define exactly when each of your designs is used. For example, you could create a template that’s only used for blog posts from a certain category or a layout just for specific pages.
Divi Leads Optimization Tool
To ensure that your custom content designs not only look good but are optimized to help you achieve your business goals, Divi comes with a split-testing tool. Even though this feature is rare among WordPress themes, it’s very useful and surprisingly easy to use.
If you want to find out which version of your page gets the best response from your audience, it only takes a few clicks to set up a split test with Divi Leads.
The functionality is integrated into the Divi Builder. All you have to do is choose which page element you’d like to test — for instance, a button — then enable Divi Leads for that element. You can then create the second version of that element. The split testing tool will show one version to a portion of your audience and the other version to another segment of your visitors.
Each split testing experiment has a goal, such as clicking on a link or visiting a specific page. Once the test starts gathering data, you’ll find out which version of your page element has the highest conversion rate.
With Divi Leads, you’re not limited to just comparing two versions of a page element. This enables you to test multiple variations to optimize your content. You can also run multiple A/B tests at the same time, making it possible to optimize your entire website for the highest goal conversion rates possible.
While you can add this type of functionality to your WordPress website via a dedicated service, it’s rare to see it integrated into a theme like this.
If your website was built with any particular goal in mind, whether that’s email opt-ins, product sales, contact form submissions, or even just more page views, the Divi Leads feature is an invaluable tool that’s very effective and easy to use.
Support and Documentation
In the past, customer support was one area where Elegant Themes received some criticism. Support was provided via private discussion forums where customers could post questions and wait for a response from the Elegant Themes support team. Customers sometimes reported that response times weren’t very fast and that issues weren’t always resolved.
However, in what seems like an effort to overcome this issue, Elegant Themes no longer provide support via the discussion forums and now use a messenger service.
Messenger Support Channel
Customers logged into the Elegant Themes website can open a support ticket via the messenger and wait for a response. This certainly makes support more convenient, as there’s no longer a need to check the forum to see if anyone has replied.
Furthermore, when I was testing their customer service for this Divi review, the response times were quick and the information was helpful.
Detailed Documentation
One strong point of Elegant Themes, and Divi specifically, is the online documentation available on their website. Every feature and aspect of Divi is clearly explained via the online documentation, while the Elegant Themes blog is packed with tips and advice on using their products.
Community Forums and Meetups
Although support from the Elegant Themes team is now delivered via the messenger system, the discussion forums are still online, giving users a place to share ideas and communicate with each other.
There are also many active Facebook groups dedicated to Elegant Themes, and Divi specifically, where users can share tips and best practices in order to learn from each other and get the most out of these products.
If you want to get even more involved in the Elegant Themes and Divi community, there are also in-person meetup groups that take place regularly around the world.
Other Elegant Themes Products Included
When you purchase Divi, you don’t just get access to this theme, but all the other products of Elegant Themes. At the time of writing this review, the Elegant Themes membership also includes:
- Extra WordPress theme for online magazines and blogs.
- Bloom email opt-in form plugin to help you grow your subscriber list.
- Monarch social sharing plugin to help you get more shares and followers.
- Divi Builder plugin for adding Divi’s page builder tool to WordPress websites that are using another theme.
Divi Pricing Options
Divi is an affordable WordPress theme, especially if you consider all the extra products you get access to. It isn’t much more expensive than some of the other best-selling options out there, including those that don’t come with any additional products.
So how much does Divi cost?
Well, there are two options for purchasing Divi. One gives you lifetime access to all Elegant Themes products, including future releases, support, and updates, while the other covers you for one year:
- Yearly Access – $89
- Lifetime Access – $249
Although you could purchase the yearly access option and continue to use Divi and the other products unsupported after the year is up, you’d be leaving yourself open to any potential security issues that might arise but are then fixed in future updates.
Furthermore, you’d also be missing out on any new features and improvements that are made to Divi — something that happens on a regular basis.
So if you think you’ll be using Divi for more than 3 years, it makes financial sense to invest in the $249 lifetime access from the outset.
If that sounds like a large financial outlay for a product you haven’t used yet, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee in place that allows you to try Divi and the other products from Elegant Themes without risk.
Divi Theme Review Conclusion
Divi is a powerful theme that can be used to create any type of website with WordPress.
If you’re looking for a theme with a set of templates that’s ready to go, there’s a good chance you’ll find what you need in the Divi Layout Library.
On the other hand, if you want to create a custom WordPress website from scratch, Divi and its page builder have all the features you’ll need to make this possible — all without the need to edit any code.
If you sit somewhere in the middle and would like access to a large library of editable templates that you can customize to make your own, Divi meets those requirements too.
As mentioned earlier, though, while Divi is relatively easy to use, you will have to spend some time getting to grips with the user interface of the builder if you really want to get the most out of this theme. However, if you are in a hurry to get your new site online, the pre-built templates all look great and can be deployed very quickly.
If you’re still not sure if this is the right theme to help you build the website you’ve got planned, check out the customer showcase to see what’s possible with Divi.