Divi, the ancient behemoth of page builders

If you’ve been in the WordPress space for a few years, there’s a good chance you’ve come across Divi.

It’s one of the most widely used page builders, boasting around 2.5 million sites built with the plugin/theme.

Side note: we said plugin/theme above as technically you can use Divi as either. You can either install the Divi builder plugin only or opt for the theme where the page builder is bundled in.

Below we share with you our opinions and thoughts on this ancient behemoth of a software.

Preface

Before we look at the pros and cons, I’d like to preface this by saying I’ve actually only ever opted to build one website with Divi – it did put me off. My other experiences with Divi come from inheriting client’s sites under our Managed WordPress or Site Maintenance plans, so it’s possible they weren’t set up in an optimised manner.

Divi settings page

What’s good?

Legacy

It’s been around a really long time and people have gotten used to the foibles inherent with the software.

And with age comes a…

Huge community

There’s a huge community of designers and developers that can help answer questions or provide code snippets.

Lifetime licence

We purchased a copy of Divi over 4 years ago, and while we’ve only used it once since, there’s never been an additional cost involved.

What’s not so good?

Performance is still a slog

Even simple pages load like you’re dragging a piano uphill. The builder injects heaps of markup (div after div), bloating your pages and tanking performance scores.

It’s worth noting though that over the years, it has gotten better with reducing unnecessary CSS and introducing its caching module, but in our opinion it’s still bloated, especially when compared with more modern page builders.

If you chose Divi, you’ll want to have good hosting and something like WP Rocket installed.

UI is untidy

The interface feels like it was designed a decade ago.

Awkward overlays, modals galore, and inconsistent controls make building anything more frustrating than it should be.

Steep learning curve

For something billed as “easy,” there’s a hell of a lot of clicking around and Googling just to get layouts working the way you want. There’s no intuitive flow, you’re always hunting for where stuff is hidden under certain accordions.

Out of sync with modern WP dev

It doesn’t play nicely with modern workflows like FSE, headless, or even properly modular theming. If you’re building sites in 2025, Divi feels like stepping back in time.

In summary

Divi is like the WordPress equivalent of an old Windows XP PC. It technically still works, and a lot of people still use it, but you’re not going to have a great time. If you’re after modern, lean, flexible builds, this isn’t the tool for you.

Check out Bricks Builder or Blocksy instead.