Elementor vs Divi: which WordPress page builder is better in 2026?

Web Building also builds websites for clients. That never changes our picks, their order or what we say about a platform. How we make money

The quick verdict

Pick Elementor if you want to start free or run one to three sites. It is a page builder plugin with a free version on WordPress.org, and the full Pro feature set starts at $7 a month billed yearly ($84 a year) for one site. The price climbs as you add sites.

Pick Divi if you build many sites or would rather pay once. One membership covers unlimited sites for $89 billed yearly, or $249 one time for Lifetime. There is no free version. With either one, your page layouts stay tied to the builder. And if your pages are simple, the block editor built into WordPress may be all you need.

Side by side

Prices are in US dollars before tax, from the Elementor pricing page and the Elegant Themes join page. Elementor’s help center says its subscriptions are billed yearly and monthly billing is not available. Neither price includes hosting.

Elementor’s WordPress.org listing shows 10+ million active installs, the highest figure WordPress.org displays. Divi isn’t on WordPress.org, so there is no matching count; Elegant Themes reports 974,872 customers. The two figures measure different things.

Cost over 3 years

Both builders run on self-hosted WordPress, so you pay for hosting no matter which you pick. We use the same baseline as the rest of the site: Bluehost Starter at $3.99 a month on a 36-month term ($143.64 upfront, renewing at $9.99 a month), plus $36.96 for the domain’s second and third years (the first year comes free with the plan) and one Google Workspace inbox at $252. That base is $432.60 over 3 years before any builder.

One site

Elementor says subscriptions renew “at list price” but prints no separate renewal figure for its Pro tiers, so we count today’s price each year. Elegant Themes doesn’t state Divi’s yearly renewal price, so the $267 and $831 totals assume renewals at $89 and $277; only the $249 Lifetime price can’t change. It also doesn’t say whether the $297 Lifetime + Pro price covers the first year of Pro services, so we show both totals.

For one site, the gap is small: $252 for Elementor Advanced Solo against $249 to $267 for Divi. Elementor Essential is cheaper at $180, but it has no popups, no WooCommerce builder and no custom CSS, and its forms can’t receive submissions.

Ten sites

Bluehost Starter allows 10 websites with 10 GB of storage between them, so hosting stays at $143.64. Domains and email are per site and cost the same with either builder, so we leave them out here.

Per site, that’s $61.20 for Elementor Expert against $24.90 for Divi Lifetime over 3 years. Covering 10 sites with Elementor’s 3-site Advanced plan would take four licenses at $108 a year each, or $1,296 over 3 years, so Expert is the cheaper Elementor route.

Renewals and refunds

• Elementor subscriptions auto-renew by default. Initial annual purchases can be refunded within 30 days, but plan upgrades and Elementor AI subscriptions are non-refundable.
• Divi offers “no-questions-asked refunds” within 30 days, but cancelling doesn’t trigger the refund; you ask through support chat. Its help center says that refund policy also covers renewal charges, so cancel before the renewal date if you don’t want another year.
• Elementor Host, Elementor’s own hosting, doesn’t include a Pro license and deletes your site and data 30 days after the plan expires.

Design and ease of use

Both are drag-and-drop editors on top of WordPress: you build pages by placing elements, not writing code. Elementor says “Drag & drop, no code needed,” and Elegant Themes says Divi needs no code either.

Elementor is a plugin that works with any theme. The free version has 32 widgets, the building blocks such as headings, images, buttons and tabs. Pro adds 57 widgets on Essential and 85 from Advanced Solo up, plus the Theme Builder for headers, footers and post templates. Elementor 4.0, released March 31, 2026, brought an “atomic” editor with reusable classes and variables, and new installs get it by default.

Divi is a theme with the builder inside it, and it also comes as the Divi Builder plugin for other themes. Every plan includes the Theme Builder and 2,600+ premade layouts. Divi 5 left beta on February 26, 2026, and dropped the old shortcode system. It adds Flexbox and CSS Grid layouts, seven breakpoints, and design presets and variables. The upgrade from Divi 4 is free for members.

Speed. Both vendors publish their own speed numbers. Elementor’s WordPress.org FAQ says its PageSpeed Insights score rose from 82 (version 3.1) to 95 (version 3.5). Elegant Themes says a Divi 5 page scores 100 on desktop and mobile. These are the vendors’ own lab tests, with no test page or conditions described, and neither publishes real-visitor Core Web Vitals data. So we don’t call either one faster.

Support. Elementor supports paying customers; free users get the WordPress.org forum. Divi members get 24/7 chat and email support.

Store, blog and SEO

Blogging and SEO work the same with both, because they come from WordPress, not the builder; finer SEO controls usually come from an SEO plugin. See websites and SEO for what WordPress lets you control.

Stores run on WooCommerce, the free store plugin, whose core charges a 0% platform fee; card processing fees come from your payment provider. The builders differ in what they let you design:

• Store pages. Elementor’s WooCommerce builder starts on Advanced Solo ($84 a year), not Essential. Divi includes 16 WooCommerce product modules and 8 cart and checkout modules on every plan.
• Forms. Every Elementor Pro tier has the Form Builder, but Essential can’t receive submissions. Divi has Contact Form and Email Optin modules, plus styler modules for Gravity Forms and Contact Form 7. Elegant Themes doesn’t say whether its Contact Form module stores submissions.
• Popups. Elementor’s Popup Builder starts on Advanced Solo. Divi has no dedicated popup builder. Its help center says Divi 5 Canvases can hold off-canvas elements like menus and popups, and the join page lists the Bloom opt-in plugin as included.

AI features

Elementor has a free AI plan with credits that renew daily. The One plan ($180 the first year, then $228 a year) adds 25,000 credits a month for AI, image optimization, accessibility fixes and email delivery. Credits reset monthly and don’t roll over. Angie, Elementor’s AI plugin, builds Elementor pages from a text prompt and has a free tier.

Divi AI is an add-on at $16.08 a month billed yearly ($21.36 billed monthly), and it is included in Divi Pro. It covers unlimited AI text, code and images under fair use. Divi AI Agents, added September 4, 2026, are metered: $5 a month of agent use is included.

Leaving later

Changing hosts is easy with either one, because the site is ordinary WordPress. Leaving the builder is the hard part. Neither one converts its layouts to another builder or to WordPress blocks, so plan on rebuilding your page layouts.

If you turn Elementor off

Elementor saves each layout as hidden page data (JSON post metadata), not in the normal page content. Its help center says your work “will not be deleted when the plugin is deleted,” and reinstalling brings the designs back. If Elementor Pro is turned off, your site “will be unable to display the advanced designs you created with Elementor Pro” until you turn it back on. Elementor’s docs don’t describe what visitors see once the free plugin is off.

If you only stop paying, existing Pro designs stay “intact, as is, for now,” but you can’t update Pro or add Pro widgets. Elementor also warns that updating the free plugin without Pro “can lead to compatibility problems.”

If you turn Divi off

On Divi 4, Elegant Themes says a disabled Divi leaves raw shortcodes, bits of bracketed code, in your pages instead of the layout. Divi 5 saves content in a block-based format, and Elegant Themes says you’ll “start with a blank slate instead of with unwanted shortcodes” (see its Divi 5 shortcodes post). The design still stays behind. On Divi 4, upgrading to Divi 5 first avoids the shortcode mess.

If you cancel, Divi keeps working. Elegant Themes says “You may continue using the themes that you have already downloaded forever,” though it can’t guarantee how long older versions will work. You lose updates, support and layout downloads, and Divi Cloud items are held for 6 months.

Pick Elementor if…

• You want to start free and pay only when you need Pro features.
• You run one site and need popups, forms that collect submissions or WooCommerce templates. Advanced Solo covers all three for $84 a year.
• You want AI credits with image, accessibility and email tools in one plan (Elementor One).

Pick Divi if…

• You build many sites. One price covers unlimited sites, client sites included.
• You’d rather pay once. Lifetime is $249 with no renewal.
• You want WooCommerce modules and the Theme Builder on the cheapest plan.
• You want 24/7 chat support included with your membership.

Neither? Look at the block editor

WordPress has its own visual editor built in, the block editor. It costs nothing extra, there’s no license to renew, and because it’s part of WordPress there’s no separate builder to switch off later. For a site made of simple service pages and blog posts, it’s often enough. Pair it with a lightweight theme. For example, GeneratePress One (which includes GP Premium) is $99 a year for one site or $149 for up to 10.

We build on WordPress every week and keep page builders to a minimum, mostly because of the lock-in above. When non-developers need to edit complex custom layouts, a builder can earn its fee.

Rather not run WordPress at all? See the best drag and drop website builders and Wix vs WordPress. To choose a host for either builder, start with our web hosting comparison.