Divi Builder. The Perfect WordPress Page Builder Plugin for Agencies

Divi Builder probably is the best WordPress page builder plugin for agencies. We said so because its license allows you to use it for as many websites as you want. In other words, you can create websites for all of your clients with only a single license. Each website can have a unique API key for update needs. If you want to use it for personal use, you might love the fact that the licensing applied by Elegant Themes (the developer of Divi Builder) also allows you to download two useful WordPress marketing plugins: Bloom and Monarch.

Are there other reasons to use Divi Builder? Read on to learn more.

Divi Builder: The Intro

Divi Builder is a WordPress plugin developed by Elegant Themes. The plugin was initially only available for Divi and Extra, two premium WordPress themes developed by Elegant Themes. In 2015, Elegant Themes announced that its page builder was available as a standalone plugin. Meaning that you can use it on any WordPress theme, not limited to Divi and Extra anymore.

One crucial thing you need to know. Divi and Divi Builder are two different products. Divi (just “Divi”) is a WordPress theme while Divi Builder is a page builder plugin. If you prefer to use Divi Builder on the Divi theme (and Extra theme), you don’t need to install the standalone plugin as it is available as an integral part of those two themes. If you install Divi theme or Extra theme on your WordPress site, Divi Builder also automatically installed.

Is there are differences between Divi Builder as a standalone plugin and Divi Builder as a built-in feature of Divi theme and Extra theme? Nope. At all.

Divi Builder is released as a premium plugin. Elegant Themes offers two options to get it: with a yearly subscription ($89 per year) and a one-time purchase option ($249). As we said in the opening section, the license applied by Elegant Themes allows you to use its products (including Divi Builder) on unlimited websites, make it a great option for agencies.

Divi Builder: The Features

Visual editor is the main feature offered by page builder plugins. Divi Builder is no exception. With it, you can create a beautiful page without needing to deal with CSS or HTML. Everything is drag and drop. It also comes with a theme builder feature which you can use to create custom templates for the header, footer, and other parts of your theme. Here are the features you will get.

— Visual Editor

You will have a visual editor to edit your post or page in a visual way. You just need to add the elements you need and then make the customization accordingly. In Divi Builder, elements fall into 3 types:

• Section: Represented in a blue
• Column: Represented in a green
• Module: Represented in a grey

Clicking the gear icon on each element will open a panel where you can make the customization and styling. To add a new element, you can click the plus button.

If you work on a long page, there is also a handy feature you can make use of — Layers View — to make it easier for you to jump between elements on your page. You can use the feature to jump to a certain section, column, or even module in a single click instead of making a long, deep scroll.

— Theme Builder

Divi Builder was initially a mere page builder plugin. It had no feature to create a custom header template or a custom footer template like it is today until version 4.0 was introduced in 2019. Since version 4.0, it allows you to create custom templates to replace the default templates of your theme thanks to its Theme Builder feature. This is great as you can create a fully customized website without coding. You can create custom templates using its visual editor. The theme parts you can create the custom fields of are:

• Header
• Footer
• Single post template
• Archive pages (category page and tags page)
• Author page
• 404 page
• Search results page

If you use WooCommerce, you can also create custom templates for the single product page, product category page, and other WooCommerce pages.

The Theme Builder feature supports display conditions, allowing you to assign a certain custom template to a specific page(s) or post(s). You can, for instance, create a custom single post template and assign it to posts under a specific category, a specific tag, a specific author, and so on.

— Dynamic Content

The ability to add dynamic content is a crucial enough feature you need to notice when selecting a WordPress page builder. Today, most page builder plugins come with this feature, including Divi Builder. You can add dynamic content — whether the default WordPress dynamic content types such as featured image, post title, post meta, and so on — or custom fields you created with Advanced Custom Fields.

The ability to add dynamic content is especially should be your priority if you plan to use the Theme Builder feature as it will allow you to add the required elements such as post title, post meta, site logo, site title, and so on.

One thing to note if you plan to add custom dynamic content from custom fields. At the time of writing, Divi Builder only supports Advanced Custom Fields. You read this article to learn more.

— Premade Layouts

You have two options to create a page using Divi Builder. First, you can create the page from scratch. You can choose this option if you have your own design concept. Second, you can create the page from a premade layout. A premade layout contains predefined elements (sections, columns, and modules). If you want to create a page from a layout, you can simply import one and then tailor the default content (images, texts, and so on) with your own ones. This is a saver time way to create a page with Divi Builder. Also, it is a great option if you have no idea about the concept of the design you want to create.

Divi Builder provides the layouts in packs. A layout pack is a set of premade layouts designed specifically for a certain website type. A layout pack can consist of 4 to 8 premade layouts. There are over 180 layout packs offered in total (over 1,300 layouts).

— Modules

Modules are the actual design elements you will use to create a page and other design types (templates and posts) in general. Compared to other page builders, say Elementor, the modules offered by Divi Builder tend to fewer (read: Elementor vs Divi). It offers only 39 modules as follows:

If you need more modules, you can visit Divi Marketplace to discover Divi plugins developed by third-party developers. Some plugins, like Divi Supreme and Divi Essential, offers a set of modules to allow you to add more creative elements to a page.

In addition to the modules above, Divi Builder also offers dedicated modules for WooCommerce. The WooCommerce modules will only show up if you have WooCommerce installed and activated on your WordPress site. Here are the Divi Builder modules for WooCommerce:

— Third-Party Integration

If you use tools like HubSpot, Mailchimp, MailerLite, or similar tools, you can also integrate your account with your website. Divi Builder supports integration with those third-party tools. You can integrate your account using the Email Optin module. Here is the list of the third-party tools and services you can integrate Divi Builder with:

— Global Elements

The ability to add a global element is another handy feature offered by Divi Builder to streamline your workflow. It is another time-saver feature offered by the page builder.

What is a global element?

Say you want to create a website that consists of 8 pages. On each page, you want to add a button that has exactly the same style (color, behavior, typography, size, and so on). Instead of making the styling on each button — which is very time consuming –, you can create a global button. By creating a global button, you only need to make the styling once. If you make a change to the global button, the change will be applied to all pages it is added to.

Divi Builder allows you to create a global item for all elements (section, column, and module).

— Display Conditions

The Display Conditions of Divi Builder allows you to control the visibility of your content. You can show or hide certain elements on your page by certain parameters such as user login status, user role, web browsers, operating system, date and time, cookie, and so on. You can apply a Display Condition to all Divi Builder elements. Be it section, column, or module. The Display Conditions of Divi Builder supports the following parameters:

• Login Status
• User Role
• Web Browser
• Operating System
• Cookie
• Date and Time
• Page Visit
• Post Visit Product Purchase
• Cart Contents
• Number of Views
• Post Information
• Website Location

You can read this post to learn more about the feature.

— Background Pattern and Mask

Background pattern and background mask started available in Divi 4.15.0. The features allow you to add extra decorations to a background. Be it a section background, column background or module background. Divi offers 20+ background patterns you can choose from. They are available in a vector format so that you can scale them without compromising the quality of the pattern image.

Background mask, just like the name suggests, allows you to add a layer mask to your background. There are 20+ mask shapes to choose from and you can set things like aspect ratio, color, and blend mode when adding a mask to your background.

Both background pattern and background mask can be accessed from Content tab on the settings panel. You can open the Background settings block to access them.

— Advanced Gradient Builder

Elegant Themes introduced a new feature in 4.16. The feature allows you to create a gradient that consists of more than two colors. In version 4.15 and the older versions, you could add only maximum of two colors on a gradient.

Since version 4.16, when creating a multi-color gradient, you can set any stop for the second color, third color, fourth color, and so on. Also, you have your gradient to choose from:

• Linear
• Circular
• Elliptical
• Conial

The Bottom Line: Divi Builder Review

Overall, Divi Builder is a great page builder plugin. It allows you to create beautiful pages on your WordPress site without dealing with CSS. The ability to create custom templates for header, footer, and so on is another selling point. The biggest downside of Divi Builder probably is its limited modules collection. As a comparison, Elementor offers over 90 modules (called widgets) while Brizy offers 42 modules (called elements). But as long as the offered modules can cover your needs, it is not a serious problem.

The licensing applied by Elegant Themes is the most compelling selling point, especially if you work for a web agency. With a single license, you can use Divi Builder (and other Elegant Themes products) to build as many sites as you want, which is great to cut off the production cost.

Pros:

• Great navigation feature on the visual editor
• Complete enough features
• Not limited to a certain theme
• Compelling licensing, especially for web agencies
• Open ecosystem

Cons:

• Lacks of modules
• The editor is a bit heavier. At least when compared to Elementor