February 20, 2025
If you’re trying to decide between Elementor and Divi, you’ve come to the right place. They are two of the most popular page builders in WordPress, and both offer powerful visual editing capabilities.
However, a lot has changed recently. That’s why we’re including Breakdance in this comparison to see how a modern builder compares against the established leaders. This guide gives you a complete breakdown of all three.
In a hurry? Here’s a quick comparison:
| Feature | Elementor | Divi | Breakdance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best For | Beginner friendly | Large template library | Performance & WooCommerce |
| Performance | Good | Good | ⚡ Excellent |
| Learning Curve | 🟢 Easy | 🟡 Moderate | 🟢 Easy |
| Theme Building | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ (Replaces Theme) |
| WooCommerce | Very Good | Good | 🛒 Excellent |
| AI Features | 🤖 Yes (Credits) | 🤖 Yes (Unlimited) | 🟡 Limited |
| Pricing | From $60/year (1 site) | From $89/year (unlimited sites) | From $60/year (1 site) |
I’ve been building websites with WordPress for about 7 years and have used Elementor and Divi extensively. But to make this comparison as fair as possible, I wanted to see how they perform right now.
I created three identical WordPress installations and built the same page in Elementor, Divi, and Breakdance. All pages included a standard layout with a hero section, a multi-column design, and basic text and image content. This allowed me to get a real feel for how each one handles the design process, its ease of use, and its overall performance. My goal is to give you a clear and honest look at what you can expect from each one.
Table of Contents
If you’re ready, let’s jump right into the comparison! If you’d rather watch than read, you can check out our full video overview below:
Let’s get to know each builder a little better before we dive into the details.
Elementor is one of the most popular page builders aimed at beginners. It offers a freemium model with a free version to get started, plus a decent library of templates and widgets. One of its unique strengths is its massive ecosystem of third-party add-ons, which gives you complete flexibility to build any type of website.
Built by Elegant Themes, Divi is a premium-only page builder and theme combo. Known for its lifetime license and a huge library of over 2600 templates, it provides a visual editing experience through a full-screen interface. While its third-party marketplace is smaller, its pricing makes it a popular choice.
Breakdance is a modern, performance-focused page builder that replaces your WordPress theme entirely. It offers a clean workflow and has over 130+ built-in elements. While it has a smaller third-party ecosystem, its built-in elements give you complete design control without the bloat of additional add-ons.
Now that we have an idea of all three builders we’re comparing, let’s start with the detailed comparison for Elementor, Divi, and Breakdance.
A page builder’s ease of use comes down to its interface, so let’s explore how each one feels to work with day-to-day.
Elementor offers a drag-and-drop interface divided into two main sections for a controlled and more intuitive editing experience.
A fixed sidebar displays all design widgets on the left, containing settings and customization options. The right pane provides a live preview window for building and visually editing your website. You can drag and drop any widget from the sidebar into the live preview window.
Once placed, the sidebar updates to show three customization tabs: Content, Style, and Advanced.
You can also edit text content directly in the preview window, though inline editing for colors and alignment is limited.
When building more complex web pages, you will find Elementor’s Structure tool handy. It lets you see your page outline and quickly move widgets around.
You can easily access it by right-clicking any widget and selecting Structure, or using Ctrl/Cmd + I.
For responsive design, Elementor makes it simple to switch between desktop, tablet, and mobile views using the Responsive Mode icon at the top of the panel. You’ll also see small viewport icons next to many settings, which let you make changes that only apply to that specific device size.
Once your page is ready, you can use the Preview Mode (eye icon) to quickly see how your page looks without distractions.
Generally speaking, if you have used most other WordPress page builders, such as the Gutenberg editor, you will find Elementor’s user interface quite familiar and straightforward.
Unlike Elementor’s sidebar, Divi offers a full-screen live editor with a floating toolbar and pop-up system.
When you select an element, a pop-up window opens and floats over the page, displaying settings for that element.
Pages created with the Divi page builder consist of Sections, Rows, and Modules. Every section, row, or module has a small menu that you can click to display the pop-up window containing the relevant settings.
Like Elementor, each module has three customization tabs: Content, Design, and Advanced.
Divi offers more flexible customization capabilities for the design interface. It allows you to drag and position the pop-up windows anywhere on your screen or resize them for a more convenient experience as you build your web page.
Another cool feature Divi offers, which Elementor lacks, is the Wireframe Mode. This allows you to quickly create page structure using a block-based interface before visual styling.
You also get Layers View, which works similarly to Elementor’s Structure tool, showing a high-level view of sections for easy reorganization.
The Divi page builder also supports in-line text content editing, allowing you to conveniently add, edit, or delete text from the live preview editor.
It handles responsive design with a convenient toolbar at the bottom. You can click the desktop, tablet, and mobile icons to instantly switch between views and see how your design adapts. For more control, you can hover over any setting and click the responsive icon to adjust it for a specific breakpoint.
While Divi offers robust customization features, the interface has a steeper learning curve than Elementor.
Furthermore, Divi 5.0, a significant update to Divi’s core technologies, is planned to launch soon. It will feature a completely redesigned interface, so it is important to keep this in mind as you decide which page builder to use for your site.
Breakdance offers a clean, modern interface that will feel familiar to users who have used other visual builders. It uses a fixed sidebar on the left for all your design elements and settings, similar to Elementor, which helps create a structured and organized workflow.
The right pane provides a live preview window where you can drag and drop elements to build your page. Like Elementor, each element in Breakdance has three main customization tabs: Content, Style, and Advanced. This keeps things consistent and easy to navigate.
The builder also supports inline text editing, allowing you to click on text and type directly in the preview window.
One of the standout features of Breakdance is the searchable settings panel. Instead of hunting through tabs, you can simply type what you’re looking for and find it instantly, which saves a lot of time.
For more complex pages, Breakdance includes a Structure view that shows you a hierarchical outline of your page. This makes it easy to see how everything is organized and to move, duplicate, or delete entire sections.
Like the other two builders, Breakdance also provides responsive controls. At the top of the builder, you’ll find a breakpoints dropdown that lets you switch between desktop, tablet, and phone views. You can also drag the edge of the preview window to see your design at any custom width. It also lets you create custom breakpoints for specific devices.
You’ll also find familiar features like Preview Mode and a History panel to help you work efficiently.
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🏆 Winner |
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Clean structured interface with a fixed sidebar; intuitive for beginners. |
More immersive and flexible interface, but has a learning curve. |
Modern, clean interface with searchable panels; great balance of features & simplicity. |
Customization is where page builders truly shine, so let’s see how each handles design control and flexibility.
Elementor offers advanced customization options through three main tabs for each widget:
Elementor comes with Global Styles, which lets you set the font, colors, and button styles that apply to your entire site. You also get the Advanced Motion Effect, which lets you add animations, scroll effects, and hover effects to widgets.
Need to make some specific design changes? You can easily add Custom CSS to individual site elements.
Elementor also offers a theme builder feature that lets you design custom headers, footers, and post templates.
With its dynamic content integration for blogs and WooCommerce, you can quickly build templates and dynamically insert content from your WordPress site to display specific data based on a site user’s behavior.
Additionally, the theme builder supports conditional display rules, allowing you to apply templates to only some specific pages or categories on your site.
Divi provides customization settings through three primary tabs: Content, Design, and Advanced. Unlike Elementor, some customization options require using the Divi builder plugin alongside the Divi theme.
To counter Elementor’s Global Styles, Divi includes Style Presets that let you create design presets from any element and reuse them across your site.
You can also set global fonts and colors to create consistency and quickly apply your brand’s visual identity to new pages as you build. The builder also offers shape dividers, gradient backgrounds, and overlay options for unique designs.
Just like Elementor, it also lets you add custom CSS within each module, row, or section to enable deeper styling control.
If you prefer to create theme templates, you can use the provided Divi Theme Builder and assign them to various pages and posts using various conditions.
However, unlike Elementor, Divi generally lacks many dynamic customization features that the former provides.
Breakdance focuses on deep customization through a modern system with three main tabs: Content, Style, and Advanced. Like Elementor, it includes Global Styles, but Breakdance’s version is more comprehensive, extending to WooCommerce elements.
It also includes a powerful Theme Builder that works seamlessly with dynamic data capabilities. You can create custom headers, footers, and archive pages and use AND and OR conditional logic to display content based on specific rules.
For advanced users, Element Studio lets you create and modify custom elements right within the builder, much like an integrated development environment.
Adding custom CSS is also straightforward, with options for global CSS that applies site-wide or element-specific CSS for targeted tweaks.
Beyond the core features, Breakdance also offers advanced options like shape dividers, gradient backgrounds, and scroll-based animations to create unique section designs.
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| It’s a Tie | ||
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Strong global styles, dynamic content options, and feature-rich theme builder. |
Flexible interface, handy style presets, and capable theme building. |
Comprehensive global styles, Element Studio, and advanced conditional logic. |
To ensure a fair test for the Elementor vs Divi vs Breakdance performance comparison, we have standardized the environment for each page builder.
The following were standardized to keep things equal:
We used Google PageSpeed Insights and Pingdom Tools to test the page speed of all three page builders.
The test page on all three page builders was created using similar widgets/modules to ensure fair comparison.
Now, we are ready to dive into the tests!
Below is a screenshot of our Elementor test page.
Here’s how it performed on PageSpeed Insights:
And here’s how it performed on Pingdom Tools
Below is a screenshot of the Divi test page we created.
Here’s how it performed on PageSpeed Insights.
And here’s how it performed on Pingdom Tools
Below is a screenshot of our Breakdance test page.
Here’s how it performed on PageSpeed Insights.
And here’s how it performed on Pingdom Tools.
The table below provides a summary of the key metrics from Elementor, Divi, and Breakdance performance tests.
| Metrics | Elementor | Divi | Breakdance |
| PSI Mobile Score | 79 | 87 | 97 |
| First Contentful Paint (FCP) | 2.7 seconds | 1.5 seconds | 1.8 seconds |
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | 4.7 seconds | 3.8 ms | 3.2 seconds |
| Total Blocking Time (TBT) | 0 ms | 0 ms | 0 ms |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | 0 | 0.018 | 0 |
| Speed Index | 2.7 seconds | 3.2 seonds | 2.0 seconds |
| Page Size | 575.4 KB | 783.4 kb | 103.4 KB |
| HTTP Requests | 33 | 14 | 12 |
| Load Time | 718 ms | 696 ms | 663 ms |
The Elementor test page performs decently well across both testing tools. Its PSI mobile score and load time results lag slightly behind Divi. Additionally, the number of HTTP requests is more than double that of Divi, which impacts the FCP and LCP scores.
The Divi builder, on the other hand, creates a slightly heavier page, but its overall results beat Elementor. It scores faster load time, fewer HTTP requests, and better FCP and FCP performance.
The Breakdance page delivers exceptional performance, outperforming both Elementor and Divi across nearly every metric. Its focus on clean code results in the smallest page size and the fewest HTTP requests. This translates to faster load times and better core web vitals, making it the clear choice for users who prioritize speed.
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🏆 Winner |
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Decent performance, but slower load time, more requests, and lags on mobile score and web vitals. |
Faster load time, fewer requests, and leads on mobile performance and key web vitals. |
Excellent performance with the fastest load times, smallest page size, and best core web vitals. |
AI features are becoming essential for modern web design, so let’s see how each builder integrates artificial intelligence into their workflow.
Elementor introduced AI features in version 3.13, integrating into the editor in three key areas: text, images, and layouts.
The AI Writing Assistant lets you generate text and perform common editing tasks directly within any text field. It can even help with code by generating custom CSS or HTML snippets.
Beyond text and code, Elementor AI also works with visuals. You can create images by simply describing what you need and edit existing images to enhance them or clean up unwanted objects.
Where Elementor AI gets particularly interesting is in helping you structure your pages. It allows you to generate container layouts or individual sections based on text prompts, create variations of existing elements, or reference external websites for inspiration.
There’s also a separate AI Site Planner tool that quickly creates content-rich wireframes for key pages, saving time when planning site structure.
It’s important to know that Elementor AI works on a credit system, which is sold separately from the main plugin paid plans.
Divi introduced AI in version 4.22, also integrating it into three key areas of the visual builder.
It offers a Text Generation feature to let you create content in most modules. It looks at your existing content to match your brand’s voice, or you can easily set the tone you want. It also includes standard AI text editing capabilities like making text longer, shorter, or fixing grammar, plus code generation.
For images, Divi AI generates images just just describing them and picking styles or sizes. It also helps with existing image editing.
It also assists with page structure by generating individual sections or complete web pages based on prompts.
Like Elementor’s AI Site Planner, Divi also offers AI Quick Sites that let you generate a complete on-brand website with just a prompt. However, what sets it apart is that you don’t need a separate subscription to use it.
Unlike Elementor, Divi AI comes with unlimited usage for a single flat price.
Breakdance takes a different approach to AI integration. It focuses on text and offers AI features through a separate Breakdance AI plugin that requires users to add their own API key.
It offers a one-click section writing feature that can instantly populate sections or containers with text that fits your existing design. You can also create reusable content prompts called “macros” for consistent content generation.
The plugin also lets you generate custom CSS to style your elements without writing code manually.
Unlike Elementor and Divi, Breakdance AI does not currently include image generation or full layout design capabilities.
The AI plugin is sold separately for $79.99 per year for a single site, using a different pricing model than competitors.
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🏆 Winner |
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Offers integrated AI for text, images, code, layouts, and planning using a credit-based system. |
Provides AI integration for text, images, code, sections, and full websites with unlimited usage. |
Separate AI plugin for text and CSS generation; requires own API key and lacks image features. |
For anyone running an online store, the choice of page builder can make a huge difference in design flexibility and conversion rates. Let’s look at what eCommerce-specific features each builder includes.
The Pro version includes 20+ WooCommerce widgets and a theme builder that lets you design custom pages for single products, shop archives, checkout, and cart pages without coding.
However, most of these widgets lack finer controls. For example, the Checkout widget provides broad control over the page’s visual design, but it doesn’t offer granular control over individual elements. You can style the overall appearance, but cannot easily add, remove, or reorder specific fields directly within the widget.
Apart from WooCommerce widgets, Elementor also includes a popup builder for targeting visitors with promotional offers and a built-in form builder for capturing leads
Where it falls short, Elementor integrates with many WooCommerce-specific third-party plugins like CartFlows, WooLentor, and ShopEngine to extend its features.
Divi includes 16+ WooCommerce-specific modules out of the box. Its theme builder supports customizing single product pages, shop pages with advanced filtering, cart, checkout, and account pages.
One unique feature Divi offers that Elementor doesn’t is a built-in A/B testing capability. This lets store owners test different product page layouts and choose the highest-performing one as the default.
Conversely, Divi adds extra code that can sometimes slow down WooCommerce sites. Even with pre-made checkout templates, Divi lacks the full customization features compared to Elementor’s WooCommerce builder.
It also has fewer third-party WooCommerce integrations, making it more challenging to access broader customization options.
Breakdance provides a deeply integrated WooCommerce experience with 35+ dedicated WooCommerce elements.
Its powerful Global Styles system extends directly to WooCommerce, allowing you to set defaults for all store elements. This creates consistent branding across your shop, product pages, and checkout without manual styling.
For cart and checkout pages, Breakdance offers granular control beyond what Elementor and Divi provide. You can adjust individual form fields, change layouts from one to two columns, and add custom elements like trust badges or promotional messages directly into the checkout flow. The default styles are already optimized for conversions, requiring minimal setup.
Breakdance also includes built-in shop filtering, custom product page layouts, and conditional display rules. This means you can create different designs for specific product categories or tags, giving you complete control over your store’s appearance.
Beyond this, you also get popup and form builders for promotional campaigns and lead capture.
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🏆 Winner |
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Decent widgets and customization options, built-in pop-ups/forms, and better third-party integration. |
Provides core modules and theme builder support, but less extensive customization options. |
Deep global styles integration, granular cart/checkout control, and built-in filtering with fast performance. |
Having access to quality pre-designed templates can dramatically speed up your design process, so let’s see how each builder’s library stacks up.
Elementor provides three main template types in its library:
The free version of the Elementor page builder grants you access to 40+ block templates, while the pro version unlocks 300+ full-page templates and 100+ website kits.
Elementor also supports creating your own templates that you can save and reuse in the future.
For additional options, you can find more templates on third-party sites like the Envato marketplace.
Divi offers a robust library of 2600+ full-page templates organized into 370+ layout packs covering various industries like fitness, restaurants, law firms, and technology.
While Divi provides a wide range of template options, many designs feel outdated since they were launched many years ago.
For more modern templates, you may need to create them yourself or purchase from third-party vendors in the Divi marketplace.
Breakdance takes a quality-over-quantity approach with modern, clean designs that work right out of the box. Its library includes 38+ professionally designed website kits and 200+ individual page templates, with new releases added monthly.
Thanks to Breakdance’s Global Styles integration, imported templates automatically adapt to your brand’s colors and fonts, saving significant time compared to manual styling.
Like the others, Breakdance supports creating your own templates for reuse, and there’s a growing ecosystem of third-party template providers.
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🏆 Winner |
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Offers a good selection of Kits and Page templates, plus third-party options. |
Provides a much larger library of full page templates and layout packs. |
Smaller but modern library with quality designs that adapt to your global styles. |
The number and quality of available elements determine how much you can build out of the box, so let’s explore what each builder offers.
Elementor uses three main structural elements:
The free version offers 30+ basic widgets, while the Pro version unlocks 86 advanced widgets including forms, pricing tables, countdown timers, flip boxes, and WooCommerce widgets.
Third-party add-ons are also available to extend the widget selection even further.
Divi uses a different structural hierarchy for its page-building elements:
Divi includes 65 built-in modules covering basic elements, WooCommerce, and structural components like countdown timers, testimonials, galleries, pricing tables, forms, maps, and social follow.
Unlike Elementor, Divi has limited third-party add-ons, though some extensions are available from its marketplace.
Breakdance uses a simple structure of Sections, Columns, and Elements, plus Grids and Divs for complex sections.
It comes with 130+ built-in elements covering everything from basic text and images to advanced components like sliders, forms, pricing tables, and dynamic content blocks.
For WooCommerce, it includes 35+ dedicated elements. Unlike competitors, Breakdance relies on its extensive built-in library rather than a large third-party marketplace.
For users who need custom elements, Element Studio is a game-changer. It’s a built-in development environment that lets you create and modify your own custom elements right within the builder, much like an IDE for web development. This gives advanced users complete control without leaving the interface.
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🏆 Winner |
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Good built-in widgets, strong WooCommerce tools, and great third-party support. |
Core set of built-in modules with fewer options and limited third-party integrations. |
Comes with 130+ built-in elements and Element Studio for creating custom ones. |
While we tried to give you an unbiased look at all three builders, actual user reviews give us real-world insights into how these builders perform.
Users really love the intuitive interface and extensive customization options that come with Elementor. They also appreciate the free version and the add-ons ecosystem available. However, many get frustrated with the expensive yearly renewals and slow, unresponsive customer support. Many also complain that performance can sometimes be an issue.
People appreciate the outstanding customer support and love huge template library that comes with it. On the other hand, users report that websites built with Divi are bloated with unnecessary code, resulting in slower loading times. Many criticize the confusing interface that relies too heavily on icons, and the lack of basic features that force them to work around limitations.
Users really like that Breakdance combines performance with ease of use, calling it fast, powerful, and incredibly intuitive. They appreciate the design freedom and stunning results, with many sharing that they could learn it quickly and redesign multiple websites in just one week. However, some users complain about settings buried in sub-menus that make workflows cumbersome.
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| Trustpilot | 4.5/5 | 4.9/5 | 4.5/5 |
| WordPress.org | 4.5/5 | N/A | N/A |
Pricing is a major factor as it affects both your initial budget and long-term costs. Let’s look at the various plans offered by these builders.
Elementor offers a free version that offers just enough features to create simple, functional websites. However, its customization options are incredibly limited, ultimately encouraging you to purchase a paid plan.
Below is a breakdown of the pro plans that Elementor offers:
Elementor requires yearly renewals and doesn’t offer a lifetime plan, making it more expensive long-term.
Divi doesn’t offer a free version, but you can test the builder using a live demo. It keeps things simple with just two paid plans:
The Divi membership also includes free access to other Elegant Themes products: the Extra theme for blogging, Bloom plugin for email opt-ins, and Monarch plugin for social sharing.
Breakdance offers a free version with 80+ elements for designing basic websites. When it comes to premium plans, it keeps things relatively simple with a focus on unlimited site licensing, which is great for developers and agencies.
Below is a breakdown of the plans that Breakdance offers:
Considering its extensive built-in elements and design flexibility, Breakdance’s unlimited sites plan offers exceptional value for users managing multiple websites.
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🏆 Winner |
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Offers a free version but has more expensive yearly plans, especially for multiple sites. |
Provides better long-term value with a lifetime license and unlimited site usage on all plans. |
Free version for basic sites with competitive unlimited site pricing. |
Now that we have thoroughly examined Elementor, Divi, and Breakdance, outlining which builder is best in specific areas, it’s time to help you make the right choice for your project.
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| User Interface & Ease of Use | 🏆 Winner | ||
| Customizability | It’s a Tie | ||
| Performance | 🏆 Winner | ||
| AI Features | 🏆 Winner | ||
| WooCommerce | 🏆 Winner | ||
| Pre-designed Templates | 🏆 Winner | ||
| Widgets & Modules | 🏆 Winner | ||
| Pricing | 🏆 Winner | ||
All three are excellent WordPress page builders, and your choice should depend on the features that matter most to you.
Elementor is great if you’re just starting with WordPress and want a builder that’s easy to learn. It’s huge ecosystem of third-party addons means you can build any website, though you might need to pay more to get all the features.
If you’re focused on getting the best long-term value and love having a massive library of templates, Divi is hard to beat. The lifetime deal is especially appealing if you plan to build multiple sites, though you’ll need to spend time getting used to its interface.
If speed and performance are your top priorities, or you’re building a custom website or a WooCommerce store, Breakdance is the clear winner. Its modern approach with plenty of built-in elements gives you complete control and the fastest loading times, though you’ll work with a smaller template library and fewer third-party addons.
Elementor is often considered more beginner-friendly as it comes with a fixed sidebar predicatble interface typically found in other builder. Its drag-and-drop builder has a simpler learning curve and you can start exploring its features with the free version before committing to a paid plan.
Generally, no, it’s not recommended to use both Divi and Elementor on the same website. While technically possible, using two major page builders can often lead to conflicts, performance issues, unexpected styling problems, and a more complicated workflow.
Both Divi and Elementor are designed to work alongside the Gutenberg editor. You can choose which editor you want to use when creating or editing a specific page or post. This makes page builder perfect for designing pages while using Gutenberg for posts.
They can work with any standard WordPress themes, but there are some important points. Elementor is a plugin and works well with most themes, especially lightweight ones if you plan to use Elementor’s Theme Builder extensively. Divi, on the other hand, is both a theme and a builder. While the Divi Builder plugin can be used with other themes, its full power and best optimization are usually achieved when you use it together with the Divi Theme.
Divi is not bad for SEO. While older versions of the plugin sometimes added extra code that could potentially impact site speed (an SEO factor), modern versions have made significant performance improvements.
Based on the performance test we conducted for this article, Divi was slightly faster than Elementor. Divi showed a faster load time and fewer HTTP requests in our specific test environment, despite having a slightly larger page size.
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