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Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder: Ultimate Comparison for 2023

TL;DR: This post is a detailed comparison of Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder. We’ll give you both an easy-to-scan overview, as well as a much more in-depth look at various areas of each page builder.

While page builders might be a divisive topic among hardcore WordPress users, there’s no denying the massive effect they’ve had on the WordPress ecosystem when it comes to making design accessible to regular users.

Beyond that, sometimes it seems like every single WordPress company has dipped their toes into creating a page builder at some point. OK – slight hyperbole…but there are a lot of page builders out there.

In this post, we want to dig into three of your most popular options: Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder

Beyond giving you a look at the basics of how each page builder functions, we want to go beneath the surface level. For that reason, we’re also going to dig into things like advanced styling options, responsive design functionality, real-world performance, ease of use, and more.

By the time that you’re finished reading this comparison, we hope that you have a deep understanding of each plugin and, more importantly, the confidence to choose the page builder that’s right for you.

 
Elementor
Divi Builder
Beaver Builder
 

The summary: Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder

Ok, we’re going to cover everything in a lot more detail. But before we throw a bunch of feature-specific comparison tables, pictures, and GIFs at you, we thought it might be helpful to give you a quick overview of Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder.

If you just want the highlights, give this table a read. If you want all the nitty-gritty details, keep reading the following 5,500 words for a much deeper look:

Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder
Elementor Divi Builder Beaver Builder
Elementor Divi Builder Beaver Builder
Free Version? *
Starting Price for Pro $59.00 $89.00 $99.00
Ease of Use 4.9/5 4.8/5 5/5
Visual Builder?
In-line Editing?
Responsive Design?
Full Theme Building? ✅**
Key Unique Feature Popup builder A/B Testing White-label
Allows Third-Party Extensions
Unlimited Site License?
Lifetime License?
Performance Rank Tie – 2nd Tie – 2nd 1st 🏆
*Beaver Builder does have a free version but it’s very limited and not a realistic option beyond testing the interface.
**You need to purchase the separate Beaver Themer add-on to add theme building support to Beaver Builder.
1.

Which page builder is the most popular?

This is not meant to be a definitive look at which page builder is the most popular because the numbers reference slightly different things.

Still, we thought it would be a fun exercise to compare the published user numbers for each page builder. Here’s how they stack up:

* The Elementor and Beaver Builder numbers come from WordPress.org, while Divi Builder’s number comes from the Elegant Themes website. Also, the Divi Builder’s number refers to the overall number of customers that Elegant Themes serves, regardless of the reason those customers joined (not just for the builder).

(Charts by Visualizer Lite.)

Beaver Builder is probably a bit underrepresented here because many people have the premium version, which might not show up in the WordPress.org stats.

But one thing is clear – Elementor is by far the most popular builder, as it’s rocketed up to over five million installs (the highest designation at WordPress.org). Perhaps more impressively, it’s racked up a massive 190 million total downloads, which suggests the actual number of active sites is much higher.

 
2.

A look at the main page builder interfaces – do they offer real front-end editing?

While all three page builders from our comparison offer visual front-end page building, they don’t all go about it in the exact same way.

In this section, we’ll take a look at each page builder’s main interface and discuss some of the quirks that differentiate each from the others.

 
The content editing interfaces in page builders
Elementor Divi Builder Beaver Builder
Visual Editing
In-line text editing
Sidebar control panel option
Popup control panel option
Copy/paste styles
Right-click support
Overall Beginner Friendliness Easy to pick up right away Takes a few minutes to understand the interface Easy to pick up right away

Let’s now compare these aspects for each builder one by one:

A look at the Elementor interface

Elementor divides its interface into two core parts:

  1. A left sidebar where you can add new elements and edit settings for existing elements (you can easily hide this if you want a full-screen preview)
  2. A visual look at your page on the right side

Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder: Elementor interface

To add a new element to your design, you just need to drag it over from the left side and you’ll see a live preview of how the element looks on your actual page:

You can set up new columns using the Add New Section button:

elementor sections

To edit the content and styling of an element, all you need to do is click on a certain element and you’ll be able to edit it in the left sidebar. Any changes that you make will immediately be visible in the preview of your site:

To edit the text in various elements, you can either type directly on the page (inline editing) or use the text box on the sidebar:

Finally, Elementor also offers right-click support, which lets you quickly access key settings such as copy/pasting styles, duplicating content, and more.

A look at the Divi Builder interface

Though Divi Builder also offers a backend editing interface called wireframe mode, we’ll focus on the visual editor for this comparison because visual editors are what most users prefer.

Unlike Elementor, where you have a clear distinction between the visual preview of your site and the Elementor control sidebar, Divi Builder opts to overlay all of its options on top of a live visual preview.

Here’s what the interface looks like when you first open the Divi Builder:

Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder: divi builder interface

To add a new Module (Divi Builder’s name for elements), you’ll use the various + icons:


 

Like Elementor, you can type directly on the page to edit text on your designs, though Elementor’s inline editing is a bit more flexible in the elements that it supports.

And you can also rearrange modules by using drag and drop:

For non-text modules, you’ll often use a popup box to edit the module rather than typing directly in the page, though.

Finally, Divi Builder also offers right-click support, which lets you quickly access key settings such as copy/pasting styles, duplicating content, and more.

A look at the Beaver Builder interface

In interface terms, Beaver Builder has more in common with Elementor than it does with Divi Builder.

Like Elementor, Beaver Builder has a sidebar that lists all the available modules. To add a module to your page, all you need to do is drag and drop it from the right sidebar into your live page:

As you can see at the tail-end of the GIF, though, Beaver Builder uses a different default interface for editing the modules, opting for a popup like Divi Builder.

However, if you’d prefer to use the fixed sidebar approach, you can just drag the popup to either side of the screen and Beaver Builder will fix it to that side.

Being able to customize the interface like this is nice as it lets you adapt Beaver Builder to your needs.

Another great thing about Beaver Builder is that you can automatically create new columns just by dragging one module next to another, whereas Divi Builder and Elementor force you to manually create new columns before you can add new elements. It’s a small thing – but it makes the design process feel a bit more fluid.

Beaver Builder also now supports inline text editing, which means that you can edit text on the page just by clicking and typing. You also still have the option to edit text in the popup/sidebar if you prefer that approach.

However, Beaver Builder doesn’t currently offer right-click support, which feels a bit dated in comparison to Elementor and Divi Builder. Additionally, you lack certain productivity-boosting interface features, such as the ability to quickly copy and paste styles between different modules.

3.

How far you can go with extra styling in each builder

While page builders try to make design as simple as possible, it’s almost unavoidable that you’ll want to do more styling than dragging a module into your design and calling it a day.

For that reason, you’ll want a page builder that gives you more control over the look and positioning of your various elements and sections. This is, potentially, where you’re going to find the biggest differences between Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder.

In short, Elementor and Divi Builder offer the absolute most advanced styling options. Beaver Builder has everything that most people need, but it doesn’t include as many nitty-gritty options as Elementor and Divi. For example, you lack the built-in ability to create more advanced scroll animations or use absolute/relative positioning for modules.

Divi and Elementor also let you set up global colors, which Beaver Builder doesn’t allow. These act like CSS variables. You can tell your site to use the global color and then if you ever want to update that color in the future, that change will automatically apply to every instance where you used the global color.

 
Styling options in page builders
Elementor Divi Builder Beaver Builder
Basic Styling
Custom margins/padding
Custom fonts/typography
Directly add custom CSS to module
Motion effects (scroll animations)
Custom positioning (abs/rel)
Global colors
Here’s everything in a bit more detail:

Elementor advanced styling options

When you click on any element or section in Elementor, you’ll get three tabs in the Elementor sidebar:

  • Content – lets you specify basic content and alignment settings
  • Style – lets you set things like fonts, colors, borders, and more (depending on the element)
  • Advanced – lets you add custom margins/padding, change Z-indexes, entrance animations, custom CSS identifiers/custom CSS code, and more

If you upgrade to Elementor Pro, the Advanced tab also lets you access features such as motion effects and custom positioning.

elementor advanced styling options

Similarly, you have a good deal of control over sections, including the ability to set gutters, widths, and more:

elementor advanced styling

Divi Builder advanced styling options

Whenever you click on the Gear icon for a module or section in Divi Builder, you’ll see a popup with more advanced settings options.

Like Elementor, Divi Builder gives you three different tabs to manage your modules, though the content that’s contained within each tab varies slightly:

  • Content – lets you set text and basic formatting options
  • Design – lets you change fonts, borders, custom margins/padding, sizing, and more
  • Advanced – lets you add custom CSS or CSS identifiers, as well as change responsive design settings

As you can see, there’s a good deal of overlap with Elementor here. Both page builders give you plenty of control over specific modules on your site, including advanced design options such as motion effects and custom positioning:

divi builder advanced styling

Similarly, you can also add advanced styling to rows and sections, including custom gutter widths, equalized column heights, and more:

divi builder styling

Beaver Builder advanced styling options

Like Divi Builder, Beaver Builder lets you add further styling to a module or section by showing a popup. Or, as we mentioned earlier, you can also fix these options to the side to use a sidebar interface like Elementor.

And again, like Elementor and Divi Builder, you get three different tabs (though some modules have fewer tabs):

  • General – lets you set basic content and functionality
  • Style – lets you choose colors, basic alignment, font size, and more
  • Advanced – lets you add custom margins, responsive settings, user role visibility, animations, and CSS identifiers

beaver builder advanced styling options

Beaver Builder 2.0 added some additional styling options, such as the ability to quickly choose between flat, gradient, or transparent styles for some elements (e.g. buttons).

One function that’s still lacking here is the ability to add custom CSS code directly to the module (you can add custom CSS to the page – just not directly to the module). You also lack more advanced design options such as motion effects and custom positioning, so Elementor Pro and Divi Builder might be better options for designers who like having code-free access to all the bells and whistles.

But, Beaver Builder does have a cool option that neither of the other two page builders have:

The option to hide or display a certain module based on whether or not a user is logged in to your WordPress site. This lets you create lightweight membership-like functionality without needing to install a separate membership plugin.

You can also add advanced styling to rows and columns, though the settings aren’t quite as detailed as Elementor and Divi Builder.

beaver builder row settings

4.

Are these builders all mobile-responsive?

Because of the importance of responsive design, you want a page builder that lets you add responsive design functionality to your pages.

Below, you’ll find a comparison of the various responsive design features offered in Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder:

 
Responsive design features in page builders
Elementor Divi Builder Beaver Builder
Show/hide content based on device
Different margins based on device
Different font sizes based on device
Custom breakpoints ✅ (up to 7 devices) but only site-wide. Not for individual pages

Additionally, it’s worth pointing out that Elementor users seem to be enjoying the builder’s mobile-design capabilities quite a lot. Here’s a comment we got from a quick Facebook survey that we did (the Q: “What are the top 1-3 things that convinced you to use Elementor instead of the other popular builder plugins?”):

survey Elementor mobile

5.

How does each plugin handle theme building?

When we originally wrote our Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder comparison, all three of these tools were mainly focused on page building. That is, letting you design the content of an individual post or page.

Since then, however, all three builders have moved to add full theme building support.

With theme building, you can go beyond just creating individual pieces of content and also design your theme template files, including the following:

  • Header
  • Footer
  • Single templates – the templates for individual pieces of content: e.g. blog posts or a custom post types
  • Archive templates – the templates for pages that list content: e.g. your blog listing page

You can essentially design your own theme from scratch without code, which eliminates the need to use a theme for design.

Or, you can surgically replace parts of your theme. For example, you could replace your theme’s header while still using the theme to control other areas of your site.

Here’s a quick look at how theme building works in each builder…

Elementor Theme Builder

Elementor Theme Builder is a built-in feature that’s part of Elementor Pro (the premium version of Elementor).

With Elementor Pro, you can access a dedicated theme building area to manage all of your various theme template parts:

Elementor Theme Builder

To design the actual template, you’ll use the same familiar Elementor interface. The only difference is that you get special theme widgets to dynamically insert information, such as the post title or post content:

Elementor Theme Builder modules

You can also dynamically fill regular widgets with content from your site or custom fields. This includes support for plugins like Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), Pods, Toolbox, Meta Box, and others.

Once you go to publish a theme template, you can use conditional rules to control where to apply that template. You could either use it sitewide or target it to only specific pieces of content:

Elementor Theme Builder display rules

While Elementor Pro Theme Builder should work with any theme, the developer also offers its own Hello Elementor theme that’s designed to provide a lightweight canvas for your theme builder designs.

If you know that you’ll be using Elementor Theme Builder for literally every single part of your site, the Hello Elementor theme can be a good option. Otherwise, you’ll still probably want a nice lightweight theme such as Neve.

Divi Builder theme builder

Like Elementor Pro, Divi Builder also offers theme building as a core feature.

It works similarly to Elementor Pro Theme Builder, but in the opposite direction.

First, you’ll get a dedicated theme builder interface where you can set up your conditional rules. As with Elementor, you can either use your theme templates sitewide or target them to specific content:

Divi Theme Builder templates

From there, you can design your various theme template files using the regular visual Divi Builder interface, along with dynamic content modules to insert dynamic information in your templates, such as a post’s title or information from a custom field:

Divi Theme Builder

Beaver Themer add-on

Unlike Elementor and Divi Builder, Beaver Builder does not offer theme building in the core Beaver Builder plugin.

Instead, you need to purchase and install the separate Beaver Themer add-on plugin, which costs $147 for use on unlimited sites.

Additionally, Beaver Themer does not offer full theme building support with all themes. While you should be able to create single post and archive templates with any theme, header and footer templates only work with a small selection of themes, including our own Neve and Hestia themes.

Once you’ve activated Beaver Themer, you can create new theme templates, which are called Themer Layouts:

Beaver Themer Templates

In the template settings area, you can use display rules to control when to apply that template to your site.

Beaver Themer is actually very strong here, as it gives you a little more flexibility than Elementor and Divi Builder.

In addition to targeting certain types of content – e.g. post types or posts in a certain category – you can also use rules to determine when to display a layout, such as using a different layout based on the visitor’s user role or referring URL, a WordPress conditional statement, a shortcode output, and more.

While most people won’t need these extra rules, they can be really handy for certain advanced use cases:

Beaver Themer display rules

Then, you can launch the regular Beaver Builder interface to design your templates. You’ll get special theme-focused modules and Beaver Themer also supports inserting dynamic content from custom fields:

Beaver Themer builder

 
6.

What unique features does each page builder offer?

With WordPress page builders, there’s a lot that’s the same…

Sure, there are plenty of small differences in the comparisons above – but the core page building interfaces are pretty similar. That is, you drag and drop elements onto a page and further style them as needed.

But now, we want to dig into some of the unique features of Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder. These are things that go beyond the regular page building interface and tack on helpful new functionality. And they also might help you make your decision when it comes down to Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder.

Elementor unique features

Elementor has done a great job creating unique features that differentiate it from the competition. Here are some of the big ones:

  • Popup Builder – create any type of popup using the regular interface, including modal popups, notification bars, slide-ins, and more. You also get detailed targeting and trigger options to control exactly where and when your popups appear.
  • Embed Anywhere – lets you use widgets and shortcodes to embed Elementor designs anywhere in your site, including sidebars, footers, and other areas.
  • Maintenance/Coming Soon Mode – lets you use Elementor to design a maintenance mode or coming-soon page and actually turn on those pages right from the Elementor interface.

Elementor also has a unique option in Elementor Cloud Website, which is essentially an all-in-one website platform that includes built-in hosting. This isn’t really a feature of the builder itself, but it is a nice option for beginners who don’t want to deal with self-hosting and installing the WordPress software.

Divi Builder unique features

Not to be outdone – Divi Builder has an amazingly powerful built-in feature:

Split testing.

Divi Builder lets you easily set up A/B/n tests for specific modules from the wireframe builder interface. You can then compare those modules’ effects on a specific goal to pick the version that works best:

Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder: divi builder split testing

Other unique features include:

  • Divi Role Editor – lets you restrict access to certain Divi Builder functionality (or even specific modules) based on user roles. The other two page builders include basic role restrictions – but they’re nowhere near as detailed as Divi Builder.
  • Lock elements – another helpful feature is the ability to “lock” certain modules to avoid accidentally making a change to a finished module.
  • Wireframe mode – as you can see in the screenshot above, Divi Builder also lets you access a backend wireframe mode from the visual interface. This can be handy for making certain changes. Divi Builded used to have backend editing in a separate interface, but it’s now available directly from the visual builder.

Beaver Builder unique features

Beaver Builder doesn’t have many unique features in comparison to the other two plugins. However, it does have one thing that might make it popular with agencies or other people building client sites:

Beaver Builder is the only plugin to include a white label feature by default. While casual users might not care about this feature, many WordPress developers find this important.

 
7.

What kind of pre-made templates does each page builder offer?

While the big draw of page builders is that you can build your own designs from scratch, you don’t have to. That’s because each of these page builders comes with a library of pre-made layouts.

These layouts come in a few different forms:

  1. Full-page templates – these are designs for complete pages.
  2. Website kits / layout packs – these are themed collections of multiple full-page templates that help you build a complete site. For example, you might have one template for the homepage, one for the about page, and so on.
  3. Section – these are templates for individual sections of a page that you can put together like Lego blocks.
  4. Use-specific templates – these are templates for specific features, such as popup templates in Elementor Pro or header templates in the theme builder.

In general, Elementor and Divi Builder both have very large template libraries, while Beaver Builder’s template offerings are much more limited.

Divi Builder has the overall larger built-in library, but you can easily access hundreds of third-party Elementor templates so the difference isn’t that meaningful in the real world.

You can also find third-party templates for Divi Builder and Beaver Builder, but the third-party marketplaces are not as large as you get with Elementor.

Number of pre-made layouts100+~42~56

Design templates available in page builders
Elementor Divi Builder Beaver Builder
Number of full-page templates 300+ 1,984+ 50+
Number of full website kits 100+ 269+ N/A

Elementor pre-made layouts and library functionality

Elementor offers 300+ individual page templates across a range of niches and use cases.

Beyond that, Elementor Pro also includes 100+ full website kits, which adds a few hundred more page templates across those kits.

If that’s not enough, you can also find many more Elementor templates on the web.

Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder: elementor templates

You can also save your own page designs (or section/row designs) to the Elementor library to quickly reuse them.

And beyond the full page templates, Elementor also includes tons of templates for sections, popups, theme builder templates, and more.

Divi Builder pre-made layouts and library functionality

Divi Builder comes packed with a huge number of templates, all of which are divided into themed layout packs that help you build complete sites. Currently, you get 269+ full layout packs that collectively have 1,984+ unique page templates. If that’s not enough there are multiple third-party Divi layouts available on the web:

Divi Builder Templates

Like Elementor, you can also save modules, sections, or complete designs to your library to quickly reuse as needed.

Beaver Builder pre-made layouts and library functionality

Templates are not a strong point in Beaver Builder as you only get a limited selection. Beaver Builder also doesn’t offer full website template packs like Elementor and Divi Builder.

Currently, Beaver Builder includes ~56 pre-made templates divided into two categories:

  • Landing pages
  • Content pages

The landing page templates are divided into specific niches, while the content pages are usually a bit more general:

Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder: beaver builder templates

Like the other two page builders, you can also save your own sections or pages to the library to reuse them as needed.

 Who has the best templates? Tweet here: 
 
8.

Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder compared on performance

If you want your website to be successful, it’s important that it loads quickly.

Bad news here:

Every single page builder adds some extra weight to the page versus using the native WordPress block editor.

However, there’s also good news:

As long as you’re using high-quality hosting and implementing other performance optimization best practices, you can still build fast-loading WordPress sites with all of the page builders.

With that being said, some do perform better than others when it comes to performance.

To test this, we set up an identical test page with each builder using an equivalent set of modules and ran it through WebPageTest to collect performance data.

Here are the details for our test environment:

  1. Hosted on an InstaWP sandbox site (not optimized for performance, but the same hosting for all builders).
  2. Created a simple design with equivalent modules in each builder. E.g. test, heading, button, counter, and so on.
  3. Using the Neve theme.
  4. The numbers are for the entire site, which includes Neve plus the relevant page builder.
  5. If applicable, we activated any built-in speed-focused enhancements, such as Elementor’s speed experiments.

Note – the test site is not running caching or any other page speed optimizations.

Here’s how they did…

 
Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder: Performance comparison
Elementor Divi Builder Beaver Builder
Load Time 0.653 seconds 0.664 seconds 0.415 seconds
Page Size 140 kB 135 kB 80 kB
Requests 28 14 12

Overall, these results jive with the builders’ reputations. Beaver Builder is generally the most lightweight, performance-friendly option (for a page builder).

Elementor and Beaver Builder are pretty similar – the results are too close to draw any meaningful distinctions between them.

While you might notice that Divi Builder has significantly fewer HTTP requests, this is really just because it offers built-in combination. If you wanted to achieve something similar with Elementor, there are tons of plugins to help you do that (though combining HTTP requests isn’t really helpful if your host uses HTTP/2+).

However, while Beaver Builder is certainly a bit faster, you can still build fast-loading sites with Elementor and Divi Builder – as long as you implement performance best practices. Basically, don’t let this be a dealbreaker.

For reference:

Elementor performance
Elementor performance
Divi Builder performance
Divi performance
Beaver Builder performance
Beaver Builder performance

It makes sense that Beaver Beaver would lead the pack here, as the Beaver Builders group on Facebook ranked speed as their most needed feature:

survey Beaver Builder
9.

Third-Party Integrations

While all three of these builders are packed with essential features, they’re also built in an open, extensible way.

This means that third-party developers can come in and create their own extensions that build upon the features in the core plugin.

These third-party extensions can add different types of features (sometimes multiple at once):

  • New widgets/content modules to give you more options for building your designs.
  • More templates to use as starting points.
  • Integrations with other plugins or services that you’re using, such as integrating your membership plugin.
  • More design options for all of your widgets, such as adding floating motion effect options.
  • Productivity features such as cross-domain copy/paste, saved cloud layouts, and more.
  • New features, such as letting you build popups with the builder.

If you build a lot of sites with any one of these builders, you’ll probably rely on these extensions to help you get the job done. For that reason, it’s another important consideration in choosing the best WordPress website builder for your situation.

Overall, here’s how they stack up in terms of the number of third-party extensions – ordered by the number of available add-ons:

  1. Elementor – has the most third-party add-ons. You can find hundreds of free and paid Elementor plugins. You can browse them at WordPress.org, at CodeCanyon, or on Elementor’s add-on listing page.
  2. Divi Builder – while you don’t get as many options as Elementor, Divi Builder still has a good number of add-ons. You can browse them at WordPress.org, at CodeCanyon, or at the official Divi Marketplace.
  3. Beaver Builder – has the least third-party add-ons, but you can still find a decent number of tools, mostly focused around adding new modules. You can browse them at WordPress.org or at CodeCanyon.
 
10.

A look at pricing for each page builder

Elementor and Beaver Builder operate on a freemium model, while Divi Builder is exclusively part of the Elegant Themes Membership.

Of the two freemium plugins, Elementor offers the more feature-rich free version. Elementor also offers the cheapest Pro version, though that cheapest plan only supports a single site, while both Divi Builder and Beaver Builder’s plans support unlimited sites.

In general, this means that Elementor Pro is more affordable if you only need a single site, while Divi Builder and Beaver Builder are a lot cheaper if you’re building 5+ sites.

Between Beaver Builder and Divi Builder, Divi Builder is the overall cheapest option for two reasons. First, the price for its yearly license is a little bit cheaper. Second, it offers a lifetime license option, which neither Elementor or Beaver Builder offer.

If you’re planning to use your chosen builder for a long time (3+ years), you won’t find a more affordable option than the lifetime Divi Builder membership.

Beaver Builder does offer a 30% renewal discount, which saves you some money after the first year if you want to continue receiving support and updates. Elementor, however, charges the full price every year – there are no renewal discounts.

Here’s how everything stacks up:

 
Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder: Pricing
Elementor Divi Builder Beaver Builder
* For your $89.00, you get access to every single product that Elegant Themes sells, which increases the value for your money.
Free Version?
Pro Starting Price $59.00 $89.00 * $99.00
Unlimited Sites Plan?
Lifetime Updates Plan?
11.

Ease of use: How easy it is to get started with each page builder

This section was surprisingly difficult to write because it’s hard to put aside my biases as someone who uses and writes about WordPress every day. That is, what I consider “easy” doesn’t always match with what a casual WordPress user finds “easy.”

In general, I think all three are user friendly and easy to get started with. But if I had to rank them, I would put them in this order:

 

Beaver Builder

I think being able to create new columns via drag and drop makes it easy to start building right away.

Author's ease of use rating: 5/5

Divi Builder

Though the interplay between sections, rows, and modules can be a tiny bit confusing at first, I’ve spoken to many beginners who find Divi Builder’s inline text editing to be super intuitive.

Author's ease of use rating: 4.8/5

Elementor

Since Elementor introduced inline editing, my only real complaint is that it’s not as easy to create new columns as Beaver Builder. Still, that’s a minor ding, and if you heavily value inline editing, you could probably make a case for Elementor being #1.

Author's ease of use rating: 4.9/5

Again – the differences between each are by no means huge and, in general, I find them all easy to use.

One more thing worth pointing out that’s also kind of related to the topic of ease of use is customer/user support quality. Basically, your overall experience with a given builder depends highly on how easy to figure out certain non-obvious aspects of the builder are, or how willing to help the support team is.

This, however, is quite difficult to rate and only comes to light after you’ve been using your builder for a while. Likely, you will find good and bad reviews for all three support teams – Elementor, Divi Builder, and Beaver Builder.

 

Here’s one (Elementor):

survey Elementor support
 

Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder: which should you choose?

While you could always just use each of these page builders yourself and see which one is the most suitable, we’re guessing you’re probably reading this article because you want us to help you out with that. So, which is the right one for you between Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder?

In general, Elementor and Beaver Builder share more in common with each other than they do with Divi Builder.

For that reason, it’s easier to draw a meaningful divide between Elementor/Beaver Builder and Divi Builder. Making the case between Elementor and Beaver Builder is a bit more difficult.

Still, we’re going to attempt it

Just like with our Divi vs Avada vs X Theme comparison,  we’re going to ask you which of the following statements most apply to you: 

(A)

  • I want as many features as possible – popups, add-ons, give it to me!
  • I want as many advanced styling and responsive design options as possible.
  • I like using a popular tool because it’s easy to find help.
  • I don’t care about support for unlimited websites.
Click Here to Reveal

(B)

  • I want as many advanced styling and responsive design options as possible.
  • I like to optimize my designs with split testing.
  • I value being able to pay a one-time fee for lifetime support and updates.
  • I like being able to access backend editing/wireframe designs, too.
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(C)

  • I value stability over having lots of features.
  • I just want something that does the basics well and then gets out of my way.
  • I want the most lightweight tool, even if it means sacrificing some advanced design options and features.
Click Here to Reveal

And that rounds up our comparison of Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder. Now we want to hear from you – what are your thoughts on these three excellent page builders? Do you prefer one over the others? Do you think there’s an important differentiating feature that we missed?

Let us know in the comments!

Don’t forget to join our crash course on speeding up your WordPress site. With some simple fixes, you can reduce your loading time by even 50-80%:

 
BONUS VIDEO: Elementor Vs Divi Builder Vs Beaver Builder

Original text by Colin Newcomer and Karol K.
Layout and presentation by Karol K.

* This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and then purchase the product, we’ll receive a small commission. No worries though, you’ll still pay the standard amount so there’s no additional cost on your part.

CodeinWP Editorial

11 Comments
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Clinton Gallagher
September 6, 2018 6:41 pm

Not one word about integration with WooCommerce. Very disappointing let down.

nwcic
August 9, 2018 9:40 pm

Very nice article. I was just deciding which builder to purchase. This article helped me.
Though Beaver Builder is TOO expensive, it does provide the easiest re-edit of colums, quickest load time and cleanest looking code.
I think next year at renewal time, DIVI may be the choice. They’ve com a long way since the buggy crashing editor of the past that I used to own.

Carlos
July 5, 2018 4:06 pm

Hi, I’m in the process of choosing a page builder for a client’s multilingual site. Your review has been very helpful and I’m leaning towards Elementor at the moment, but I’ve also contacted the other companies to ask some questions. Below is a response I got from E. Themes, that kind of put me off a bit regarding their use of shortcodes and what happens shall you decide to stop using their plugin: “Divi uses WordPress shortcodes, and if you no longer have Divi active they will be visible on your website. It is a fundamental flaw in the design and functionality of WordPress shortcodes. Use of shortcodes does not impair the performance or SEO of your website in any way, however we understand how this does make it more difficult if you are switching to another theme. To address the issue, we made the Divi Builder available as a standalone plugin which can be installed alongside any WordPress theme. This means that, should you ever decide to change themes, you can take the pages/post designs that you created using the Divi Builder with you to your new theme.” All that talking about a “funfamental flaw” while the other two… Read more »

Sabina Ionescu
July 20, 2018 10:40 am
Reply to  Carlos

Thank you for sharing your findings Carols! Anton’s comment above mentions a plugin for removing Divi shortcodes.

With Elementor and Beaver Builder you can avoid the shortcodes issue (check the article). Good luck!

Doug S
June 18, 2018 8:02 pm

Thanks for the article; it touched on some things that most comparison articles do not cover. I’ve been using Beaver Builder Pro for about two years and have created several websites using it. I have found it very difficult to get good results without lots of CSS and purchased modules. Most of the built-in modules are useless because they lack basic styling options. For example the photo module does not have options for borders, captions above the photo, or rounded corners. You are expected to create a class for these basic options. There is also no centering options for modules. I don’t mind writing CSS but most times it takes quite awhile to get the selectors right, and I can’t think of any good reason why these basic options are not included. I find myself purchasing add-ons for almost everything: menu, slider, contact form, photo gallery, etc. By default you cannot edit headers and footers.. oh yeah, you can but it’s not included with the Pro version and BB charges extra for BB Themer. Fortunately there is a free WP add-on (Beaver Builder Header Footer) to edit headers and footers. A big drawback is that you cannot nest rows and… Read more »

Frank
May 30, 2018 7:38 am

Beaver builder has inline editing now

Lauterne
April 9, 2018 4:31 pm

Elementor is the best for all situations and the people who say the opposite are part of it, not like me who is neutral. 🙂

Irina Whitmer
April 5, 2018 9:45 pm

Gosh, thank you so much! This article is so helpful! You just made my day!
I’m leaning towards Elementor.

Laurence
April 5, 2018 6:16 pm

Quite biased this page, clearly! There are some points about DIVI on here that are made to sound negative and not correct. For example, right from the start you say DIVI pops up over the content. Well, you can choose to dock it in the side like elementor, so you need to update your post. I also think the lockin issue is not a problem, I shall explain… firstly why would you deactivate it and leave it like that? You would not. You would probably only want to switch to another means of presenting the content nice (another builder, or perhaps custom code with ACF). SO upon deactivating Elementor or Beaver Builder you would be likely then transferring that content into another builder or ACF fields or something to get a good presentation. So therefore lock in is not a problem, because you will still be rebuilding the content with whatever its being replaced with. You would be rather silly to deactivate and leave it at that.

AntonTheunissen
March 31, 2018 9:29 am

There’s a free plugin to remove all Divi shortcodes. https://www.sean-barton.co.uk/2017/12/bye-bye-divi/

Zack Wallace
February 9, 2018 11:49 pm

I have a few issues with page builders and I’m curious how other solve it. 1) The complexity of the output and CSS. I’ve used Beaver more than the others and I can say working around it with CSS can be quite frustrating. They put unique class IDs on everything and their default styles might use those. So creating global styles is nearly impossible as defaults override them due to CSS specificity and using unique classes on everything. Unless I’m doing something wrong, good style starts with creating unified global style defaults, and I want my page builder to honor all my global styling. But, especially in the case of Divi, there are so many default styles with high specificity (or their rendered CSS file comes absolute last in the header) that I can’t override things without !important everywhere, or needless extra specificity. So I want a builder that lets me use single class/element global styling without overriding all my custom stuff. And when, and only when we specifically set a style within the widget editor, should that override my global styles. Basically, I want the page builder to not make it incredibly difficult or ugly to override their styles.… Read more »

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