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Divi vs Beaver Builder – Which is the Best Page Builder Plugin for WordPress?

Divi Builder and Beaver Builder are two of the most popular and powerful page builder plugins available for WordPress.

For one thing, if you want to start publishing posts and pages with the type of custom designs and layouts that just aren’t possible with the default WordPress editor, these plugins will enable you to do that — all without the need to write or edit any code.

But they can do a lot more than just help you to make interesting designs for your posts and pages — they can also enable you to create custom headers and footers, and edit the other parts of your site and theme beyond the post and page areas. So, now you know what they do, how do you decide which one is best?

In this comparison, we’ll explore the key features of Beaver Builder and Divi Builder, looking at their templates, page builder interfaces, and other features to help you to decide which one you should choose.

Let’s get started…

About Divi Builder and Beaver Builder

The main benefit of installing Divi Builder or Beaver Builder on your WordPress website is that it gives you another way to create content for your site.

Build with Divi Editor
With both plugins, you can still use the default WordPress editor.

After installation, another content editor is added to your site, giving you more creative control over how your posts, pages and other types of content look.

Beaver Builder Editor Interface Example
Once you’ve installed Divi or Beaver Builder (pictured), you can use their editors to create custom content designs.

Furthermore, with Divi Builder, and with an add-on for Beaver Builder installed, you can also customize the header, footer and other parts of your site — beyond just the post and page areas.

Before we go any further, it’s worth clearing up that the Divi page builder is actually available as a WordPress theme and a plugin, but, for this comparison, we’re looking at the plugin version, which is called Divi Builder.

However, when you purchase Divi Builder, you get access to both the theme and the plugin. The benefit of this is that if you’re starting a new website, you can use the WordPress theme, whereas if you want to add a drag-and-drop page builder to an existing site, you can install the plugin and continue to use your current theme.

Beaver Builder, on the other hand, is only available as a plugin, although there is a Beaver Builder theme that can be used if you’re starting a new site. Also, there’s a free version of Beaver Builder available, but it’s very limited, so, for this comparison, we’re only looking at the paid version of Beaver.

If you’re looking for a free page builder plugin, you might want to check out our Elementor review or install the free version of Beaver Builder and give that a try.

Key Features of Beaver Builder and Divi

Divi Page Builder Interface
Both Divi (pictured) and Beaver Builder are significant updates on the default WordPress editor.

Before we dive into our Divi Builder and Beaver Builder comparison, here’s a quick overview of the main features of these two page builder plugins and what they can do:

  • Drag-and-drop WYSIWYG page builder interfaces.
  • Ability to create advanced custom layouts and designs for your posts and pages.
  • Libraries of high-quality, editable content templates.
  • Useful customizable modules for adding buttons, sliders, pricing tables and much more to your content.
  • Ability to create custom templates for your posts, pages, archives and 404 error pages.
  • Ability to design custom headers, footers and other parts of your website and theme.
  • Split testing feature (Divi only) for optimizing your content for higher conversion rates.
  • Ability to create libraries of reusable content for use throughout your site.

If those features sound like what you’re looking for, read on to find out exactly how they’ve been implemented in Divi and Beaver Builder.

Divi vs Beaver Feature Comparison

So far, on paper, these two plugins may sound very similar. However, as we’re about to see, they have very different user experiences and feature delivery.

The Page Builders

You can create similar custom page designs with both Divi and Beaver Builder, but the process of achieving that end result is quite different.

At their core, though, both plugins let you start out with a blank canvas (or with a pre-built template), and then use rows and columns to build a custom layout.

Row and Column Structure
Divi and Beaver Builder (pictured) use rows and columns as the structure for their page layouts.

Having to use rows and columns may sound a bit limiting, but it’s really not. By the time you’ve customized their appearance by changing the size, color and almost everything else about them, your visitors probably won’t even be aware of the underlying page structure.

Rows with Content
By the time you’ve added content to your rows and columns, the underlying page structure won’t be obvious to your visitors.

Modules can be inserted into the custom layouts, allowing you to add text, images and a wide range of other types of content to them. You can easily use the drag-and-drop interface to resize columns and rows on the fly, giving you full creative control over your page structure.

Divi Layout Example
Both Divi (pictured) and Beaver Builder let you populate your designs with a wide variety of modules.

Depending on your needs, you could use these tools to simply create a custom page design with an interesting text and image-based layout, or produce something more unique with overlapping text and image areas, animated buttons, sliders, video players and almost anything else you can think of.

The first step, though, when it comes to using these plugins, is becoming familiar with their user interfaces. So, let’s take a look at how this key component of Divi Builder and Beaver Builder has been implemented.

Page Builder Interfaces

While both plugins have interfaces that are notably different from the default WordPress editor, the Divi user interface is very different from the standard way of doing things in WordPress.

Because of this, the Divi user interface can be quite intimidating at first, with lots of controls that are sometimes hidden and at other times on display.

Divi Builder User Interface
Divi uses hover-activated controls to avoid cluttering the user interface, but it can still be a bit confusing at times.

Also, with Divi, it isn’t always immediately clear what will happen when you click on an icon, whereas Beaver Builder feels a bit more intuitive or predictable.

After a while, though, as Divi becomes more familiar, it does get easier to use, and the unique user interface can actually help to speed up your workflow. By really breaking free of the constraints of trying to integrate with the WordPress user interface, Divi delivers a new way of working that, while a bit confusing at first, does have its benefits.

While Beaver Builder takes a similar approach, with hover-activated icons and controls, as well as pop-up windows for editing settings, the user experience feels less cluttered and more streamlined compared with Divi. Because of this, Beaver Builder doesn’t feel as overwhelming when you’re getting started, making it easier to pick up.

Beaver Builder Interface Icons
The Beaver Builder user interface feels less overwhelming at first, compared with Divi.

With Divi, it feels as though you’ve been introduced to a whole new way of working — and with that comes a steeper learning curve. Because of this, those who are willing to invest more time into learning will likely be rewarded with greater flexibility and creative freedom, thanks to Divi’s larger feature-set (which we’ll cover later), compared with Beaver Builder.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a tool that will let you quickly create custom post or page designs straightaway, in exchange for fewer features, Beaver Builder may be better for you.

If you’d like a more in-depth look at the page builder interfaces, and other features of these two plugins, check out our Divi Builder review and Beaver Builder review.

Verdict: Compared with Beaver Builder, the Divi Builder user interface isn’t as intuitive — at least to start with — but it’s potentially more powerful (depending on your requirements) because of its extra settings, controls and options. This means Beaver Builder wins when it comes to interface user-friendliness.

Page Builder Modules

Divi Pricing Table Module
Both Divi (pictured) and Beaver Builder let you add customizable modules to your pages.

With Divi and Beaver Builder, you don’t just create custom layouts for your post and pages — you also populate those designs with elements. With both plugins, these elements are called modules, and they cover a wide range of options, including:

  • audio and video players
  • buttons and calls-to-action
  • image galleries and slideshows
  • testimonial displays
  • contact, subscribe, and login forms
  • pricing tables
  • post and product layouts and sliders
  • maps.

Both Divi and Beaver Builder let you edit the modules, giving you full creative control over how they look and behave on your site.

Verdict: While both plugins give you lots of modules to work with, Divi wins here as it has a few more than Beaver Builder. But, again, be sure to check out which tool has the modules you’re most likely to use, as well as exploring how the options from each plugin look and function.

Theme Customization

Both Beaver Builder and Divi can now be used to do more than just create custom post and page designs.

After recent updates, both plugins now give you the ability to customize the header, footer and other parts of your website that are outside the standard post and page areas.

So, if you want to create a new default blog post template, this feature is for you. Although, with Beaver Builder, you’ll need to purchase the Beaver Themer add-on to unlock this functionality.

That’s not all, though. You can also create a custom header and footer for your website, as well as create multiple headers and footers and apply them to different parts of your site. One way to use this functionality would be to create a custom header for your homepage and another one for everywhere else on your site.

Divi Header Editor
Divi (pictured) and Beaver Builder with the Beaver Themer add-on let you create custom headers and footers.

Another powerful aspect of this functionality is that you can design custom archive templates for your blog, and other types of content on your site, such as products or portfolio items.

Divi Archive Template Editor
Both Divi (pictured) and Beaver Builder let you easily control which elements are displayed on your archive pages.

These templates are then used when a list of blog posts or other custom post types are displayed, such as the blog homepage, for example. Again, you can create multiple custom archive templates and then use them on different parts of your site.

Beaver Builder Archive Template Editor
Creating custom blog post archive templates is very straightforward with both Beaver Themer (pictured) and Divi.

With both plugins, you can use conditional logic to control when your custom templates are used. For example, you could create a blog post template or product template that’s only applied to content that’s been assigned to a certain category or published by a specific user.

Beaver Themer Rules
You can use rules to control when and where your theme templates are used with both plugins.

The main difference between how this functionality works and is accessed is that with Divi the Theme Builder feature is part of the core plugin, whereas with Beaver Builder you have to purchase the Beaver Themer add-on for $147.

If you’d like to know more or you’re not sure if you need access to this functionality, you can find out all about it in our recent Beaver Themer review or on the Divi Theme Builder page of the Elegant Themes website.

Both products work best with their official themes, such as the Divi theme and the Beaver Builder theme, but they should also work with third-party themes to different degrees. There’s a list of themes that support Beaver Themer on this page.

Content Templates

When it comes to templates, based on just the numbers, Divi is the winner with 1,290 templates versus the 55 you get with Beaver Builder.

Divi Layout Library
Divi has more than a thousand templates, while Beaver Beaver has 50-plus.

However, unless you’re creating multiple websites for clients on a regular basis, you probably won’t need more than a handful of templates for your site. So, with that in mind, it’s best to see which plugin has the most templates you’ll actually use, rather than picking the one with the most options in general.

Overall, though, the templates from both Divi and Beaver Builder have been designed to a very high standard. So, whichever one you choose, you won’t be disappointed.

Beaver Builder Layout Templates
Both the Beaver Builder (pictured) and Divi layouts cover most of the pages a typical website will need.

However, it’s highly recommended that you check out what’s available with each plugin to see whether Divi or Beaver Builder has the most templates that will work for your project.

Divi Pharmacy Template
The Divi layouts and templates are suitable for a wider range of projects than those from Beaver Builder.

Thankfully, the Divi and Beaver Builder templates are well organized, so you can easily browse them to find out more. Although one advantage Divi has over Beaver Builder is that its templates are grouped in layout packs, with each pack containing multiple layouts that a typical website may need, such as the homepage, about, contact and services page.

Beaver Builder Landing Page Template
Beaver Builder has templates for website homepages, landing pages and other common types of content.

Don’t forget, though, that these templates can all be fully customized through the page builder interfaces. Therefore, if you see one that’s not been built for the type of website you’re creating, such as the yoga homepage template, you can easily adjust it to make it suitable for a marketing agency site, for example.

Verdict: Divi is the winner here due to the number and quality of the templates.

Other Features

Divi and Beaver Builder have a few other features you may find useful that are worth highlighting.

Reusable Content Templates

Both plugins let you save any layouts you create as templates. You can then reuse these templates throughout your site, editing them where necessary. You can also export and import templates between sites, enabling you to share your designs with other users or quickly apply them to a new website you’re working on.

Divi does have some extra template functionality that you don’t get with Beaver Builder. By using the Divi Selective Sync feature, you can push any changes you make to your templates so they’re applied to every page that uses that template. This can be a great time saver if you need to quickly make a change to a header or other template that’s used throughout your site.

Split Testing

One really impressive feature of Divi, where there’s no equivalent in Beaver Builder, is the Divi Leads split testing tool.

While using the page builder, you can select an element, such as an image or button, and then use Divi Leads to create two or more different versions of that element. Divi Leads will then show the different versions to portions of your audience to find out which one they respond to best, based on your desired goal.

Thanks to Divi Leads, you can test your page designs to see which buttons or page designs get the most clicks and take lots of the guesswork out of building an effective website.

If you want to optimize the content you create with Beaver Builder in this way, there’s a third-party add-on that lets you run experiments. However, its price starts at $89.

Email Optin Forms

Both plugins come with optin and signup form modules to help you to grow your email lists. These modules integrate with many of the best email marketing services, so you can start adding forms to your pages that let your visitors subscribe to your list.

Beaver Builder Sign Up Form
Beaver Builder (pictured) and Divi have some useful signup and optin form modules.

While both plugins have this functionality built in, every purchase of Divi also comes with the Elegant Themes Bloom optin form plugin. This plugin has more functionality for creating optin forms, including the ability to add pop-up, slider in, and header bar sign up to your site. To find out more, you can read our full Bloom review.

Social Sharing Icons

If you want to add social sharing icons and buttons to your content, both plugins make this possible. However, the Beaver Builder functionality for this is quite limited, especially compared with the Monarch social sharing plugin that comes with Divi. We’ve reviewed Monarch if you’d like to learn more about this plugin.

Third-Party Add-Ons

As Beaver Builder and Divi are very popular and are two of the best page builders for WordPress, it should come as no surprise to learn that ecosystems of third-party products for both plugins have grown up over the years.

Thanks to this, you can purchase add-ons for both plugins that add more modules, templates and other functionality. So, if there are any features missing from either Divi or Beaver Builder that you feel you may need, it’s well worth checking to see if someone has developed an add-on for either plugin.

Some places to look for third-party add-ons for Beaver Builder and Divi include:

Now we know what these plugins can do, let’s check out how support is delivered, before seeing how much they cost.

Support & Documentation

Both plugins come with lots of useful documentation to help you to get the most out of them. While Beaver Builder knowledgebase is extensive, Divi is well documented, too. However, the Elegant Themes blog is packed with resources and content to give you ideas and inspiration for your Divi-powered website.

When it comes to support, as long as your license is active, you can contact the Elegant Themes and Beaver Builder support staff if you run into any issues.

While Beaver Builder uses a more traditional ticketing system, Elegant Themes has recently moved to a sort of live chat ticketing hybrid system.

Elegant Themes support has been much maligned over the years, and, in an attempt to rectify that, it’s moved away from a discussion forum approach, and now has a system that looks like a live chat, but is managed more like a ticketing system.

While you’re logged in to your account and on the Elegant Themes website, you can submit a question through the live chat widget. However, don’t expect an immediate response. Instead, you’re likely to get a reply a day or so later, although times can vary.

This timeframe is fine, but the fact you’re using a live chat interface makes it feel like you should get a response faster — as is usually the case with live chat. Instead, it would’ve been better if Elegant Themes had moved to a traditional ticketing system to avoid causing disappointment.

Verdict: During testing, the Beaver Builder ticketing support system was more responsive than the Elegant Themes live chat service.

Divi vs Beaver Builder Pricing

When it comes to pricing, Elegant Themes keeps things simple with just two options:

  • $89 for one year of access to support and updates.
  • $249 for lifetime access to support and updates.

Both of the options for purchasing Divi give you access to all of its features and functionality (plus the other products from Elegant Themes).

Things are a bit more complicated with Beaver Builder, thanks to its three purchase options:

  • Standard: $99, includes all features except the Beaver Builder theme and multisite, and white labelling support.
  • Pro: $199, includes all features except white labelling support.
  • Agency: $399, includes all features.

All of the Beaver Builder licenses are valid for one year — after that, you’ll have to renew your license to retain access to updates and support. There is a 40% discount for license renewals.

As mentioned, there’s also the Beaver Themer product for Beaver Builder that lets you customize all of the areas of your WordPress website outside of the post and page areas. The Beaver Themer add-on sells for $147, but similar functionality is included with Divi at no extra cost.

Both Beaver Builder and Divi have 30-day money-back guarantees in place, so you can purchase these plugins risk-free.

Verdict: At $89 for access to all features and the other products from Elegant Themes, Divi is the more affordable option of the two plugins.

Final Thoughts

So, which page builder plugin should you choose, Divi or Beaver Builder?

Unfortunately, as they’re both high-quality options with their own pros and cons, it’s not possible to declare an outright winner. They’re both really good page builders and either one will let you create custom content for your WordPress website.

However, there are some criteria you can use to choose the right one for your project.

First up are the templates. While both plugins come with premium templates, Divi has many more than Beaver Builder. However, it’s better to have a few templates that are perfect for you than lots that aren’t quite right, so be sure to check out both collections and see which set is more relevant to your website.

The user interfaces of both plugins have been well designed, and deliver high levels of creative freedom. However, as mentioned, Divi has a steeper learning curve but is perhaps more powerful, while Beaver Builder is easier to pick up but doesn’t have as many features as Divi.

Thankfully, you can test the interfaces by using the online demos for Beaver Builder and Divi to find the one that’s most compatible with your way of working.

When it comes to value for money, you get a lot more bang for your buck with Divi. For $89, you not only get access to all of the Divi features — including the Theme Builder functionality — but also the Divi theme and a few other useful plugins from Elegant Themes.

If you only need the core functionality of Beaver Builder, then the price of $99 isn’t much more than Divi. However, if you want access to the Beaver Builder theme and the ability to customize other parts of your website, then you’ll have to pay at least $346 for the Pro license and the Beaver Themer add-on.

Personally, I prefer the templates and features of Divi, but the user interface of Beaver Builder. However, if I had to choose one over the other, I’d probably go with Divi. The Divi library of high-quality templates is hard to beat, especially if, like me, you’re not a talented web designer. Also, I find the Divi Leads tool really helpful for optimizing my content, plus the $89 price tag is hard to overlook.

That said, if you’re going to be designing your content from scratch and aren’t interested in a huge selection of templates, Beaver Builder might be the better option, thanks to its more user-friendly interface.

If you’re still not sure, why not try the online demos, or even take advantage of the 30-day money-back guarantees to experience these plugins for yourself?

If you really can’t decide, ultimately, picking either one will get you access to a powerful and relatively easy-to-use page builder plugin for WordPress that won’t disappoint.

Used/using either of these plugin? Thoughts?

By Joe Fylan

Joe is an experienced WordPress user who enjoys sharing the tips and knowledge he's picked up from using this fantastic platform for many years. You can find out more about Joe on his website.
Comments (policy)
  1. Ali Harwood says:

    One of the best/honest reviews of the two page builders I’ve read. I’m a front end web developer who works with mostly small companies. I’ve used Beaver Builder (+ BB Theme, Themer, Beaver Addons) exclusively for about 7 years. Though I’m happy with Beaver Builder, I’m constantly reviewing whether I’m still using the best page builder out there for my clients. Your review helps me confirm that.

    I do not use pre-formatted templates. I create my own user templates from the designs I create. I’m proficient with HTML + CSS, so when I reach the boundaries of customization by the theme/builder, I can have granular control of the features using custom CSS. So having a stable of templates is not important for me.

    One of the biggest things I need from a page-builder, is the ability to train and hand-off the site to my clients – most of whom do not have a technically capable web person on staff. To have a user-friendly interface is of utmost importance for my clients, not so much for me. Of course, I don’t mind a steep learning curve, but my clients do… especially when they’re not editing their site every day. So hands-down Beaver Builder is a better choice for web developers who don’t have super web-savvy clients to train.

    Finally, on price, while Beaver Builder seems more expensive for the complete suite of BB Pro, Themer, plus some kind of add-on like Beaver Addons, the licences for these are for unlimited websites. I currently have about 12 web clients using these plugins, so the cost per client is miniscule when divided by them. Divi might win on cost, I would need the Pro subscription to make it worthwhile.

    That’s my two cents. For the ease of client hand-off and training, and that fact that I like to build unique websites for my clients from scratch (no need for pre-built templates), I’ll stick with Beaver Builder… for now. ; ) Thanks for the review!

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