Divi and Avada are the two biggest all-in-one WordPress ecosystems. Divi comes from Elegant Themes and has been around since 2013. Avada sits at the top of ThemeForest with over a million sales. Both bundle a theme, builder, templates, and marketing features into a single system. Both cost around $60-70 one-time.
In this article, we’ll compare them across various aspects to help you decide which one is better.
Here’s a quick look at how Divi and Avada compare across key features.
| Feature | Divi | Avada |
| Built-in Builder | ✅ | ✅ |
| Multiple Builder Support | ❌ | ✅ |
| WooCommerce Elements | ✅ | ✅ |
| Prebuilt Websites | ✅ | ✅ |
| AI Tools | ✅ | ✅ |
| Marketing Plugins | ✅ | ❌ |
| White Label | ❌ | ✅ |
| Performance Features | ✅ | ✅ |
| Learning Curve | Moderate | Moderate |
Before we compare these themes side by side, let’s look at what each one actually is and how they approach building WordPress sites.
Divi is both a theme and a page builder developed by Elegant Themes. It comes with its own visual editor that lets you design pages in real time without touching code.
The ecosystem goes beyond just building pages. Divi includes Bloom for email opt-ins and Monarch for social sharing, both bundled at no extra cost. Divi AI generates text, images, and layouts directly inside the builder. Divi Cloud lets you save and share layouts across multiple sites. Divi Leads provides built-in A/B testing for comparing design variations.
The pricing is flexible. You can pay $89 per year for ongoing access or $249 for lifetime access with no renewal fees.
Divi 5 is an upcoming major release based on a new architecture that replaces shortcodes with JSON-based storage, which keeps your content cleaner if you ever switch themes.
Avada is also both a theme and a builder, built by ThemeFusion. It is the top-selling theme on ThemeForest with over a million sales and a 4.78-star rating across tens of thousands of reviews.
The $69 one-time purchase covers everything. You get the Avada Live visual builder, 38 dedicated WooCommerce elements, a form builder, popup builder, and bundled premium plugins like Slider Revolution and LayerSlider. There’s no annual renewal required for core features.
What sets Avada apart is the White Label feature that lets agencies rebrand the builder and admin interface for client work. This turns Avada into a custom solution rather than an off-the-shelf theme.
Both builders promise a smooth editing experience, but they organize things differently. Let’s look at how each one works in practice.
Divi uses a front-end visual editor where you design directly on the page. The changes you make appear instantly as you build, which makes the workflow feel responsive and immediate.
The interface centers around floating panels that stay with you as you scroll. At the bottom of the screen sits the purple button, which expands to reveal essential tools. From here you access page settings, revision history, portability for importing and exporting layouts, and responsive previews for different devices.
The Layers View acts as your structural navigator. It lists every element on your page in a searchable hierarchy, making it easy to find and select items even when they’re hidden behind other content. This is especially useful on pages with complex nesting.
For beginners who find the visual canvas overwhelming, Wireframe Mode strips everything down to simple structural blocks. Images, videos, and animations don’t render, so you can focus purely on layout without distraction or browser lag.
The upcoming Divi 5 version is introducing Panel Docking, which lets you snap floating panels to the side of the screen. This gives you a fixed sidebar workflow similar to Elementor, reducing the visual clutter of multiple popups.
The Setup Wizard guides you through registering your purchase, choosing between prebuilt layouts or starting fresh, and configuring your site’s initial settings.
Avada offers two editing modes. Avada Live is the front-end visual builder where you see changes as you work. The Avada Builder is a backend wireframe editor where you build using containers, columns, and elements, then preview results in a separate view.
When using Avada Live, the workspace splits into two areas. The Top Bar stays fixed as you scroll and gives you quick access to saving, layout clearing, the Navigator, Library, Global Options, and responsive breakpoint switching. The Sidebar populates on the left when you select an element, showing granular controls organized by category.
The Navigator tool handles complex pages by listing elements in a collapsible hierarchy. You can drag to reorder items, rename containers for clarity, and quickly access specific element settings without hunting through the visual canvas.
The Setup Wizard runs on first installation and walks you through registration, choosing between prebuilt websites or building from scratch, selecting color palettes and typography, and generating core pages like home, blog, and shop.
Avada’s Global Options panel covers site-wide settings, including layout, typography, colors, and responsive behavior. Everything connects through one central system, which keeps your brand consistent but requires time to learn the full scope.
This is a tie. Divi’s floating interface and Wireframe Mode suit visual thinkers who want an uncluttered canvas. Avada’s dual-builder approach and Navigator suit users who prefer structural control and detailed settings.
Both themes give you extensive control over how your site looks and functions. Here’s how they compare.
Divi ships with over 40 native content modules for building pages. You get text, images, buttons, sliders, galleries, pricing tables, contact forms, and countdown timers all built in. For WooCommerce stores, you get an additional 25 dedicated modules, including Add to Cart, Product Rating, Product Images, and Cart Totals.
Each module organizes settings across three tabs. Content handles what the element displays. Design covers typography, colors, spacing, and animations. Advanced gives you custom CSS, z-index control, and visibility rules for specific devices.
The Divi Library lets you save entire layouts, individual sections, rows, or modules, and reuse them across your site. Saved items export as JSON files, making it easy to move them to other projects.
Divi Presets take this further by letting you save style configurations for individual modules. Set a button style once, apply it to every button on your site, and change them all with a single update. This keeps your brand consistent without repeating work.
The Theme Builder gives you visual control over headers, footers, 404 pages, blog layouts, and archive pages. You can pull dynamic content like post titles and featured images directly into your templates. Conditional assignments let you show different layouts based on post type, category, or user role.
Custom CSS is available on any module, row, or section. There’s also a built-in code editor for injecting HTML, CSS, or JavaScript across your site.
Avada includes over 120 design elements covering everything from basic text and images to complex carousels, counters, and timeline layouts. Every element connects to the Global Options system, meaning typography, colors, and spacing automatically inherit your site-wide settings.
The Global Options panel is where site-wide styling lives. You set your color palette, choose typography for headings and body text, control site width and layout ratios, and configure responsive breakpoints. When you update a global color, it propagates across every element using it.
Avada Post Cards let you design custom layouts for how posts, products, and custom content display in grids. You build the card structure using the visual editor, place dynamic elements that pull data from your database, and then save it to the library. The same card design then applies everywhere that content type appears.
The Layouts Builder handles headers, footers, and other structural areas. You can create unlimited variations and assign them using conditional logic. A specific header for product pages, a different footer for your blog, or a custom layout just for your homepage.
The Off-Canvas Builder creates popups, sliding bars, and flyout menus without a third-party plugin. You have full control over triggers including page load, time on page, scroll depth, exit intent, and cart activity. Rules let you limit displays by user role, device type, or number of page views.
For agencies, the White Label feature removes Avada branding from the builder and admin interface. This lets you present it as a custom solution to clients without them knowing it’s a commercial theme.
Avada wins here. The 120+ design elements, and Global Options system give you more structural control than Divi’s module-based approach. Both themes are highly customizable, but Avada’s centralized styling system makes site-wide consistency easier to maintain.
Speed tests tell you how pages perform under controlled conditions, but real-world results depend on what you’re building. Here’s how Divi and Avada compare.
Divi’s performance depends on how you build. The visual builder generates CSS and JavaScript for every module you use on a page. Simple pages with a few elements load quickly. Complex pages with sliders, animations, and nested sections add weight fast.
The legacy architecture relies on shortcodes, which means content stored in your database includes markup that gets processed every time a page loads. This isn’t a problem for basic pages, but it compounds as you add more elements.
Critical CSS isn’t generated automatically in standard Divi. You can enable modular loading to only load assets for widgets you actually use, but the foundation carries more overhead than lightweight themes.
With proper optimization, Divi sites typically score in the mid-80s on mobile and low-90s on desktop in PageSpeed tests. A standard page with basic modules measured around 450 KB with 26 HTTP requests loading in roughly 1.4 seconds.
Elegant Themes is working on Divi 5, a major architectural update aimed at improving performance significantly. The new version replaces shortcodes with JSON-based storage and adds dynamic CSS loading. If performance is a top priority, worth keeping an eye on this release.
Avada addresses its historical reputation for bloat through a dedicated Performance Wizard built into the ecosystem. The wizard scans your site to identify which of the 120+ design elements, fonts, and icon sets are actually in use. You can then disable unused features to prevent their CSS and JavaScript from loading.
The theme automatically generates Critical CSS. Styles needed for above-the-fold content are inlined directly into the page head, with remaining CSS deferred to the footer. This eliminates render-blocking issues and lets the top of your page load almost instantly.
Image lazy loading comes native, with the ability to skip lazy loading for hero images so they preload immediately for better LCP scores. The video facade option improves load times by only loading video players when users actually click play.
With the Performance Wizard enabled, Avada sites typically score around 87 on mobile and 94 on desktop in PageSpeed tests. A basic page measured around 450 KB with 24 HTTP requests loading in roughly 1.4 seconds.
Avada takes this one. The Performance Wizard helps close the gap that its feature-rich codebase creates. Divi’s current architecture carries more overhead, but the upcoming Divi 5 promises significant improvements.
Building an online store requires your theme or builder to handle products, checkout, and conversions well. Here’s how Divi and Avada compare.
Divi includes 25 WooCommerce modules for building custom product pages, cart layouts, and checkout flows. Each module connects to your product data automatically, pulling prices, images, variations, and reviews directly from WooCommerce.
The Theme Builder lets you design custom templates for single products, archives, cart pages, and checkout. You can build these visually using the same drag-and-drop interface you use for regular pages. Conditional logic applies templates based on product type, category, or user role.
For product filtering, you’ll need to rely on third-party plugins since Divi doesn’t include native AJAX filters. The same goes for advanced features like quick view or wishlists.
The Divi Leads system works for WooCommerce, too. You can set up split tests comparing different product layouts, pricing displays, or checkout flows and let Divi track which version converts better.
Avada includes 17 dedicated WooCommerce elements covering every part of the shopping experience. The library includes Product Grid, Product Carousel, Add to Cart, Price, Rating, Featured Products Slider, Cart Table, Cart Totals, Checkout Billing, and Checkout Shipping.
The WooCommerce Builder gives you visual control over your entire store without touching code. You can design custom shop pages, individual product layouts, cart pages, checkout flows, and order confirmation pages all within the same builder interface.
For filtering, Avada includes native AJAX-driven product filters built into the ecosystem. Customers can refine searches by category, brand, price, attributes, or rating and see results update instantly without page reloads. This works without a separate plugin.
The Off-Canvas Builder creates quick view popups that let shoppers view product details and add items to the cart without leaving the main page. Mini cart elements place a compact cart anywhere on your site for easy access.
Post Card Archives handles product grids with dynamic rendering. This keeps the system performant even with large catalogs by only loading what’s visible on screen.
Avada wins here. The dedicated elements, native AJAX filters, and quick view functionality give it a more complete WooCommerce toolkit out of the box. Divi’s 25 modules cover the basics, but Avada’s deeper integration with the ecosystem makes it better suited for serious online stores.
Both themes come with extensive template libraries to help you launch faster. Here’s how they compare.
Divi gives you access to over 370 pre-made layout packs covering a wide range of industries and project types. Each pack includes multiple pages like home, about, contact, and services, all designed to work together.
The layouts export as JSON files through the portability system, making it easy to move designs between sites or share with clients. You can also save individual sections, rows, or modules to your personal library for reuse.
The template library updates regularly with new designs. You can filter by category, newest additions, and switch between list and grid layout.
Avada hosts 112 pre-built websites in its library, all professionally designed and ready to import. Each demo comes with preconfigured colors, typography, page layouts, and placeholder content.
Avada Studio adds over 600 design blocks, including headers, footers, containers, and individual elements. These blocks are style-neutral, meaning they automatically inherit your site’s global settings when imported. This cuts down customization time significantly.
The import process lets you choose what to bring in. You can import everything, specific page types only, or remove previously imported content. The wizard handles plugin installation automatically so your demo works as intended.
Divi wins on quantity with over 350 layout packs compared to Avada’s 112 pre-built websites. Avada wins on quality with style-neutral blocks that adapt to your brand faster. For most users, either library is sufficient to launch a professional site quickly.
How well a tool works with the rest of your WordPress setup matters. Here’s how Divi and Avada handle integrations.
Divi brings its own suite of marketing and productivity features rather than relying on third-party plugins for common tasks.
Bloom handles email opt-ins and lead generation. It comes with built-in templates for popups, fly-ins, inline forms, and content gates. Monarch takes care of social sharing with customizable buttons that can appear as floating sidebars, over media, or as automatic pop-ups.
Divi Cloud extends the library system across multiple sites. You can save layouts to the cloud and access them from any site connected to your account. This saves time when managing several client projects.
Divi AI plugs directly into the visual builder. You can generate text, create images, and write custom CSS without leaving the editor. The AI has been trained on Divi’s module codebase, so it understands how the builder structures its output.
For dynamic content, Divi works with Advanced Custom Fields, Toolset, and Metabox. You can pull database-driven information into your layouts for custom post types, listings, and portfolios.
Avada takes an all-in-one approach by bundling tools that other themes require separate purchases for.
Slider Revolution and LayerSlider both come included with your purchase. You also get a native form builder that handles contact forms, multi-step surveys, and newsletter signups without a third-party plugin.
The Off-Canvas Builder creates popups, sliding bars, and flyout menus directly within Avada. This eliminates the need for a separate popup plugin.
For dynamic content, Avada integrates with Advanced Custom Fields and similar plugins. Post Cards and Post Card Archives pull data from your database and display it using your custom-designed layouts.
Avada supports multiple page builder formats. You can use the native Avada Builder, or switch to Elementor or WPBakery if you prefer. This flexibility means you’re not locked into a single editing experience.
The White Label feature works at the admin level, letting you rebrand the builder interface and WordPress dashboard for client presentations.
Avada wins here. The bundled Slider Revolution, LayerSlider, form builder, and popup system represent significant value without requiring additional purchases. Divi’s marketing stack with Bloom and Monarch is strong, but Avada’s toolset covers more use cases natively.
Both themes offer strong value, so let’s take a look at how they approach pricing.
| Plan | Price | Includes |
| Yearly | $89/year | Divi, Extra, Bloom, Monarch, updates, support |
| Lifetime | $249 one-time | Lifetime access, no renewal fees |
The yearly plan covers unlimited websites. The lifetime plan eliminates recurring costs entirely, making it the better long-term investment for agencies and freelancers managing multiple sites.
| Plan | Price | Includes |
| Single Site | $69 one-time | Theme, lifetime updates, 6 months support |
| Extended | $2950 one-time | Commercial license with an option to charge clients for usage. |
The one-time purchase covers everything. No annual renewal is required for core features. Support renewal after 6 months costs around $50-60 if you want to extend it.
This is a tie. Divi’s lifetime plan at $249 is excellent for agencies managing multiple sites. Avada’s $69 one-time cost is hard to beat for single-site owners. Divi wins on value for agencies, Avada wins on upfront cost for individuals.
Both themes do exactly what they promise. The question is which ecosystem fits how you work.
Divi makes sense if marketing features matter to you. Bloom and Monarch handle email opt-ins and social sharing without hunting for separate plugins. Divi AI generates content directly inside the builder. The lifetime plan at $249 works out cheaper than annual subscriptions if you’re managing multiple sites.
Avada makes sense if WooCommerce is your focus. The 38 dedicated elements, native AJAX filters, and quick view functionality give store owners more out of the box. The bundled Slider Revolution and LayerSlider save you from buying them separately. The White Label feature is valuable for agencies presenting work to clients.
Choose Divi if you want a marketing-focused ecosystem with AI tools and bundled social and email plugins. It’s ideal for agencies, marketers, and freelancers who value an all-in-one workflow.
Choose Avada if you’re building an online store and want the most complete WooCommerce toolkit without buying separate plugins. It’s ideal for store owners and agencies who need native performance optimization and client-friendly branding.
Is Avada worth the money?
The $69 one-time purchase includes lifetime updates, 112 pre-built websites, 38 WooCommerce elements, a form builder, popup system, and bundled premium plugins like Slider Revolution and LayerSlider. For a single site, this covers what would cost significantly more in separate plugin subscriptions. Agencies get additional value from the White Label feature for client work. The learning curve is steeper than simpler themes, but the value at that price point is strong.
Which theme builder is best for WordPress?
Here are our picks for the best WordPress theme builders:
Is Avada a one-time purchase?
Avada costs $69 as a one-time purchase with lifetime updates included. There’s no annual renewal required for core features. Support renewal after the initial 6 months costs around $50-60 if you want to extend it.
