Divi vs Generatepress, FAQs from a former user.

Divi vs Generatepress, a former user’s experience with both.

I have to say for the outset that I had started out as a Divi user, then migrated right over to GeneratePress and have been a happy customer ever since!

In this post, I am going to go over why I made that move, and why, despite all the advertising and marketing money Divi throws out there, GeneratePress is still a far superior product. Especially for those of us who don’t code.

Is Divi better than GeneratePress?

No, I would say not exactly.

You see, the thing is, there are many products out there that have made it onto the market by riding on the coattails of Divi’s marketing glory. Make no mistake about it, Divi has spent millions to become what it is now.

As a result, there are now hundreds of child themes and plugins all claiming to be better than the other.

In my opinion, as a customer who has been using both products for many years now, I would say that there is no one single product that can top what GeneratePress offers.

There are a couple which come close, but if you’re looking for a balance between design and ease of use, GeneratePress is definitely the way to go. It offers the best balance between the power Divi provides, and accessibility for non-coders.

So how can I be so sure? Let’s take a look at some of the key areas where these two products differ. And why GeneratePress wins out in terms of flexibility and ease of use.

In terms of core features, there is no real difference in both products. As a matter of fact, it is one of the reasons why I initially chose Divi in mid 2018 when I first got started with WordPress themes. Since then however, things have changed by quite a bit.

Divi has been adding so many new features, that now there is a complete mess. For instance, just take a look at the recent addition of ‘Divi Library’. This feature is being touted as one of the best things to have happened since well, Divi.

However, I can’t help but notice that this feature completely disregards how layouts actually work.

A layout created in the library will not be associated with any particular page or post, which means that every time you want to use it, you’ll have to manually assign it to a section via Visual Builder. This completely negates the whole point of having a library in the first place!

It is things like this that make me think the people behind Divi have definitely lost their minds.

Now let’s take a look at a more objective analysis of both products from the perspective of a non-techie, and someone who is quite new to WordPress in general.

In this case, I will have to say that GeneratePress takes it hands down. I used Divi for just a few days and threw up my hands in frustration! Why, I couldn’t even get the site header resized to meet my design expectations.

After going back and forth with their support, I finally had to ask myself what I was paying for?

If I can’t even change the site header on my own website with a premium (paid!) theme, then where else is it going to let me down. By the way, support was useless in that regard!

Although, their sales support was fantastic! When I asked for my money back according to their guarantee, they gave it up, no questions asked! They must get a lot of those…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Divi is super difficult to understand. It just takes time for someone who has never used WordPress before to navigate all its different menus and settings.

Whereas when I switched over to GeneratePress, I was able to create my website within minutes. There are also countless YouTube guides which provide step by step tutorials on how to set up various features and layouts available in GeneratePress.

In fact, does anyone know who that actual developer is for Divi? I didn’t either.

However, the developer for GeneratePress is none other than Tom Usborne. In fact, Tom is still quite active in the GeneratePress support forum personally! How many WordPress themes can claim that?

And if you get stuck, the premium (paid!) support provided by GeneratePress is fast and efficient. With Divi you’re basically left all on your own.

Is GeneratePress faster than Divi?

A website’s page loading speed is always an important issue, not only for the user experience, but for Google’s own search engine ranking algorithms. This is where GeneratePress really shines.

GeneratePress is a lightweight (less than 50KB frontend), fast and SEO-friendly (Search Engine Optimization) WordPress theme. Whereas Divi has a bloated codebase.

For example, on a friend of mine from a forum’s website, which is powered by the Divi theme, the homepage takes over 5 seconds to load on a 4G connection. GeneratePress’ version of this same page loads under 1 second.

GeneratePress also comes with tons of optimization features for users who want or need to take things to the next level. But without loading your website down with its own page builder.

One of Divi’s “selling points”, you end up deactivating or deleting many of their built in page builder’s addons that you don’t even need just to make it load faster.

GeneratePress’ code is also more streamlined without all the extra bloat.

Why is Divi slower than GeneratePress?

A question that pops up sometimes in the Divi community is, “Why is Divi slower than other WordPress themes?”

It’s a good question. Because it shows that people are thinking about their website performance and user experience!

The answer comes down to two things: The UI for building websites in Divi is more complex than the UI for building websites in other themes like GeneratePress. And, that complexity requires more time and effort from your website’s visitors.

The UI complexity of building a website in Divi comes from the large number of modules, settings and configuration options. This requires more user interactions and provides more choices for visitors to make.

As a result, it takes longer to build a website with Divi than it does with other WordPress themes like GeneratePress.

The second reason Divi is slower than other WordPress themes is the amount of code required.

Because Divi provides so many options, it has more code behind the scenes to support those choices and features.

Of course, that additional code takes longer for your website visitors to download (and costs more in bandwidth).

Which is better for beginners: Divi or GeneratePress?

This question is often asked by the people doing research to choose a WordPress theme for their website.

There are pros and cons to both themes, but it’s important to understand that neither theme is difficult to use, nor more or less beginner friendly. Both do take some time to learn because you can make almost anything with either theme.

If you’re a beginner, we’d recommend GeneratePress for its simplicity and focus on providing great content to your visitors.

Theming differences between Divi and GeneratePress

Another thing to consider when comparing themes like Divi and GeneratePress is that they use different approaches to creating websites.

Divi uses what’s called “visual compositing”, which means that you’re actually laying out entire pages visually on the back end (just like with a desktop publishing program, and this approach is sometimes called “WYSIWYG”).

Different from Divi is GeneratePress, where arrangements of content areas and modules are done by adding shortcodes.

Generally speaking, this approach is made for coders and developers. It’s a good option if you want to be able to write your own code.

However, if you don’t write code, nor want to, GeneratePress makes it easy with its drag-and-drop page builder. Only activate what you need, leave off the rest. Simple!

Divi also has some more limitations that come with its visual layout interface.

For example, if you want to re-arrange content areas on your website, it’s not as easy as just dragging and dropping them where you need them to be.

Divi provides more configuration options than GeneratePress, but only for the modules that are activated on your website.

You won’t see options to create content areas that aren’t activated, which is why the process of re-arranging elements on your website is more limited.

Is Divi worth the money?

The final question I hear is, “Is Divi worth the money compared to other WordPress themes?”

This answer comes down to how much time you want to save making your website.

Because of its complexity, Divi can take longer for beginners to use than GeneratePress. If you’re looking for a theme that’s easier to use, I’d recommend GeneratePress. It’s simpler and faster than Divi.

On the other hand, if you’re willing to spend time learning how to build your website with Divi, then it can save you time in the long run.

Divi also has more functionality than GeneratePress, which makes it easier to create almost any type of website you can imagine.

Divi also supports more advanced user interactions with the Visual Builder, like animations and responsive design.

The real question is once again, “How much time (and interest) do you have in learning a theme?

Don’t forget, learning a new theme can be much more difficult and time consuming if they don’t have great support. Especially if you’re a non-coder! Besides, who has the time?

Can I use the Divi theme on multiple websites?

Yes, in fact you can also use GeneratePress on multiple sites as well!

Divi vs Generatepress, conclusions.

To summarize, both products have their pros and cons. So the question of which one is better depends on what you’re looking for as a customer, and your own personal experience using both products.

For those who like to tinker with things and want to be able to create layouts manually – Divi definitely takes the cake. However if you’re new and don’t want to fiddle around, then GeneratePress is the way to go.

At the end of the day, it’s all about what your personal preferences are as a customer. So just pick one that fits in with your needs.