First of all, welcome to this site!
It’s something I’ve decided to build as a test site at first, but then I found out that I can do a whole much better than that, and I’ve decided to check if and why Divi 5 would be a good choice.
What is Divi?
I’m quite sure you’re familiar with the concept of WordPress Themes. And Divi is one of the big players in this field. It’s an all-round theme, filled with functionalities and perks that (almost) make it universal. And with the help of thousands of add-ons and plugins from 3rd party developers, it is close to that.
If you want to read more about Divi yourself, here’s the link to Elegant Themes.
Elegant Themes started as a theme producer; they’ve built over 80 themes before Divi was introduced. That’s quite a number, and it signals they were well aware of WordPress’ possibilities. Then someday they decided that they want a theme that would offer lots of customization options, and Divi was born.
How did divi become a thing?
Divi started a a normal WordPress theme, not a builder, much less a framework. At first, its major goal was to offer as many customization options as possible, and it did well. The idea was to create modules for different things that compose a website, like blogs, portfolio, etc. What they did not envision is to have hundreds of settings available for any of those modules, not hundreds of layouts for each module, but that’s exactly what showed possible during development. Since it’s nearly impossible to envision such a thing, it’s quite a success what Divi has become.
At some point Divi theme was the most popular WordPress theme in the world. Keep in mind I’m are saying “theme” and not “page builder”, because that would mean a a thing that’s a little different. For instance, the Elementor builder plugin would have more installs than the Divi Theme and these stats can easily be checked on websites such as BuiltWith.com. However, when saying this, we also have to point out that Divi was never offered for free, while the free Elementor plugin is still available today and this means it’s a little more available.
The popularity of Divi was made possible by Elegant Themes’ visionary ideas to completely change the definition of editors or page builders as we know it.
The switch from a theme to a framework
Like already mentioned, somewhere on the way Divi became a framework that had everything included. That means it had what we expect from a theme, but also a page builder and a complete API layer that enabled 3rd party developers to join the game and create add-ons for specific needs. Today, there are literally thousands of solutions for almost any scenario available; Elegant Themes has its own marketplace and many more are available from the developers themselves.
So whatever you need, it’s likely you’ll find it with a little searching online.
What cannot be done with an out-of-the-box solutions can usually be done using some CSS and programming (Javascript, PHP).
This all means Divi is a theme for almost anyone, from beginners who can buid a website using the visual builder, as well as more experienced developers that can add their own touch to everything.
With Divi 4, which was a major upgrade, the Theme Builder was included. This actually enabled everyone to create templates to be used with specific pages and posts, literally creating a platform completely to their liking.
Divi’s pain points
There was one thing Divi always suffered from, especially without proper optimization – speed. It’s all becase – like most other solutions – it’s based on shortcodes, which are one of WordPress’ strongpoints. They enable anything to be displayed anywhere (well, almost…) and anyone can use them easily. They take processor power to be operated, though, as WordPress logic has to be called on and on.
However, as Divi became more complex, the shortcodes started to create problems. Suddenly, a simple shared hosting was not good enough anymore, because sites built this way simply became slow. And we all know what a slow website does to a business, don’t we?
Numerous solutions were introduced and tested, like Divi-specific cache plugins. But since the main bottleneck is within WordPress itself, only so much could be achieved and more complex websites started to show a speed difference that was not easily ignored anymore.
Also, the users requested more and more features all the time.
At some point, Elegant Themes simply discovered that they were stuck. So, the team at Elegant Themes asked themselves why Divi 5 would be needed and the plannig phase began.
Plans…
At the end of 2022, Elegant Themes (Nick Roach) published a post about the future plans and Divi 5.
And we’re all on fire since then.
One major point Divi 5 was about to solve was the use of the mentioned shortcodes – there will be none, they said. It’s gonna be as fast as they come, they said. And, it’s gonna take time, they also said that.
Plus, Divi 5 is going to introduce a whole new level of website building by using concepts that are not usual in WordPress themes creation.
Divi 5 Development
These days, over 2 years later, Divi 5 is at its Alpha version. It’s close to reaching the Beta phase, which should be much shorter time to wait.
Now, over 2 years in development may seem abnormally long. Not really, I’d say.
The first thing they had to do was to create a stable environment, a platform that would support every idea they had, while supporting older shortcode-using solutions. Even more, a system that enables a painless transition from the old system.
Only when this was ready the developers could start building modules and specific stuff around it. With the Alpha, Elegant Themes gave this system to the users to find the remaining bugs and test the platform as much as possible.
And it’s working. Since the Alpha was opened in 2024, thusands of bugs have been sorted out in the platform itself. And since Alpha 8, new features started showing up. Now, there’s a typical 2 week timeframe when Divi 5 Alpha is being updated, bringing something new every time.
According to what Nick Roach said, we can expect the last additions within the Summer. These would be the Woocommerce modules, and the reason is they are so much based on every other functionality. Once these are out, the official Beta phase will begin, meaning possibly a few months to the full version.
Let’s see.
Why Divi 5?
Well, the shortest answer to the question why Divi 5 would be that I wanted to test Divi 5 Alpha also. So I’ve set up this WordPress installation on my hosting and started playing.
I must say I’m still having some troubles with the differences, as I’ve been using Divi for over 6 years now and got profoundly used to the perks of the editor and the system itself. With Divi 5, many of these became obsolete, because the framework is different.
Oh, the side effect? I’m noticing I have troubles editing my older sites from time to time. It’s really easy to get used to the speed Divi 5 offers, you know. So there are moments when asking myself why Divi 5 turns into asking why not Divi5.
Anyway, I found out that this site could serve as a sort of demonstration site for Divi 5. So, my plans changed from “let’s play” to “let’s show what can be done and how” in a very short time, I think somewhere between editing my first post (which is gone by now, BTW) and trying to set up the basic settings.
I’ll try to document some of the new features, it not all, that Divi 5 brings to the table. And, I confess, I will try to make you choose Divi for your website development needs, whether you just need a personal website or you’re planning to go full agency. Therefore, yes, many (if not all) the links you will encounter in my posts will be affiliate links and you’re more than welcome to use them when purchasing.
Why Divi 5: Conclusion
Divi 5 is one of the most refreshing things I saw happen since I’ve discovered WordPress many years ago. Which answers my question, why Divi 5. Of course, presently I can only judge the plans and promises, but since I’ve started testing it I’m also more and more becoming a believer.
In my next posts and this website as a whole, I’ll try to show off the Divi 5 in whole, but also follow the 3rd party add-ons development, to see where Divi 5 can get us and why Divi 5 would make it as a chosen theme.
As such, this website is about to change frequently, both in design and features. I’m also planning to add some Divi 4 tools, simply to test the backward compatibility of Divi 5, which is one of the promises Elegant Themes made.
I also plan to include some fast tutorials and tips about Divi, CSS and JS snippets, and everything else I’ve encountered during my relationship with Divi.
So, stay tuned.
