Elementor vs Divi: I Built the Same Site in Each and It Almost Killed Me

Let’s build a website. Let’s build it simple, clean, and professional, like a digital brochure for a fictional financial advisor called Economily.

This site won’t be fancy, but it’ll include everything a basic financial advisor site needs: a hero section with two headlines to grab attention, a tidy presentation of company values (three to be precise), a neat stack of testimonials (again, three), a practical FAQ, a sharp call-to-action, plus a header and footer for good measure. It should be easy, right? Spoiler: it was not.

We aren’t building a fake website for a fake client because we like to punish ourselves. We’re doing this so we can test two of WordPress’s biggest page builders, Elementor Pro and Divi Builder to see how they each handle the basics. We’ll track workflows, quirks, challenges, and timing. By the end, you’ll know which is best for straightforward tasks, the builder that makes building effortless, the tool that lets you focus less on buttons and more on business. And of course, I’ll tell you exactly which one made me want to drive a fist directly through my laptop screen. You also might learn a thing or two about the art and craft of designing a good brochure site.

Our Brochure Site Structure in Elementor and Divi

A good brochure site needs structure. It needs balance. You don’t clutter it. You keep it simple.

Start with a hero section. Two headlines: one big and bold, one smaller for clarity. Grab attention, then explain.

Next, we show visitors who we are. For a financial advisor, that might be its three company values. Then, some social proof in the form of three testimonials. After testimonials, we add some frequently asked questions. And finally a call-to-action. Then we wrap it all together with a global header and footer. This structure: hero, values, testimonials, FAQ, CTA, header, footer is everything our fake financial advisor Economily needs. It’s simple, clear, professional. Exactly what a financial advisor’s brochure site should be. Now let’s go make it.

My (Mostly Fine) Experience with Elementor

Creating the Homepage with Elementor Pro

To build the homepage with Elementor Pro, I first changed the “Page Layout” setting from “Default” to “Elementor Canvas.” This gave me a blank slate with no header, no footer, just clean space.

Then, I began laying out each section of the homepage. Elementor organizes content into “containers.” Adding a container in Elementor is straightforward: just click and drag. Renaming them is intuitive, too, exactly what you’d expect. But sometimes containers end up nested accidentally—a minor annoyance.

Now the hero section. This was simple: two headlines, one big and bold, one smaller and descriptive. Just click, type, style, and we’re done.

Next, company values. Inside a container, I inserted a grid and then dropped in three “Icon Box” elements. Each icon box neatly displayed an icon, title, and text. No fuss, no confusion.

For the testimonials, Elementor’s “Testimonial” element made things easy. I placed three of these into their container and it was pretty easy to click around and edit the contents.

When it came time to make the FAQ, Elementor had the right tool—an “Accordion” element designed exactly for this purpose. I customized the FAQ items quickly, enabled “collapse all” as the default state, and moved on. No issues here either.

Finally, the call to action. Elementor includes a ready-to-use “Call to Action” element. Insert, edit text, style it up, and it’s ready to go.

Overall, building the homepage with Elementor took me about an hour, including learning my way around. This was, in all honesty, my first time actually using Elementor. Not a bad time for my first speed run with a brand new tool (to me, at least).

Creating A Header & Footer with Elementor

Building a global header and footer in Elementor is simple—once you figure out the quirks.

First, the header. Elementor’s Theme Builder (found under Templates > Theme Builder) is the starting point. You click Header, then Add New, and Elementor greets you with a library full of ready-made headers. I skipped those and built mine from scratch.

I began with one main container. Then, inside that, two smaller containers. On the left, I inserted the Site Logo and quickly adjusted the width and alignment to get it just right. On the right, I placed the menu. Smooth enough so far.

But when I hit Publish, expecting the header to appear site-wide, it vanished. Why? Because earlier, I had changed the page layout to Elementor Canvas, a layout that strips away headers and footers. The header only appeared after I switched the page layout back to Default. A small detail, but important—and it cost me some time.

All told, the header took about 1 hour. Most of this was spent troubleshooting that layout snag.

Next came the footer. Again, I used Elementor’s Theme Builder, but this time selected Footer. Another blank canvas, another simple structure. A clean logo, neat social icons, and some copyright text at the bottom. Multiple containers made adjustments easy.

Designing the footer was straightforward, though I paused for inspiration—”Should I add more?”—before deciding less was more. The footer took roughly 30 minutes, mostly design time rather than troubleshooting.

In all, the header and footer took about an hour and a half. Most of this was just me learning through issues as I went. If someone forced me to make another site in Elementor I could probably do it much faster.

Notes on Elementor

Elementor’s user interface makes sense. It’s predictable. Click an element in the “Structure” panel (always on the right, but movable if you prefer), and its settings appear clearly on the left. Every single element follows the same logic: three neat tabs labeled Layout, Style, and Advanced. You always know where to find typography, spacing, or animation effects. No guessing. No surprises. Here’s our resulting site:

But not everything was perfect. Changing the page layout had me scratching my head a bit but in the end it made sense. Overall, Elementor’s strength is consistency.

I spent 2 and a half hours putting our little site together, and it was, for the most part, pretty painless.

Do You Like Pain? You’ll Love Divi!

Creating my Homepage with Divi Builder

Building the homepage with Divi started straightforward: I clicked “Edit with Divi Builder”, skipped the pre-made layouts, and selected “Start Building.” Simple enough, right?

Then came the rows. Divi asks you to define your page style by adding rows. Inside these rows, you add modules like Text, Accordion, or Heading. This felt logical, clean, and structured. But, this was the high watermark.

The minute I started actually editing I could feel my blood pressure rise. Unlike Elementor, Divi’s editing happens in pop-up windows that appear when you click small buttons at the bottom or corner of modules. This is insane. Who wants this? Who is this for? What year is it?

And it just got worse from there. Creating new sections was surprisingly unclear. I couldn’t find a straightforward “add section” button quickly enough, so I duplicated the default section at the beginning. Then, I figured out that I could use the big + button shown for any module/section when highlighted. Not difficult, just tedious and definitely not obvious, at least to me. Divi makes me feel like an idiot.

Some modules, like the CTA, were similar enough to Elementor that building them was quick. Others, like the Icon Box, are unnecessarily complicated. Instead of one ready-made module, I had to build it piece-by-piece: an icon, a heading, and some text. Three separate modules, every single time. Or maybe there’s a way to do it in Divi in one of the several thousand popups and contextual blobs of mystery meat and I just missed it.

Another limitation surfaced in the FAQ. Divi lacked the option to auto-collapse all FAQ accordion items, unlike Elementor. Small detail, yes—but those small details pile up.

From start to finish, the homepage took me over 3 hours in Divi. Long, painful hours that I would very much like to have back. But they are gone, forever.

Creating A Header & Footer with Divi Builder

Divi’s Theme Builder handles headers and footers in one central place (Divi > Theme Builder). Starting the header was easy: click “Build Global Header”, and you’re off. But things got tricky fast.

Unlike Elementor, Divi didn’t let me control basic row direction easily from the UI. To get my logo and menu aligned correctly, I had no choice—I opened up the Custom CSS module and typed some code:

display: flex;

flex-direction: row;

align-items: center; 

justify-content: flex-end;

This worked, but it felt like a workaround. Even then, positioning wasn’t perfect. Was it my CSS? Am I going insane? Nope, that’s just Divi being Divi. I still had to manually tweak menu items with margins, nudging things into place, pixel by pixel. Building the header itself took just 30-40 minutes, but wrestling with CSS and positioning wasted over 2 hours of my life, and probably aged me 10 years.

For the footer, things went smoother. I returned to the Theme Builder, clicked to add a global footer, and adjusted the base row and column layout until it matched my design. This part was a bit less painful, but with the bizarre UI and random buttons to hunt down it took me over an hour just to get a simple footer put together.

In all, creating my header and footer in Divi stole 3 hours from me.

Divi Is a Torture Device Created to Inflict Pain on Web Developers

Divi’s interface is layers of mystery meat hidden behind secret doors. Settings live everywhere. Modules have settings. Rows have settings. Sections have settings. Settings have settings. You jump between them every 5 seconds, switching gears and constantly losing your train of thought. Divi is a living nightmare.

Inside each layer—every module, row, or section—you see three neat tabs: Content, Design, and Advanced. Clear enough, fine. But every with tweak you have to confirm your changes: “Accept” or “Cancel.” Miss clicking “Accept,” and it’s like you’re blocked, you can’t do anything else until you either accept the changes or disregard them. And it’s easy to miss this step because the entire interface is a gigantic pile of nag boxes. Over and over again I missed to click on the “Save Changes” button and thought my browser was frozen and every time I felt dumber and dumber. Divi is demoralizing. And why do I need to confirm every change?

Overall, yes, you can make websites with Divi. People who use Divi are not idiots. The people that made Divi are not idiots. I’m sure if someone forced me to I could learn how to use Divi and be perfectly productive with it. But why? Why would anyone want to suffer needlessly?

Do you like to feel stupid and annoyed? If yes, choose Divi. Here’s our resulting site:

It took me over 6 of the longest and most obnoxious hours of my life to make the simplest and dumbest homepage you can imagine. I didn’t ask for much.

Quick Comparative Analysis

Elementor and Divi approach web-building differently. Elementor keeps things tidy. Everything you need sits neatly in a fixed sidebar on the left side of the screen. You click an element, and instantly its settings appear. Layout, Style, Advanced—always the same tabs, always predictable.

Divi takes a different path. It’s all front-end, all visual, all floating controls and popups. It feels dynamic but also scattered. It’s powerful, sure, but less intuitive when you first dive in.

Time-wise, Elementor wins clearly. Building the homepage took about 1 hour, including learning the ropes. The header needed another hour, mostly troubleshooting a layout issue. The footer? Just 1 hour more. Divi demanded more time. The homepage took about 3 hours, and the header—fighting with custom CSS and margins—took another 2 hours. The footer matched Elementor’s timing at around 1 hour. Here’s a quick graph showing how long it took me to build these websites:

Flexibility? Divi’s got plenty. Maybe too much. The layered approach of each module, row, and section having its own settings offers impressive control but quickly becomes overwhelming. Elementor sacrifices some depth but delivers clarity. It feels unified. Adjustments are easy. You know exactly where to click, every single time.

Overall, if you prefer a smooth learning curve, predictable layouts, and fewer clicks, Elementor fits perfectly. It’s streamlined, simple, direct. But if you’re after deep customization and are willing to manage multiple settings panels, floating popups, and maybe even some custom CSS, Divi’s your tool. It’s robust, flexible, and powerful. But that power comes with patience and practice.

The Verdict: Click with Elementor, Cry with Divi

Both Elementor and Divi can build a good website. They both deliver the essential web pieces: hero sections, values, testimonials, FAQs, headers, and footers. But they do it differently. Very differently.

Elementor makes things easy. It’s direct. Simple. Clear. You know exactly where things are: a sidebar with neat tabs—Layout, Style, Advanced. Everything feels familiar fast, even on the first try. It took me about 2 hours total (homepage, header, footer), and nothing felt particularly complicated. Small confusions, yes—but solved quickly.

Divi is settings stacked on settings—modules, rows, sections, each demanding attention. Popups appear constantly, asking for acceptance of every tiny tweak. The homepage alone cost me 3 hours. Adding in header and footer pushed the total to over 6 hours. It was honestly one of the worst experiences with software that I have had in years. It brought me back to my days of wrestling with Dreamweaver.

The takeaway is simple:

Do you need a quick way to build a simple site? Elementor works. It’s fine. It keeps things predictable and it gets you online fast.

Do you like pain and suffering? Divi delivers. Get ready for a steep learning curve, the most frustrating UI you have ever seen, and absolutely no pay off. If you invest the time to learn Divi, guess what? At best you will just be able to do what every other builder on the market can do faster and easier.

Oh, and they are replacing the entire thing with a new UI at some point in the near (or distant?) future so you can learn a whole new and potentially bizarre UI.

Just to illustrate how painful my experience with Divi was, I also created a pain level graph: