Divi vs. ExpressionEngine

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Divi
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
More than just a WordPress theme, Divi is a website building platform that replaces the standard WordPress post editor with a new visual editor. The vendor states it can be enjoyed by design professionals and newcomers alike, and is designed to give users the ability to create spectacular designs with ease and efficiency.
$89
per year
ExpressionEngine
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
ExpressionEngine is a content management system from EllisLab in 2002, a successor to pMachine Pro, a blogging system, which is written in object-oriented PHP and uses MySQL for data storage. ExpressionEngine is their flagship Content Delivery Platform.
$249
per year
Pricing
DiviExpressionEngine
Editions & Modules
Divi
$89
per year
Divi Pro
$277
per year
Divi Lifetime + Pro Services
$297
today + 212 each following year
License
$299.00
One Time Fee
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DiviExpressionEngine
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsLifetime subscriptions are also available for a one time fee.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DiviExpressionEngine
Features
DiviExpressionEngine
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Divi
8.7
8 Ratings
6% above category average
ExpressionEngine
10.0
35 Ratings
20% above category average
Role-based user permissions8.78 Ratings10.035 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Divi
6.5
8 Ratings
18% below category average
ExpressionEngine
9.3
28 Ratings
18% above category average
API9.37 Ratings9.024 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language3.76 Ratings9.622 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Divi
8.7
10 Ratings
11% above category average
ExpressionEngine
8.9
35 Ratings
13% above category average
WYSIWYG editor10.09 Ratings9.232 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness8.27 Ratings10.034 Ratings
Admin section9.210 Ratings9.234 Ratings
Page templates8.610 Ratings8.029 Ratings
Library of website themes8.110 Ratings7.011 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design9.310 Ratings9.817 Ratings
Publishing workflow9.98 Ratings9.027 Ratings
Form generator6.710 Ratings9.220 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Divi
7.3
9 Ratings
2% below category average
ExpressionEngine
9.4
35 Ratings
23% above category average
Content taxonomy8.38 Ratings10.027 Ratings
SEO support6.38 Ratings10.027 Ratings
Bulk management4.85 Ratings9.229 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions8.08 Ratings8.034 Ratings
Community / comment management8.96 Ratings9.831 Ratings
Best Alternatives
DiviExpressionEngine
Small Businesses
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
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Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
DiviExpressionEngine
Likelihood to Recommend
9.8
(9 ratings)
10.0
(63 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(36 ratings)
Usability
9.4
(5 ratings)
5.3
(6 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
2.8
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
6.2
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
6.9
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
DiviExpressionEngine
Likelihood to Recommend
Elegant Themes
Divi is great if you build multiple websites for clients; however, I'm not sure it is cost-effective if you only make a single site.
Read full review
Open Source
ExpressionEngine is a very powerful and flexible content management system. It can handle a simple small business website all the way to a large corporation's website. If you are a business with multiple websites ExpresionEngine can handle that as well with it's Multiple Site Manager. I think ExpressionEngine would be less appropriate for a global large scale business with a magnitude of sites with different regions and languages.
Read full review
Pros
Elegant Themes
  • It has a very easy-to-use and extremely complete block editor.
  • It offers many templates that you can use as a base for your website.
  • Customer service has been fast and effective whenever I have needed it.
  • Tiene un editor de bloques muy sencillo de usar y extremadamente completo.
  • Ofrece muchas plantillas que puedes utilizar como base para tu web.
  • La atención al cliente ha sido rápida y efectiva siempre que la he necesitado
Read full review
Open Source
  • Content structuring. You can set up channels and fields to hold just about any kind of information imaginable; text, images, videos, numbers, code, etc. You can structure this information any way you want and in any order. You literally create your own information database just the way you want it using a clear, easy online interface.
  • Template system. Utter freedom. Need I say more?
  • Exensible. There are a lot of add-ons, extensions, and other external modules that extend the core functionality of ExpressionEngine. Need a user management system? Check out the User module at http://solspace.com.
Read full review
Cons
Elegant Themes
  • The load time of the builder could be faster. On some websites it takes a long time to load, and may crash the page. (I believe they've said they're working on this stability issue.)
  • Warnings on updates if they're difficult for some sites to run. I have one website that has crashed more than once from Divi's theme updates. I always back it up before the update so I restore the site, but this is still a bit of an inconvenience.
  • Integrated (or more clearly marked) tutorials within the builder. I migrate site maintenance and ownership to clients after the site is complete and some could use refreshers within the builder on what happens where i.e. the difference between a section, row, module.
Read full review
Open Source
  • For me, one of the greatest strengths of ExpressionEngine is also one of their weaknesses. There are so many add-ons available (some free, some not) for ExpressionEngine to allow you to do just about anything you want. However, the more add-ons that you use the more you have to deal with when performing updates. For instance, is the add-on compatible with the new version of ExpressionEngine - or even another add-on? What if that add-on gets abandoned by the developer - is there another that can perform the same functionality?
  • I think that ExpressionEngine needs to offer more out of the box than it does. Yes, you can get add-ons for just about anything but this adds to the cost. I have a list of add-ons that I use on almost every site which can raise the cost of getting started with a new site by $100-300. So add that to the cost of a license and you're at $400-600 and you haven't even started working on it yet. For instance, I shouldn't have to buy an add-on to allow me to customize the menu for my end-users.
  • The membership management feature is seriously lacking. Fortunately, there are add-ons (for an additional cost) to allow you to manage things better.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Elegant Themes
No answers on this topic
Open Source
I'm satisfied with the way that my site runs on EE. My primary concern is that support is now a profit center for EE's publisher and so they've consequently gutted their community support boards. However, a good EE community is developing at StackExchange. At this stage, I don't think that EE is a good choice for an individual site owner. WordPress or SquareSpace would be a better choice unless you have a budget for support.
Read full review
Usability
Elegant Themes
Divi is overall a great tool to use - I think I would need to spend a little more time to dig into the tool to provide more long term feedback.
Read full review
Open Source
ExpressionEngine is very powerful and flexible. With this flexibility comes a bit of a learning curve. There are some great online resources for getting up to speed with EE, but the control panel can be a bit daunting. A lot of EE's installation process involves settings, configurations and flipping of switches. It is tedious, but well worth it as you ultimately have a very robust, secure and scalable CMS. Also, as of version 2.9.2, the control panel isn't responsive natively. You'll want to have a big enough screen to see the full control panel UI. Personally, I think the control panel would benefit from a major overhaul. It would be nice to see the colors and UI controls "modernized" and be able to more effectively customize the layout. Yes, some of this is built-in, and there are third-party add-ons to help, but maybe we'll see more refinement in future versions.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Elegant Themes
No answers on this topic
Open Source
Never experienced an issue like this with it
Read full review
Performance
Elegant Themes
No answers on this topic
Open Source
The admin section would slow to a crawl the larger the tag section grew. There were many areas where better pagination would've helped improve performance. Nothing complicated, which made the lag so frustrating
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Support Rating
Elegant Themes
No answers on this topic
Open Source
I have personally never found any complications when trying to receive support from EllisLab in regards to ExpressionEngine when using the support plans they offer. I have always been responded to promptly and received satisfactory help with whatever my needs were in an extremely timely manner. This makes rating the support offered an easy job for me
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Implementation Rating
Elegant Themes
No answers on this topic
Open Source
After installing the system a few times, you can see a pattern of things that have to be done to work the way you want them (settings, paths, etc.). By knowing what you want, you can put together some scripts that prepare the file system for installation, adjust post installation configuration settings, and install initial templates.
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Alternatives Considered
Elegant Themes
I find Elementor very clunky and find Divi much more intuitive.
Also we purchased a lifetime license for Divi and can use it on unlimited websites, while Elementor there is a yearly subscription per site
Read full review
Open Source
ExpressionEngine is vastly more flexible than any other content management system I have used to date and the quality of the add-ons are significantly higher than what you find in other directories. The ExpressionEngine community is also very willing and helpful with if you have any questions or run into any issues.
Read full review
Scalability
Elegant Themes
No answers on this topic
Open Source
Maybe it's scale-able from the content user perspective, but it was very limited from the programmers perspective. So many custom hacks were necessary that it reached a point it would be impossible to upgrade to a newer version
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Return on Investment
Elegant Themes
  • Higher conversion rate
  • Theres no needed more tools
  • Ive got rid of a CTA tool since with Divi i can make them. Is not that easy, but is functional
Read full review
Open Source
  • Being able to be recognized as a leader within the ExpressionEngine development community has led to us being sought out by those customers seeking expert guidance.
  • We tend to specialize in using ExpressionEngine for our customers, so it has been easier to ramp new resources up on our development process, as well as be able to seek out independent experts to use as sub contractors or freelancers.
  • As we have been using ExpressionEngine almost exclusively for a number of years, we have built a reusable repository of proprietary code that makes our development process much more efficient and decreases the effort required for our projects.
Read full review
ScreenShots