Astra vs Divi : Young vs Old But Which One Is Best? (2023)

Astra vs Divi - which one is best? These are two of the most popular WordPress themes in the world.

According to BuiltWith, Astra is used by 1.2m websites while Divi is used by 1.9m. They are currently the top 2 WordPress themes in the world!

It’s no wonder why people often compare Divi vs Astra.

Both are packed with features that allow anyone to build professional-looking websites with ease.

However, their approach to this matter is very different from one another. This is something we've experienced first-hand and is something you need to be aware of.

That’s why in this article, we’re going to compare and highlight Astra and Divi’s most important features and discuss how they differ in approach to building sites.

This should help you get a better understanding of each theme to help you make an informed decision about which one to use for your projects.

Let’s get started!

Astra vs Divi Summary

Astra has been designed to be fast from the get-go and has incredible performance. Divi has also been redeveloped for performance. Astra has a free version and Pro version which starts at $59, while Divi starts at $89. The unlimited pricing structure gives Divi a slight edge when it comes to value, but both themes are great in their own way.

Without a doubt, Astra and Divi are both themes that you can pick and not be wrong.

But, as always, there's much more to it than that.

Astra

When Astra was launched, we had already been working with Divi for a long-time. So when Astra hit the market, the very first thing that surprised us was it's stratospheric growth. It went from nothing, to immensely popular within a few months.

That's of course thanks to support by some of the major players in the industry, but also because of some of it's features.

Here are some fey features of Astra:

• Has a feature-rich free version
• Lightweight and designed for pure speed
• Over 240 Starter Templates ready to use
• Compatible with most drag and drop page builders including Divi Builder
• Compatible with most WordPress plugins

Astra focuses on giving you most of your customization options through the WordPress customizer. With Astra Pro, a huge number of options are unlocked. There’s an option to edit almost everything you can see, from buttons to thumbnails, and, recently, even headers and footers right in the customizer.

It can be extended or complemented with almost any popular third-party page builder. Astra works with Elementor and Beaver Builder and to a lesser extent, Brizy and other page builders as well.

It can even work with the Divi Builder!

As we built our projects with Astra, we discovered that it mostly relies on plugins (both third-party and in-house) to achieve similar results to Divi.

If you compare a starter site from Astra to the one from Divi, Astra will have to install various plugins (and customize various settings) to build it.

Divi on the other hand really only needs the template files (in .json format) most of the time and it will build the starter site completely for you — no plugins needed.

Finally, Astra is lighter and comes with better performance out of the box compared to Divi.

Divi

Divi is one of the most popular themes ever. It has been around for a LONG time now and we have used this theme for years through it's various versions and iterations. Currently we are at v4, but v5 of the theme is currently in testing.

Divi has always been aware of the community and most of its features revolve around ensuring you can work smoothly

Key features of Divi include:

• Comes complete with its own Divi Builder
• Over 2,000 importable resources to use on pages
• More vibrant templates than Astra
• One single premium plan gets you everything
• Compatible with most WordPress plugins

Divi focuses on giving you most of your customization through its native page builder. It comes as an all-in-one package, containing all the tools you need to design and build your website. This minimizes the need for plugins.

It’s bundled with a fully-fledged website builder, the Divi Builder, which is baked right into its core. There’s no separate page builder plugin required.

It also comes with a fully functioning contact form, basic SEO tools, and dozens of WooCommerce modules. Again, without the need to install a plugin or activate a separate module.

All of these become available to you immediately after installing the theme. No settings to configure or option to activate. This is great especially for people who are still getting started, because the learning curve is small. Even on our team, we found that working with Divi is usually a smoother learning experience.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to turn off some of these features. That means they will always be active even if you don’t plan to use them. This can be an issue when it comes to performance.

In our tests, while Divi has made leaps and bounds when it comes to performance, it's still lags slightly behind a bare Astra. But because Astra requires plugins, you might find that eventually AStra will become heavier and heavier.

That’s the quick comparison summary of both themes. Now, let’s compare them in greater detail.

Astra vs Divi Performance

Divi has recently released a huge performance upgrade and all the speeds included within this section will now be outdated.

Divi has reduced CSS by 94%, included intelligent CSS that only loads what is required. All render-blocking CSS has been eliminated to further speed up load times.

Divi has also added caching for Google Fonts, lazy-load for the Gutenberg block stylesheet, jQuery deferral (shame it still uses it), dynamic PHP to just load queries for that page and smart styles to reduce duplicate CSS throughout each page.

The new Divi now scores 100 on Google PageSpeed Desktop and 99 on Google PageSpeed Mobile. That’s with using a standard web host and before using any caching plugins!

In this section, we’re going to see Astra vs Divi’s speed and performance.

Here's how Divi used to perform:

For this test, we used WebPageTest. We used FIOS for connection and did 9 test runs each and then took the median results.

Test One: Clean Install

For our first test, we installed Astra and Divi on a fresh WordPress install. Astra has the Astra Pro plugin enabled with all available modules activated.

Median fully loaded summary:

Here’s a more in-depth screenshot of the test result for Astra:

And here’s for Divi:

Out of the box, Astra is significantly lighter than Divi and it also loads faster. This is natural since Divi has a built-in page builder which adds significant weight.

For this test, Astra is the winner.

Test Two: Demo Install

For the second test, we installed a marketing-themed starter site for both.

Astra has all the necessary third-party plugins required by its starter site along with Astra Pro and all its available modules activated.

Divi doesn’t really need third-party plugins, so we just imported a layout pack and then manually created all pages for every template piece.

Median fully loaded summary:

Here’s a more in-depth screenshot of the test result for Astra:

And here’s for Divi:

Now, this is interesting.

Astra’s load time doubled, its size increased six times, and the number of requests also significantly increased. This is due to the fact that it installed several additional plugins to create a replica of the starter site we’ve imported.

Divi, on the other hand, had its size increased four times, but the number of requests didn’t increase that much. Nevertheless, it still lost against Astra in total load time, although this time, the results are closer.

Performance Verdict

Astra performs better than Divi out of the box, but when demos are installed, the gap between the two shrank. However, Astra still did beat Divi in load time despite losing in other departments.

Astra wins in terms of performance. Its developers have put significant effort into ensuring that the base theme and its plugin achieve the best performance possible.

Remember, both Divi and Astra have both updated considerably since these speed tests were performed. We recommend checking individual performance on your web host to come up with an accurate distinction between the two.

Astra vs Divi Theme Options

 In this section, we’re going to compare both theme’s settings configuration interfaces. We’re talking about the “options” page where you can configure features and settings.

Let’s dive in!

Astra Options

You can access Astra’s options by going to Astra > Dashboard. The page allows you to manage modules which basically are the theme features that you can turn on or off.

The Astra 4.0 brought an all-new dashboard where you can control everything about the theme including activating or disabling features, installing Starter Templates and other dependencies.

The dashboard page is split into logical sections, Quick Settings, Astra Pro Modules, Astra Integrations and Your License.

Each provides fast access to relevant settings where you can install or toggle settings on or off depending on your needs.

You will also find shortcuts to various customizer settings here.

There’s not much to configure here. Some, but not all modules have their own settings page, which you can access here as well. There are also links to various Astra-related external pages and a shortcut to install and activate the Starter Templates plugin that allows you to import starter sites.

Here are the available modules you can activate or deactivate if you have Astra Pro:

• Colors & Background adds more color options in the customizer
• Typography expands the typography options in the customizer
• Spacing adds more spacing controls (such as margin, padding, etc.) to more elements in the customizer
• Blog Pro adds the ability to style blog and blog archive pages
• Nav Menu adds the ability to create mega menus
• Sticky Header enables the sticky header navigation option
• Page Headers lets you create custom page headers
• Custom Layouts allows you to build a custom header, footer, 404 pages, custom content, custom code, etc.
• Site Layouts adds better control over your site’s layout
• Scroll to Top lets you add and customize a “scroll to top” button
• WooCommerce adds extended capabilities to customize your WooCommerce store
• Easy Digital Downloads adds more styling options to your EDD store
• LearnDash adds more styling options to LearnDash
• LifterLMS adds more styling options to LifterLMS
• White Label adds white label branding to the theme, basically removing all instances of Astra and BrainstormForce so that it appears as if you’re the one who developed the theme

You’ll also notice a quick install link for various Brainstorm Force products such as Starter Templates, Spectra, SureCart and SureTriggers.

More importantly, you’ll also find a quick link to priority support to make raising tickets faster and easier. 

Check out Astra's full feature set here

Divi Options

Divi’s options can be accessed via the admin sidebar menu.

The dashboard has changed very little in recent updates, which we think is a good thing. It still has that familiar air we like, with all the options within a main window controlled by tabs.

It is a lot to get to grips with at first, but once you’re used to it working with Divi becomes second nature.

Unlike Astra, Divi’s theme options can feel overwhelming at first due to the sheer number of items that you can configure.

For example, there are options related to SEO, which, although basic, should be more than enough to cover your site’s basic SEO needs, allowing you to ditch the need to install a separate plugin for it.

We won’t be covering each and every available option here but we’re going to give you an idea of what you can configure:

• Logo
• Color Palette
• Layout, post metadata, comments, etc.
• Google Maps and API keys
• Google Fonts
• Social Media Icons and URL
• Post and WooCommerce product display count
• “To Top” Button
• Navigation menu, dropdown menu; the ability to exclude or include a certain menu on certain pages, categories, etc.
• Ability to enable or disable Divi page builder on certain post types
• Advertisements on the bottom of your posts and pages below the single post content
• SEO settings, custom meta title, custom meta description, separators, etc.
• Insert, manage, and configure custom code on various areas of your theme (header, post body, footer, etc.)
• Divi Theme Builder specific options
• Role Editor lets you configure which settings will be visible to what user roles
• Your Divi layouts library or collection
• “Support center” page which provides a status report about your site and displays links to various external pages related to Elegant Themes and Divi

Check out Divi's full feature set here

Theme Options Verdict

Divi has far more theme options to configure compared to Astra. That is to be expected since it is more of a complete package.

It includes not only a theme but also a fully-fledged theme builder along with other features such as ad support and SEO control.

Although Astra doesn’t come close when it comes to theme options, it makes up for the number of customizer options it has, which we will tackle next.

The redesigned dashboard gives Astra even more of an edge as it’s now easier than ever to get things done.

Customizer Options

We’ve seen how Divi trumped Astra in the number of available theme options, but the opposite is true when it comes to customizer options, especially if you have Astra Pro modules enabled. So let's check this aspect in our Astra vs Divi showdown.

Astra Customizer

Astra’s customizer is one of the most extensive in the market, especially if you have Astra Pro. Even the free version comes with tons of options, making it one of, if not the best, free WordPress themes in the market in terms.

With Astra Pro, the customizer turns into a powerhouse, offering you the ability to customize almost every nook and cranny of your theme without writing a single line of code.

We won’t be covering the customizer in-depth here, since an entire guide could be written just for it.

One major feature that can’t be overlooked is the WooCommerce customization options. With Astra Pro, you have immense control over the look and feel of your WooCommerce store.

You can configure the colors and font of the product title, the look and feel of the “add to cart” button, the thumbnail’s border-radius, and more. You can spend hours in the customizer tweaking every little thing to your liking.

Header and Footer Builder

Since version 3.0, Astra came up with a new feature: the header and footer builder. This can be accessed directly in the customizer.

It’s a combination of drag-and-drop and customizer header and footer builder that allows you to design a custom header and footer. Currently, there are no options to use this to create a header that will only appear on certain pages or areas of your site.

Divi Customizer

Divi’s customizer is lacking when compared to Astra Pro. In fact, it might even be only on par or perhaps even worse compared to Astra’s free version.

All the basic options such as font style, spacing, and colors are present, but it lacks the more advanced features that you can find in Astra such as more margin, padding, and advanced color controls.

When it comes to WooCommerce customization, Divi gets blown away by Astra. There’s not a single custom option at all.

If you’re getting Divi thinking that it’d be a great alternative to Astra in terms of customizer options, you’re probably making the wrong decision.

That being said, Divi wasn’t really meant to be designed using the real-time WordPress customizer. Its appeal lies in the native theme builder that it has.

We’d like to mention Divi’s customizer import and export feature. This is how it should’ve been in Astra.

It’s right in the customizer, making it easily accessible.

Customizer Options Verdict

Astra blows Divi out of the water when it comes to available customizer options.

If you’re looking for a theme that makes heavy use of the customizer to design your website, Astra is probably the better choice.

Divi’s lack of customizer options shows its reliance on the Divi builder. That’s no bad thing but users like to have options.

Page Builder Compatibility

Page builders make it easy to design professional-looking websites without writing a single line of code.

As such, they’ve quickly grown in popularity and they’ve also advanced really fast, providing advanced features that allow for more complex designs.

As a result, themes have added support for them. Almost all themes on the market today include some level of support for page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, WPBakery, and others.

In this section, we are going to look at Astra and Divi’s page builder compatibility.

Astra Page Builder Compatibility

Astra is tightly integrated with Elementor, Beaver Builder and Brizy with special integration with the first two.

The team behind Astra, Brainstorm Force have also released their own page builder called Spectra. It integrates into the WordPress block editor so using the customizer is even more powerful.

Astra’s Essential Bundle plans let you select between Ultimate Addons for Elementor or Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder (or both if you get the Growth Bundle). These addons add tons of widgets or modules that further extend them.

Page-Level Settings

Page-level settings play an important role in ensuring that a page builder can easily do its work.

For example, you should be able to define layouts, sidebars, and element visibility right in the page settings itself and not via the page builder to avoid possible conflicts. Astra comes with extensive page-level customization options.

You can control the number of sidebars, the content layout to use, what sections are displayed, etc.

This allows you to use your page builder of choice with little to no hindrance at all.

For example, if you want to build a landing page using a page builder, you may want to disable most sections and use a full-width content layout.

On the other hand, if you want to customize your blog page using a page builder, then enabling sections and elements that are useful for a blog page is easy.

Astra gives you a lot of freedom when it comes to page builders. Brainstorm Force, the developers, have gone to great lengths in ensuring that Astra is compatible with as many page builders as possible.

Divi’s Page Builder Compatibility

The main selling point of Divi is its own page builder. When you're using this theme, it’s expected that you’ll use the built-in Divi theme builder.

Divi Builder is one of the best page builders/theme builders in the market today, rivaling Elementor and Beaver Builder for options and ease of use.

Suffice to say that you won’t need to look for a third-party page builder if you’re using Divi because it technically is a page builder itself.

But, if for some reason, you decided to use the Divi theme with a third-party page builder, then you’d be glad to hear that it’s still somewhat compatible with the popular ones out there.

Page-Level Settings

Divi has next to no custom page-level settings. Everything is controlled via Divi builder instead.

This makes it a little hard to pair with other page builders, especially the lesser-known ones. But if you’re using something like Elementor, which allows you to configure the page directly within it, then you’d be mostly fine.

In the end, you’ll still want to use the built-in Divi theme builder for seamless integration and compatibility.

Page Builder Compatibility Verdict

Astra is built to work well on many page builders out there. It’s designed to be a flexible theme that can be used with any page builder.

Divi on the other hand works fine with major page builders, but it's clear that it only cares about compatibility with its own native page builder.

Who wins? It’s hard to tell. Astra can be used with almost any page builder, while Divi doesn’t seem to advocate the use of third-party page builders at all, because, technically, Divi is a page builder.

In fact, when you purchase Divi, you also get a plugin version (only the builder itself) and you can use it with Astra if you want.

So if you’re thinking of utilizing different page builders, Astra is probably the one you’ll want. But if you want seamless and guaranteed compatibility, then Divi is the way to go.

Speaking of page builders, many of them come with full theme building capability nowadays, allowing you to design marvelous headers and footers, so in the next section, we’re going to compare the theme building capabilities of Astra and Divi.

Theme Building

A WordPress theme builder allows you to build your website using drag-and-drop. This is similar to a page builder, only you’re using it to build the entirety of your website instead of just a single page or blog post.

In this section, we’re going to compare Astra and Divi’s theme building capabilities.

Astra Theme Building Feature

Astra themes used to rely on page builders to do theme building, but in 3.0, they added a native header and footer builder accessible via the customizer.

They expanded this further with Astra 4.0, changing the UI completely to reflect user feedback and promote ease of use.

Astra’s header footer builder has been made even more powerful. It looks similar to how it always has, but now has many more controls over spacing, typography, colors, features and more.

Astra also integrates with its own Elementor Header & Footer Builder plugin so you can freely choose which you use to create your headers and footers.

Divi Theme Building Feature

Theme building is Divi’s bread and butter. This is the main reason why you would choose it over Astra.

It comes with powerful tools and features that allow you to completely design every element and every page of your website.

Going to Divi > Theme Builder allows you to view and manage your theme template files.

You’ll use the built-in page to design header, footer, and body templates. Then, you can apply those templates globally or to specific posts, pages, custom post types, or to a blog post belonging to a specific category.

You don’t need to start from scratch. When creating a new template, you also have the option to import premade layouts from Divi’s library. This allows you to jumpstart your projects.

Theme Building Verdict

Overall, Divi’s theme building feature wins over Astra’s for many reasons. One is that Divi uses its own native page builder and it has far more options to play around with, making it easier to build with.

In addition, Divi has a more flexible theme building tool. You can design templates that you can import to other websites. These can be used as starter templates that can help your new projects get up and running quickly.

The new Astra Header Footer Builder brings it in line to how Divi works, while the integration of that Elementor Header & Footer Builder plugin makes it more than even.

Speaking of starter templates, let’s take a look at both theme’s starter sites in the next section.

Starter Sites

Both Astra and Divi boast a large catalog of starter sites.

Astra Starter Sites: Starter Templates

To get access to Astra’s starter sites, you’ll need to install the Starter Templates plugin. That’s now easier with the new Astra dashboard but it’s still an extra plugin to install.

Astra currently offers a total of 240 unique starter templates. The number of choices you have depends on what page builder you use and the type of license you own.

If you’re using Astra Free or Astra Pro, you have access to a decent selection of unique starter templates.

If you’re using The Essential or Growth Bundle, you can access the full range of 240.

When importing a starter template, you have the option to import the complete site or to only select individual pages. For example, you can only import the “About Us” template of a starter template if you want.

The import wizard handles everything for you and will give you a clear congratulations message so you know it’s ready to go.

It’s also important to mention that depending on the template you choose, additional plugins required by the starter template will be installed. There doesn’t seem to be a way to choose which plugins you want to install or not.

Click here to see all Astra Starter Sites

Divi Layout Packs

Divi calls their starter sites “Layout Packs”. At the time of this writing, Divi offers 301 layout packs. You can check out of Divi examples to see how these can work when implemented on live sites.

A layout pack is basically a collection of several layouts bundled together. A layout is a single-page template. Currently, there are around 2,000 layouts to choose from.

All layout packs are built with Divi Builder. There are no other layout packs or starter sites that were built with other page builders.

One downside to Divi’s layout pack is that it will not auto-create the pages for you. You’ll have to manually create each page as needed and then import the layout for that page.

For example, you’ll need to create an about page, edit it with Divi Builder, load the layout for the about page, and then move on to the next.

It is tedious but it gives you better control over what pages to create. It stops you having to instantly import an entire starter site and then delete unused pages, files, and other data that you don’t need.

You may or may not like that approach.

Click here to see all Divi's Layout Packs

Starter Sites Verdict

Divi comes with way more starter sites than Astra, however, the downside is that all of them were built using Divi Builder.

Astra’s starter sites might be fewer in number, but you have the flexibility to choose a template that’s built with your favorite page builder, giving you the freedom to choose the one you want to use.

Both themes do a great job of providing users with a starting point to jumpstart their projects.

If you like the traditional way of building websites where you import a readymade site template, you’ll prefer Astra.

If you don’t mind creating pages individually and importing a page template, you’ll get on with Divi.

As everyone has different ways of working, we’ll call this one a tie!

Astra vs Divi Pricing

One of the biggest factors of choosing a premium theme is the price. Thankfully, you can’t go wrong with either Astra or Divi.

We’re confident that whatever you end up choosing, your money will be well spent!

In this section of Astra vs Divi, we are going to cover both theme’s pricing. It’s important to note that both themes can be used on unlimited sites no matter the pricing tier or type you choose.

Astra Pricing

Astra comes in three pricing tiers (four if you count the free version).

• Astra Pro unlocks all the pro modules. Premium starter sites are unavailable in this tier.
• Essential Bundle unlocks the premium starter sites in addition to the pro modules. It also includes a choice of a page builder add-on (i.e. Ultimate Addon for Elementor or Beaver Builder) along with their WP Portfolio Plugin.
• Growth Bundle comes with both Ultimate Addons for Elementor and Beaver Builder along with additional plugins called Convert Pro and Schema Pro, access to Skilljet Academy, and any other future plugins they may release.

They offer a 14-day no-questions-asked money-back guarantee in case you change your mind after purchasing a license.

Click Here to Get Astra

Divi Pricing

Divi’s pricing is straightforward. There are only two types: annual and lifetime. Annual pricing is $89 per year while lifetime pricing is $249.

No matter what pricing model you choose, you get access to everything Elegant Themes has to offer:

• Divi theme
• Divi Builder (plugin version - so you can use it on third party themes if you wish)
• Extra theme (a magazine-type theme)
• Monarch plugin
• Bloom plugin
• Access to website packs
• Premium support and 1 year of updates

They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, during which you can unconditionally ask for a refund if for some reason you’re not satisfied.

Click here to Get Divi with 10% off in June 2023 ONLY

Pricing Verdict

At first glance, Astra Pro is cheaper than Divi, when we look at the annual pricing. On lifetime pricing, however, both themes are priced equally.

Astra Pro the cheapest. This is perfect for those who only need the premium modules along with the freedom that it offers by not locking you to a single page builder. It’s also the best choice if you want to build a WooCommerce store.

However, things change when we take into account Astra’s higher-tier plans. If you want access to premium starter sites, you’d have to pay $169 per year — that is almost twice the price of Divi.

And if you want to take advantage of everything Brainstorm Force has to offer, then the annual price tag will be $249 — that’s already the lifetime pricing for Divi.

But if we compare the Essential Bundle and Divi, which is the best match in terms of features (premium starter sites, additional plugins, etc.) then Divi wins.

You get access to more starter sites and more extras for a much lower price.

It’s a little bit hard to decide a winner in this section since everyone has different needs and budgets.

It all comes down to what you need, what kind of project you’re working on, and how much your budget is.

But if we look at it just in terms of pricing alone, Divi wins. For a single price tag, you get the full package: themes, plugins, and a page builder. There’s no need to choose between different tiers at all.

Updated Astra Features

Astra has just released Astra 4.0. It brings a brand new dashboard, simpler controls, mega menu options and a range of new features.

The new dashboard is superb. It takes the seemingly randomized controls of before and brings them all together in a single page. You can add plugins, toggle features on and off and control most aspects of the theme from this single page.

The theme also introduced some off-canvas control menus for the editor, new ways to create and manage mega menus and more support for custom post types.

The Co-founder of Brainstorm Force, Sujay Pawar is now part of Automattic so who knows where Astra will go next!

New Features From Divi

For the last few months and years, the Divi team has been very hard at work launching upgrades and new features. Elegant Themes have created a number of new products for the Divi family. Amongst the new services, tools and products they now offer we can find:

• Divi marketplace - an ecommerce directory for Divi plugins and extensions developed by 3rd parties
• Divi Cloud - cloud storage for web designers and agencies
• Divi teams - collaboration service for Divi agencies
• Divi hosting - complete WordPress hosting for Divi websites

Check out the Elegant Themes website for each of these new offers and get our discount below on many of these products. 

Get 10% OFF until June 2023 Only

We're almost done with our Astra vs Divi comparison, but let's answer a few questions before we give you a roundup and our verdict.

Astra vs Divi Frequently Asked Questions

Which is best Divi or Astra?

Divi is best when it comes to overall ROI especially if you plan to build multiple sites. But when it comes to speed and performance, Astra is better. Divi also has a built-in page builder, while Astra requires you to get an additional page builder if you like that functionality.

Which theme is better than Astra?

When it comes to speed, there are almost no themes that are better than Astra. With respect to other features, functions and price, there are other options that can win against Astra in a head-to-head, but Astra is a very solid choice overall.

Can I use Astra with Divi?

Yes, you can use the Divi page builder with Astra, but if you prefer to have a page builder, you might want to opt for the full Divi suite immediately, because there is going to be a better fit between the Divi theme and the Divi page builder.

Astra vs Divi Conclusion

When you compare Astra vs Divi, the aim of both is to simplify building beautiful sites in very different ways.

Astra focuses on giving you most of your customization options through the customizer. It can be extended or complemented with almost any third-party page builder, but the best integration would be with Elementor and Beaver Builder.

In addition to that, the developers worked hard to make it fast and lightweight. It’s significantly lighter than Divi, thanks to its modular approach. But even with all pro modules activated, it’s still lighter and faster than Divi out of the box.

Divi focuses on giving you everything you need to build beautiful websites without relying on third-party tools. It’s a theme with a baked-in page/theme builder. You don’t need to look for a page builder and you also don’t have to worry about compatibility or any instabilities that may arise.

This comes with its own downsides, however. Since Divi is an all-in-one package, it’s significantly heavier than Astra and its performance is worse out of the box.

That performance penalty has been minimized with the August 2021 update and Divi now competes closer than ever before with Astra. We recommend running your own tests on your own web server to decide which works best for you.

In the end, it’s a matter of personal preference, budget, and type of project you’re working on.

Use Astra if…

Use Astra if you want a fast, lightweight theme which isn’t beholden to a single page builder. If you already use Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy or any of the others, you can use any of them with Astra.

Use Astra if you want to build websites fast. Astra Starter Templates install complete websites with all the basic pages you need.

All you need to do is customize them. Divi makes you build individual pages and import a page template, that can take a while!

Use Divi if…

Use Divi if you like the idea of a complete package with theme and page builder. They are completely intertwined and while Divi Builder can be used separately, it’s a big part of the theme.

Use Divi if you’re page builder agnostic and just want to install a theme, customize it and launch. The process may take a little longer than with Astra but the end result can look and feel a little better.

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About the Author

Author: David AttardWebsite: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dattard/Email: david@collectiveray.com

David has been working in or around the online / digital industry for the last 18 years. He has vast experience in the software and web design industries using WordPress, Joomla and niches surrounding them. As a digital consultant, his focus is on helping businesses get a competitive advantage using a combination of their website and digital platforms available today.