Trying to choose between Divi vs Genesis for your next WordPress website?
Genesis and Divi are premium WordPress themes. Both are insanely popular. Both are great. These themes are capable of creating any type of WordPress website you want like blogs, corporate websites, eCommerce stores – anything you can imagine!
However, there are many distinctive features between these two themes that you should know before you pick one for your WordPress website.
For this purpose, let’s take a closer look at these two premium WordPress themes and compare all the major differences between them so you can make an informed decision quickly.
Let’s get started…
🛠️ Check the complete list of WordPress Page Builders here ➡️
Divi vs Genesis Overview
Launched in 2013, Divi (reviewed here) is a multipurpose theme developed by Elegant Themes. It is based on a powerful drag and drop builder (known as Divi Builder) that allows you to visually build WordPress websites without any coding knowledge.
Divi offers the WYSIWYG experience where you can build your WordPress pages in real-time and instantly see the output as you create.
Genesis, on the other hand, is a theme framework for WordPress by StudioPress. So with Genesis, you will have to use a child theme to customize your site’s functions and appearance.
While Genesis is much more robust on the core than Divi, you will find it challenging to use if you don’t have any coding experience.
Note: A theme framework is a blank template used to give a structure to WordPress websites. The framework is used as a parent theme, with a child theme for the website design.
⚡ Check also: Divi vs Elementor
Customization Options
While Divi offers a ton of customization features, Genesis only includes some basic options.
Divi
Divi 4.0 is the latest version of Divi Theme that comes bundled with the amazing drag and drop Divi Page Builder. Everything in Divi is designed for non-coders looking for a solution to control every aspect of their WordPress website without writing a single line of code.
For this, Divi uses powerful customization options and the page builder.
With the Divi drag and drop page builder, you can create custom layouts from scratch with 40+ inbuilt content blocks.
Some of the most important Divi Theme features are:
- Responsive editing
- Fonts and text styling
- Shape dividers
- Amazing Scroll Effects & Advanced Animation
- Magic color manager
- Email optin support
- Contact forms
- WooCommerce support
All of these features give you full control over your website, which is not possible with Genesis.
For example, look at this color manager:
How beautiful is that?
Watch this video to learn more about the Divi theme and page builder (also don’t forget to check our complete Divi Review):
Genesis
Genesis is primarily an open-source framework for WordPress rather than a theme, so it focuses more on the website foundation in terms of structure, speed, SEO, and security.
The advantage of an open-source framework like Genesis is that you can follow all the coding and SEO (search engine optimization) best practices without compromising on the website design front.
You will get a minimalistic website design with Genesis default child theme, but no fancy features like Divi Theme.
So Genesis is a great starting point for developers and can be a very strong and long-lasting foundation for a WordPress website.
Templates
Divi comes packaged with over 800 templates and 100+ full website packs that you can import into your website with just one click.
New templates are added to the Divi library every week for free, and many third party template packs are also available.
Now, Genesis only comes with a pre-installed basic child theme.
To get access to all the 35+ StudioPress premium Genesis child themes, you will have to buy them separately or join the Genesis Pro membership that costs $360 per year.
As you can see, Divi offers a much more extensive library of premium templates, while with Genesis, you will have to pay for each premium child theme.
Support and Documentation
As both Divi and Genesis are flagship products of Elegant Themes and StudioPress, they include unlimited premium support and access to their forums where you can post all of your questions.
Divi also offers a 24/7 live chat option, which is best for those new in the WordPress world.
Genesis only has email and forum support with developer documentation, so you will have to wait for a while to get a response from their support team.
But Genesis has a larger community of developers and users, so there are many official and unofficial forums dedicated to Genesis, where you can ask questions or hire developers in case you need any technical help.
Genesis Framework vs Divi Theme: Pricing
The Divi theme pricing starts at just $89 per year. In this, you get access to all the Elegant Theme products — including Divi Theme, Divi Builder, Extra Theme, Bloom (email opt-in and lead generation), and Monarch (social media icons and sharing) plugins – which is absolutely amazing value.
This plan also includes the complete template library pack of Divi, premium support, and unlimited websites license.
Elegant Themes also offers a lifetime plan at $249, where you get access to everything with only a one-time payment.
So Divi has two plans:
- Yearly access at $89 per year.
- Lifetime access at $249 one time payment.
When it comes to Genesis, you can get the Genesis Theme + Framework package at a $59.95 one time payment. This only includes access to the Genesis framework and one sample theme.
If you plan to buy any of the StudioPress premium themes, it will cost you a total of $129 per theme. There’s an additional Genesis Pro plan at $360 per year that offers all the StudioPress premium WordPress themes.
So while the basic Genesis framework is very affordable compared to Divi, you will have to further spend either on the premium themes or on a dedicated developer to build your WordPress website with Genesis.
With Divi, you get access to both Divi Theme and the Divi Page Builder, plus Bloom and Monarch — all at just $89 per year or $249 one time payment.
⚡ Check also: Divi vs Wix
Final Thoughts on Divi Theme vs Genesis
If you are familiar with WordPress, and you also have basic coding knowledge (like HTML, CSS, and PHP), then Genesis will work great for you.
Genesis is a very simple and reliable WordPress framework, trusted by thousands of developers in the WordPress community.
But if you are someone starting with WordPress with no coding experience, then Divi will probably be better for you. Divi is one of the most popular WordPress themes out there with a user base of over 700,000 users.
Also, the combination of Divi page builder with the theme makes it an excellent framework for building any kind of WordPress website you want.
You can click here to learn more about Divi, or purchase it directly from Elegant Theme’s website.
To purchase the Genesis framework and themes, you can click here to visit the StudioPress website.
🎨 Check the ultimate Divi review here ➡️
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Big thumbs up for the excellent information you’ve got here. Thank you!
Agreed – this is an incredibly helpful list! One of my clients was told at a recent retreat that she should be using Genesis instead of Divi. I always use Divi with my clients because I want to turn things over to them when we part ways.