Today I am going to talk about some of the big Divi updates that we have been working on. This is going to be a long post with a lot of information! If you just want the cliff notes, here they are:
- We are working on Divi 5.0, a rewrite of Divi’s core technologies that will serve as our springboard into the future.
- Divi 5.0 is a foundational update focused on performance, stability, scalability and extend-ability.
- It will ship with a new API that will empower our team and the Divi development community to build better features, faster, and with fewer bugs.
- In the meantime, we are expanding our team to provide you with even more value during this transition.
Now for all the details 👇
We Are Building A New Foundation For Divi
About a year ago we began transitioning our development team over to a multi-year project, Divi 5.0. Right now the majority of our team is focused on this momentous endeavor that will define the future of Divi.
You might have noticed that Divi’s feature development pace has slowed down over the past year. That’s because as each new feature for the current version of Divi was finished, the team members involved were transitioned to the Divi 5.0 team. A project with a much longer time horizon.
Divi 5.0 is what we are calling the “Foundation Update.” It’s a complete rewrite of Divi’s core technologies, re-imagined for the future and built using all of the knowledge and experience our team has acquired over the last nine years building Divi.
Now, as Divi inches towards its 10th birthday, it’s time to take a step back and build a new foundation that we can propel ourselves forward from once again into the next decade.
Divi 5.0 is focused on performance, stability, scalability and extend-ability. It’s going to be a lot faster. It’s going to be future-proof and built for the direction that WordPress is heading. It’s going to ship with an API that gives developers incredible freedom. It’s also going to be backwards compatible and non-disruptive to Divi users.
In fact, when you update to Divi 5.0, you won’t notice much of a change from a UI perspective. We aren’t adding a bunch of new features in Divi 5.0. That’s not the goal. At first glance, the Divi Builder is going to look and function the same way that it does now (with maybe a few cool new things snuck in here and there), but everything behind the scenes is going to be vastly improved, and those improvements will manifest themselves in several significant ways.
Improved Performance And Scalability
Performance and scalability are the focus of Divi 5.0. We are greatly improving the snappiness of the Visual Builder, the speed of front-end page loads, and the ability of Divi to handle very large and complex designs.
Recreating the Visual Builder gives us the opportunity to make fundamental changes to how interactions work and the way the application renders updates as you design your website, speeding things up from every angle. We are committed to making the Visual Builder extremely fast and for it to never get bogged down, no matter what you throw at it.
The speed of your website will also improve with Divi 5.0. We are recreating Divi’s backend framework, cleaning up years of technical debt, changing Divi’s storage format and improving its rendering mechanism. This new version of Divi will be able to processes design settings much more quickly.
No More Shortcodes
One of the biggest changes that will come with Divi 5.0 is the migration away from shortcodes and towards a more modern storage format. Migrating away from shortcodes has several benefits.
- It will allow for faster and more streamlined processing of your Divi pages and all of their design settings.
- It will result in fewer bugs born from the complexity involved in the way shortcodes and shortcode attributes are nested in the post content.
- It will make it easier for us to build a system for enabling nested content of our own (such as rows within rows).
Most importantly, this change will bring Divi into alignment with the future of WordPress, which is evolving in a new direction.
The New Builder API
Probably the most exciting part of Divi 5.0 is a paradigm shift in the way we are approaching its development. It’s going to open up so many new possibilities for third party developers. The new Divi Builder will be completely customizable. Developers will be able to use the Divi API to create anything they want. Not only will developers be able to create new and amazing modules, but they will also be able to create new types of settings and completely new features of their own. In order to explain the difference between the current Divi API and the Divi 5.0 API (from one non-developer to another), let me make an analogy.
Let’s imagine that the Visual Builder is a house. We built that house and it was set in stone. Later on down the road, we wanted to give people the option to build their own modules, or in the case of this analogy, the ability to customize their house. Since the house was already set in stone, the ways that we could allow for customization were limited. We were only able to open up small specific ways to customize the house. We hammered a nail into one wall and said, “Here is a place where you can customize. You can hang a picture from that nail, just make sure the picture is the right size and that there is a wire that is compatible with the nail from which it hangs.”
That’s nice, but there isn’t very much room for innovation! Novel ideas are hindered by the rigid structure of Divi’s current API.
In the new version of the Divi Builder, we aren’t just going to give you a nail on the wall. We are going to give you the blueprints, the lumber, the hammer and the nails. In the current version of the Divi Builder, you can hang your own pictures on the wall. In the new version of the Divi Builder, you will be able to remodel the ground floor or even add a second story.
Empowering The Community
We are taking all of the “third party developers” in the community and elevating them to “1st party developers.” The tools you will have to customize the builder will be the exact same tools our team uses to build the builder in the first place. Our own interests as the creators of Divi and the interests of the development community, will be one and the same.
The future of Divi is as the foundation of a broader ecosystem. We want that ecosystem to thrive, just like WordPress has. In fact, developers familiar with creating blocks for WordPress will find a lot of similarities in the Divi 5.0 module API. WordPress blocks will be more easily adapted to Divi and WordPress developers will be able to jump head first into building things for our community. We are building this new version of Divi to work in harmony with WordPress.
If you are a developer, you are going to love these changes. If you aren’t a developer, you are going to love all the amazing modules and tools that developers from the community will be able to create for you.
Empowering Our Team
The new API won’t just be useful for developers in the community, it’s going to be useful for our own team as well. That’s because Divi will be built using the API that we create. Furthermore, we are building this new version of Divi with extend-ability as a core value. We are recreating everything we created in the past, but we are doing so while thinking much more deeply about how each feature might change and expand in unforeseen ways, allowing for less friction in future development.
Divi 5.0 is an investment into our own future. We are building ourselves the tools we need to build great software. While it will take a time to finish, once it’s done, it will be the springboard that allows us to sprint forward again, creating wonderful new features much faster than before, and with many fewer bugs along the way.
We are setting ourselves up so that we can outpace the competition and fulfill more of your requests.
Exciting New Projects Along The Way
While we work on Divi 5.0, we won’t be releasing a bunch of new features for the Divi Builder. If we did, they would need to be recreated all over again by the Divi 5.0 team, resulting in a never-ending development cycle 😵. That’s why our feature development pace has slowed down recently. But don’t worry…we aren’t going to leave you hanging! We plan to do the opposite.
This year we doubled down on Divi, hired more developers and expanded our team so that we could work on new Divi-integrated tools and resources on our website that will add even more value to your membership and improve your web design workflow. We are going to keep building things that will make Divi better, without disrupting Divi 5.0 development.
In fact, we already launched a couple of these new projects. The first example was Divi Cloud and the second example was Divi Teams. These features are different than other Divi features. They are independent applications that work with Divi and make Divi better, but they can be developed on their own and are supported by their own freemium models.
You are going to be surprised and delighted with the new stuff we continue to launch this year and next year, even while Divi 5.0 is in development. We are going to keep releasing new things that make Divi better, but we are going to focus on things around the builder and things that integrate with the builder, rather than on the builder itself. Once Divi 5.0 is released, it’s full steam ahead on all fronts!
When Will Divi 5.0 Be Ready?
You might be asking yourself, “when is Divi 5.0 going to be released?” That’s a question that is hard to answer at this stage of development. We have already been working on Divi 5.0 for over a year, and there is a lot left to finish. Our goal is to release a beta version sometime next year that everyone will be able to test. After that, the official release will completely depend on user feedback. This is a very big update and we won’t be rushing into it. You can expect Divi 5.0 to take a while to finish, but for that wait to be worth it. In the meantime, you can trust that we are planning for the future and that we have your best interests at heart.
Our tentative plan is to release Divi 5.0 in several stages:
- Phase 1: Developer Alpha – This will be an unfinished version of the Divi 5.0 API. It will give developers a glimpse into the future of Divi so that they can start making plans on how their current Divi extensions will need to be adapted.
- Phase 2: Developer Beta – This will be an unfinished version of Divi 5.0 with a finished version of the Divi 5.0 API. This will allow developers to start updating their extensions early, way before the official Divi 5.0 release.
- Phase 3: Public Alpha – We will start the public alpha with a “lite” version of Divi 5.0. This will be a fully-functional version of Divi 5.0, but it will be lacking some of Divi’s current features and modules. It will allow a large portion of our community to use Divi 5.0 and give us feedback. This will be suitable for building new Divi sites and for testing, but it won’t be suitable for use on existing Divi websites due to its lack of features.
- Phase 4: Public Beta – The public beta will start once all Divi features have been added to the public alpha and all feedback from the alpha has been addressed. This will be the finished version of Divi 5.0, pending any bug fixes found during the beta.
- Phase 5: Official Release – We will officially release Divi 5.0, as a normal update in the WordPress dashboard, once all feedback from the public beta has been addressed.
We’re Still Here, Working Harder Than Ever
Don’t worry, there is a good reason we have been a bit quiet lately. We have had our heads down, working harder than ever on a new foundation for Divi, and on new projects built by new teams that will stretch us in exciting new directions. If you have any questions, please leave a comment! I’ll be reading every single comment and I look forward to chatting with you.
So many people still asking for most simple basics in 2024 in the “current” system.
And now we see you improved the basics. Great. But we still stuck in so many simple needs and basics like flexbox.
All other pagebuilder have this out of the box, like custom section title for checkout, dynamic preview option with a specific product when start building a custom product detail page and like flexbox. For example other pagebuilder and all their themes support this out of the box years before. You can work with your old section or convert the section with one click to flexbox mode which save a lot of code and give you a lot of more options. Its strange we have to talk about that browser css/html basics in a new product which is released in 2025 at the same time other pagebuilder have this option years before.
Am I the only person who is extremely excited about Divi 5? We have created custom modules before but we don’t sell them… is there some kind of developer tag we need or something? We applied for the Beta program months ago, never heard anything. Really pumped up about Divi 5 and can’t wait to be living in the future!
My opinion? Because they solve a lot of simple needs which are possible in many other pagebuilder years before.
Its so frustrating to wait for that basics and improvements into 2025. At the same time we see flexbox basics are still missing in divi 5.
Just really hoping this doesn’t disrupt current sites. I’ve had issues with reverting of default Divi logos, colors, fonts, etc just with incremental updates that have cost me a lot of non-billable time. I love the focus on speed and performance and while a new bell or whistle is great, I don’t use half the built in features now. But performance and server load is a huge issue and while I know you’ve added some built in caching features it’s really a band-aid that has caused more issues when all enabled. I’m not sure how removing the current shortcodes that a page is built on will not affect current layouts and designs. Especially if we are using third party Divi specific plugins or child themes. I know when a new functionality was added it would affect layouts by introducing extra white space, gutters or revert them back to default because the function was not previously being used. This caused a huge issue with sites and while I only have 20, it’s still a lot to have to fix for free. Really hoping everything you mentioned is correct and backwards compatible. Thanks.
The biggest feature I’ve been wanting Divi to have is flexbox. Since Divi 5.0 probably won’t have it, does it mean that it will provide APIs for a third-party plugin developer to make one?
Hi Nick! Could you please let us know some approximate dates of WHEN Divi 5 is coming?
Divi is the greatest tool I’ve used so far for building websites, but the wait for Divi 5 is feeling so long… Having some rough dates to wait to would be a relief for many of us probably.
Thanks a lot for your dedication and perseverance on improving Divi!
I’ve tried WordPress’s block editing tools and although I think the whole concept (NOT WordPress’s) is an excellent approach to the future of editing. I just think building editors is a new branch for WordPress and they will have a hard time building something to the level of Divi.
Elegant Themes has constantly worked at improving Divi to keep up with changes and I think Divi 5 is just the next step in a proven process.
So I look at it like this -> WordPress makes Craftsman tools, and Elegant Themes makes Snap-On, professional tools for professional developers.
Divi 5 is more of a threat to Gutenberg than Gutenberg is to Divi!
Hello Nick,
Divi is awesome, uploading fonts in the format “Wolf wolf2” would still be important for Europe. Because in Europe we are not allowed to use Google fonts, since the IP address is transmitted to Google without consent.
Thanks so much i love divi
We heard that Divi 3.1 was going to be great for developers. It wasn’t. It double the amount of work, because we had to develop the module for php and for the editor. 4 years later some documentations are still missing. The examples are limited and it take ages to get some answers, I’m still waiting for some answers from 3/4 years ago. For example, all the code for all the Divi Modules should be available, for Php & for the Editor, that would give a lot of good examples and help with the missing documentation.
Divi has been my 1rst choice for many years, but the lack of (real) support for developers made me look to other solutions, and to be honest it’s much easier to integrate with Elementor than Divi.
So I’m excited that you are reviewing the Developers direction. Can’t wait to start playing with it.
Hey there! I run the FSE Outreach Program for the WordPress community and am excited to see this direction. I’d love to be in touch around any feedback you have as you look to have greater Gutenberg compatibility and how that might apply to other frameworks trying to do the same. Perhaps we can learn from your experience and ensure it’s easier for those coming up after you. I’m @annezazu on WordPress.org slack (and you can find my email from this comment).
Not sure why my comment isn’t being posted… I’d like to know if you have any plan on ever adding the option to white label Divi… I know 3rd party plug-in “ Divi ghoster” exists… but I’d like to have native option.
Can we please have the option to white label Divi.
I always thought of a Divi API giving me more freedom as a developer, I’m very exited and can’t wait to get the new Divi 5.
Sounds great Nick. Love Divi, especially Extra which is fantastic.
Congratulations Nick
Looking forward to this next update I ask you a concern that I have and a couple of suggestions
With the new update to Divi.5, Marketplace plugins such as “Divi Essential” or “Divi Machine” (they are the ones I use the most) and many more that exist, will they continue to behave without any changes? or will we have to modify something
It will be possible that we can modify the width of the modules to our liking, for example when you write an address and put an icon in front of it, the same with the telephone, mail, etc. You need two modules, one narrow and one wider and if you also want to put another module with a map, it is something that you currently cannot do or I do not know how to do it
It will be possible to include in the text module an option to convert the text into two or three columns, being able to insert images between the text without affecting the continuation of said text
Thank you very much, you are the best
We don’t plan to add any new features to Divi 5.0. The focus is on foundational improvements. Regarding third party modules, they will need to be updated by the authors to use the new Divi 5.0 and take advantage of the performance benefits. However, we plan to implement backwards compatibility for modules that do not migrate. That means old modules will still work, but the editing experience won’t be optimal in the Visual Builder.
I have Divi installed as a Child theme on one of my sites because I have some custom code for the menu, footer etc. It’s really buggy right now when I click to use Divi as the editor on Posts. I think there is a compatibility problem created by the latest WP update.
I understand re-allocating resources to build a new version but your customers are living in the now. It’s the first time that I’ve been unhappy with my Divi experience.
We are aware of a performance problem that was introduced in WordPress 6.1, and we are working on a fix for that right now. The current version of Divi will continue to be maintained and critical bugs will still be fixed between now and the release of Divi 5.0.
It is preferable if you contact the Support Team by logging in to the member’s area (https://www.elegantthemes.com/members-area/) and opening a chat so that your issue can be investigated.
Great update, thank you!
Will you be able to fix the issue with Redis object cache compatibility in Divi 4.x or in Divi 5.x? I put in a support ticket and the developers were aware and said they are working on it, but my quiet site is crawling along. If I install Redis to help speed up page generation, I lose half of my CSS and settings, and have to restore backups. Its become an absolute nightmare! I’m relying on Cloudflare caching now which helps.
Thank you!
KUDOS NICK! This is definitely the right move, a tough decision for sure… I run a boutique agency and while we have switched most of our projects to builders like Oxygen and Bricks, we still use DIVI, you guys still have a special place in our hearts and this decision has me excited about DIVI again.
While Oxygen and Bricks are a good option for a web designer, DIVI is still our favorite option for when customers want to design on their own. Don’t lose focus of that, keep up the good work!
This is a really good news for me as a user (not developer) who has been a little disappointed with the way it was going. This explains it all. So this is to me a really important message.
Thank you so much for taking the time with this explanation.
Keep up the good work!
Hi Nick.
Two questions and hope new ones.
Shortcodes
I’ve noticed that some people asked already about shortcodes but many with no replies. I’m wondering at what shortcodes will be left from Divi’s? I work a lot with the WP Shortcodes. I know it might be my fault not understanding this, but what shortcodes exactly will be left? WordPress’ or Divi’s? I don’t know the Divi’s Shortcodes. If I won’t be able to use any shortcodes at all how will be the conversion done, if any?
Divi at Envato’s
Second question is about Divi being integrated with Envato Themes.
Many themes today are using the most known builders like elementor or bakery. I found Divi’s much better and easily expandable and financially accessible than the others. I see there are plugins being selled at Envato’s but I never saw a theme with Divi. Why not? I have many clients that prefer the Envato’s Builders rather than a theme made with Divi’s.
Thank you.
Abel.
Divi will no longer store information about how your pages are built using shortcodes. We will use a new json format that is similar to the way Gutenberg stores its data. For a time, old Divi shortcodes will continue to work and we will lazy load in the old framework when needed. However, if you are using Divi shortcodes outside of your post content, it will be highly recommended to replace these shortcodes with our new json-based elements. Otherwise, you are going to take a performance hit.
Regarding Envato, I think they have their own system for licensing products inside of products, but that’s limited to products within their marketplace. That doesn’t prevent creators from making their themes or plugins integrate with Divi, but it prevents them from giving away Divi with their product.
Hi Nick
I have been using Divi exclusively to build corporate and WooCommerce websites for a few years now. I have many business that depend on the Divi system and the success of it into the future.
Having said that, I am concerned about the shortcode issue. Does this change affect the use of any shorcode? I always create a core plugin for each website, then create the functions and code, including my own shortcodes so that I can roll it into any area of the site I need.
How will this be affected going forward, and more importantly, how will my current sites be affected? If we talk about backwards compatibility the removal of shortcodes will be a big deal to me.
I sure hope that I am misunderstanding the issue.
Anyway, thank you for a fantastic development system.
No, this won’t affect your shortcodes – just the Divi shortcodes that are saved within your post content and used to render the various Divi modules.
I’ve been digging for this answer for like 2 hours, maybe you should mention it in your main blog post. It’s the first concern I had since I rely on shortcodes for my projects, and I bet I’m not the only one. Maybe better to state in the =post that it’s exclusively for Divi, and the rest of the shortcodes will remain working.
Fantastic. Huge relieve! Thanks Nick.
This is really great to hear, loving the sound of the future for Divi. Fingers crossed things go well and we can get Divi 5 out sooner rather than later, exciting future for my favourite builder methinks.
So grateful that ET continues to improve Divi and its performance. I’ve been using Divi for close to 5 years now and absolutely love it (and the awesome support team) but it still bugs me how long VB can take to load sometimes, especially if I have to jump on multiple pages, so very much look forward to the VB performance update in particular. Keep up the great work and can’t wait to give 5.0 a spin!
looking forward to the divi update 5.0 I hope there will also be built-in tools to easily build seo into the divi builder
so Amazing
I wish your team has considered introducing freehand positioning of elements in Divi 5.0.
Currently working with rows and column and positioning elements within rows and columns has limitation. Freehand positioning gives the freedom to position any elements, particularly images, in any position, layering them etc. (as being done in UNBOUNCE page builder).
I will be the happiest person to owner of Divi if this feature is introduced.
We don’t plan to introduce any new features in Divi 5.0. However, you can already achieve free-hand positioning using Divi’s position controls. Absolutely-positioned and fixed-positioned elements can be moved around the page freely using a dragablae anchor.
Hi Nick,
We have developed a metaLMS, a solution which enables our customers to build as many LMS’s (Learning Management System) as they want.
It combines and administration console, where information such as users and courses are defined, and a (deeply) customized version of WordPress and Divi.
At run time, we generate the pages of the LMS’s by combining information from the administration console with pages designs made with Divi.
For instance, if a page contains a row designed for information about a course, our metaLMS can dynamically generate a page where there is a row customized for each course defined in the administration console.
Of course, we make extensive use of Divi shortcodes to do that.
As shortcodes are moving away in Divi 5.0, how can we be involves ASAP in the alpha process, so we can prepare our code for migration?
Hi Eric,
If you want to make a killing int he LMS market I’d incorporate offline/classroom learning as well into this. I’ve had many a client wanting this feature as part of the LMS systems.
We would love to keep you in the loop with the technical progress and get your feedback while things are still cooking, again, you developers are a first class priority so we want to hear what you need so we can do everything we can to make it possible, if we haven’t already made it possible. I’d invite you to complete our Divi API Feedback and Needs Survey, https://forms.gle/SLMwq6mWk8mHeims7
Exactly what I wanted to hear! New features are great, but I would rather a solid core. Don’t push yourselves too hard, that just diminishes the end products quality. Good work guys!
This is really exciting. Thank you for all the hard work that you do. I love seeing all the new upgrades!
Great news. Good things take time.
As another faithful follower of ET Since 14 years old, even before the advent of Divi! I’ll continue to trust that Divi and ET’s Team are and will be the best!
Great News!, and Good luck for you!!!!
Thank you for your great product and I hope the bests for you guys on your road to the 5.0 update.
Now that it seems you are building the software from the ground-up again, I want to give a UI/UX suggestion if I may:
Can you make the Freehand design tools (Settings>Design>Transform controls) become exactly like the way they are in design softwares like Sketch? I mean instead of moving and transforming elements by using a simplified skeletal mini-viewport inside the settings pane, doing it by actually clicking and holding the elements itself shown inside the webpage. Like the way you do it in Photoshop by actually dragging the objects “inside” the canvas. Although keeping the diagrammatic plain mini-viewport would be a nice thing too.
Hope it’s implementable.
Cheers.
Sometimes a great update is not about adding new things.
It’s about taking all the little things you do and doing them on a higher level.
To my eyes, this counts as a major update.
I like that DIVI approaches innovation the right way.
Efficiency > New Features
One thing I would recommend is taking accessibility into account.
Divi Accessibility Plugin is no longer supported by its creators.
It would be amazing if DIVI 5.0 incorporated all plugin’s functionalities and stayed updated for the future.
Keep up the good work.
PLEASE, PLEASE add a new breakpoint for tablets in landscape orientation ( and small screen devices such as chrome book ).
We don’t be adding any new features in Divi 5.0, but the new foundation we build will make it easier for us to add new features more quickly and with fewer bugs.
Hi Nick,
Just a question about the third-party modules that we saved to divi cloud. What will happen for them? Do we need to modify those items in divi cloud?
Most likely cloud items that were saved in the old shortcode format will be converted on import if you are importing onto a website that uses Divi 5.0. We could also implement an option to convert your items that are in the cloud to the new storage format.
As admin for https://www.djroki.dk/ I’m using ET/Divi (+2mill installations) and Yoast SEO (+5mill installations) for this website; I’m asking the following:
I understand from misc. blogs on Divi and Yoast, that there exist an integration or compatibility challenge:
– Page content created in Divi is not in same format as if created in WordPress default editor, why Divi and Yoast do not integrate to same degree (as e.g., Elementor and Yoast do), and why Divi users following lack the benefits on several Yoast SEO features.
Is this incompability solved with announced Divi 5.0?
(to be fair, as this is properly not only a ET/Divi challenge to solve and maybe also Yoast, I’ve forwarded them the same feedback)
I think this comes down to the Yoast team putting in more work to support Divi fully. I can’t say for sure, but I’d assume that our new storage format will be much easier to parse, and that would make it easier for Yoast to support Divi in a fuller capacity if they choose to.
Love it! Definitely looking forward to this major update.
You guys are finally getting rid of the shortcodes. It’s that one thing the haters always use to downplay Divi.
It never bothered me at all.
In life there will always be complainers and haters. I already see some of them in the comments.
On another note while I might have your attention Nick.
Any plans in the future to add some multisite features?
To be more specific, I’m referring to the role editor. Let me give you my scenario.
I’m logged in as a super admin. When I visit a subsite whatever settings I set up via the roler editor for the admin role, it gets applied to me even though I’m logged in as a super admin.
In my mind, it makes more sense for the settings to apply only to admin role not super admin role.
Yes you can say why not just give the client an editor role well I want my user to be setup as an admin that’s why I don’t do it.
Any thoughts on this? Hopefully I made some sense…
I love Divi so far and have done many projects with it.
Would this make Divi lighter with less HTML?
Kindly add more social media icon options in the Divi theme options control panel.
Nouman Abbas
Digital Branding Craftship.
I have been using Divi for many years now and I am very happy with it, I do not use the Gutenberg block or or any block just the text input on the Divi builder.
My interest is in the performance of the website and I am not a fan of the WordPress code bloat currently in full swing messing about with the editor which in my opinion should be a function of the theme.
Bring on Divi 5, I will hope that a plugin will be available somewhere to allow for html marked text to be used for posts and pages.
Wonderful, I’m looking forward to the DIVI future with Divi 5.0. Many thanks to the development team.
I love DIVI but if I can make a suggestion id love to see a quiz builder of some type. Quizzes are so often used and such a powerful tool. That would be An amazing feature. Excited to see what’s coming.
Nick, thanks for the heads up! This sounds great, and I’m excited that it is being created. I don’t see the benefits of WordPress trying to improve the “GlutenBurger” thing. A lot of us designers and web managers (I think) don’t like it…..still using the Classic version, but that’s really just me. So I hope Divi continues to work better so that WordPress doesn’t have to keep changing. I prefer Divi over all the other builders I’ve tried, so thank you for keeping us informed and engaged!
Yay – love the focus on performance and extensibility – and see a specific little item I’ve wanted for a while now: rows within rows!
Thank you, Nick and everyone, for addressing the speed within the builder and the performance site visitors will experience. With you all fortitude on this long road and the persistence to punch through the tough times. Heartening to know that I made the right choice in going with Divi. And kudos to your fabulous support team!
Congratulations!
After the release of Divi 5.0, expect a redesign of various modules that have lagged behind the competition.
For example, a menu builder integrated with Elementor’s popup builder, a loop builder with breakdance’s custom posts, dynamic control over many elements, and more.
Absolutely, we have huge plans for Divi 6.0! Divi 5.0 is our foundational overhaul so that Divi can go full steam ahead on all of our planned features and improvements, we have so much coming after 5.0!
Everything sounds good to me. One of the things I really love about my blocks, is that I could choose any single post and categories to display on a post or page in the Blogs block. Divi only allows a category, and you can’t display the pages you want. There is only an offset, and if you have tons of pages like we do as we run a small school, it’s difficult. I have to use the Feature image of that page with a link in a blurb. So, for some pages, I have to opt to use the basic WordPress editor and not build with Divi. Nonetheless, I still enjoy building with Divi, and I especially love all the Pre-made themes. Thanks to all who make them as they really make my work faster as far as a layout goes. I have learned though, that the bigger the layout, the slower things are a bit. But if I build on my gaming laptop, its 25% more faster.
Will the Extra modules and features be picked up and put into Divi 5? Hope so!
That’s not something we have planned for Divi 5.0 at the moment. But the good news is that Extra will also benefit from these updates and Extra 5.0 will be released around the same time as Divi 5.0.
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the update about DIVI 5 ! You guys are rocking , appreciate your efforts !
Few years back I discovered DIVI and fall in love with it, its a powerhouse indeed.
Some of key features which I always miss and want to see in the new version are :-
(1) Support for aria-label attribute ( WAI-ARIA ) as per w3 standard is required very much for better SEO and accessibity. Using third party /external scripting should be avoided . It should be included at the core level itself by default as it is quite basic feature
Other competitor product are having this features which I would like to see in the upcoming DIVI version.
(2) Betterment of contact forms is required very much without any third party plugins .Option to store the generated content in Google sheet will be great.
(3) Better Speed enhancement is required without any third party caching plugins will be another advantage. Less page size, inbuilt cdn and any another speed focused on core vitals will be added an advantage.
If there is going to be beta testing option then I would like to try it and give suggestions in real-time.
I appreciate the team at Elegant Theme ! Eagerly waiting for new DIVI to ..
👏👏👏🎉🙇🏼♀️
Will it be ADA compliant?
I can’t wait for DIVI 5.0 to be released! As a developer, it would be interesting to know some of the details of the 5.0 update.
We would love to keep you in the loop with the technical progress and get your feedback while things are still cooking, again, you developers are a first class priority so we want to hear what you need so we can do everything we can to make it possible, if we haven’t already made it possible. I’d invite you to complete our Divi API Feedback and Needs Survey, https://forms.gle/SLMwq6mWk8mHeims7
Hi Nick, thanks so much for all the effort you put in! 🙏
It looks like you’ll need a lot of testers soon so please, count on my support 100%.
I only build websites with Divi Theme since 2014 and build them exactly as they should be built with Divi Theme and I would very much like to help you guys.
I am looking forward to Divi 5.0! Though I hope that, in the process of improving, Divi 5.0 becomes compliant with WCAG/ADA standards. Accessibility has become a requirement for websites.
What will be the main differences for plugin developers? Will it still be PHP and React or will life be better with just one programming language to deal with? How will existing plugins need to be adapted?
Awesome 👏🏻 looking forward to this update.
Hi Nick, Thanks for all the work you’ve put in this.
What would happen to websites that are currently using shortcodes?
How would that carry on to Divi 5.0 since you mentioned that it will be backward compatible?
Thanks again
I think is going to be great. I would add a free version in WordPress.org. This it would be a revolution in WordPress world and very good for Divi.
and I would improve some modules like contact adding files, connecting with newsletters softwares…
What will the development environment be like? Will developers still need to use the create-divi-extension-1.0.2-alpha.0 for Divi module development or a different tool?
The Divi tutorials https://www.elegantthemes.com/documenta … extension/ and https://www.elegantthemes.com/documenta … er-module/ instruct developers to use https://www.npmjs.com/package/create-divi-extension but it hasn’t been updated for several years – outdated Node, Webpack and Babel versions for example – and doesn’t work in some cases.
Is create-divi-extension-1.0.2-alpha.0 really the state of the art w.r.t. Divi development support?
Great to hear – thanks for sharing (although I’m not a fan of reading scripts on a video: would much rather hear you share from an outline as more of who you actually are will come through!).
I’m glad to hear technical debt is being cleared out and you’re re-platforming for the future with backwards compatibility. Nice.
In summary, I remain very glad that, 4 year ago, I chose DIVI as my (little) agency’s tool of choice.
This is so exciting. I’ve stayed loyal to Divi and have been waiting for this a long time. I’m glad divi listened to the community and focused on build and performance over snazzy features!
As always, all in depth, nicely explained, in details, how we like it :))
Thank you! and keep up with a good work.
P.S: where can we sign in for beta testers?
Thanks for the update! It really sounds great!
My questions:
What will happen to the presets?
How do we get the information, that Divi 5 Public Beta is available for tests?
We’ll be announcing it on the blog and via email. Divi presets will continue to function normally.
This sounds like very good news! I enjoy being a WordPress website developer and designer who specializes in the Divi theme. I appreciate the team at Elegant Themes making all this better and better. Keep doing what you’re doing!
And what about Extra theme?? :S
Extra will benefit from these updates as well since it is built on the Divi framework.
What about accessibility? You can’t go on ignoring this aspect.
You are right, and we won’t. One of the challenges we are facing right now is that we are unable to iterate quickly and effectively on the current version of Divi due to its complexity and the 10 years of technical debt that has built up within its code base. We first need to re-build Divi foundation, which is what we are doing in Divi 5.0, before we can effectively add new features and improvements. To the extent that we can improve accessibility within the scope of that new foundation, we will. Additional improvements and features will be tabled until Div 5.0 is released to avoid scope creep and a never-ending development cycle.
Why did you guys DMCA the Divi Accessibility plugin without addressing the actual problems the plugin addressed? I still use it from GitHub but a lot of the accessibility issues could be addressed as simply as adding a field for aria-labels in the advanced->attributes area on each module and appearance->menu items. You wouldn’t need to refactor any old code to add those very simple features.
We didn’t DMCA anything. I assume the authors of the plugin stopped developing it.
Great!
Divi and his team always number 1!
Thank you Nick.
será compatible con los estándares de accesibilidad?
As a long-time Divi user, I would love to know if Divi 5 will use Flexbox or Grid CSS.
Also, will Divi 5 use React, and will it be native to WordPress?
We aren’t adding any new features in Divi 5.0 or introducing any big changes to the structure of Divi websites. With Divi 5.0, everything is changing behind the scenes, but nothing is changing from the user’s perspective (visually, or from a UI or feature standpoint). Once we get these foundational improvements out the door, we’ll be back to working on exciting new features!
Divi 5.0 will use React and it will leverage more of the native Gutenberg packages. At some point we hope that Divi and Gutenberg will work in harmony. We don’t want to fight against the direction that WordPress is heading.
Thanks for your reply Nick, I would like to chime in for CSS Grid and Flexbox support in the future. Also, custom column stacking would be a great addition. Currently, I often have to design custom (duplicate) elements to get the stacking right on mobile. But thanks for the great work. That Divi Builder is going to be snappier is a great foresight!
Nick, in my view, the most important thing inside of all this is communication with your customer base. This article is an excellent example of that, and I hope that you’ll continue to be transparent about this process. I think many of us out here are seasoned enough in this developer world that we get all the pitfalls and issues that arise with such a momentous effort. Sharing the good and the bad of the development process is a way to “pull in” all of us into the fold. I, for one, have been using Divi exclusively on all my sites (portfolio at http://www.portal608.com/presence/ – click “Show Me The Beef”) and I have 3 other sites in process, all Divi. I appreciate all your efforts and look forward to continued development on this platform. Frankly, I don’t need extreme bells, whistles, and gadgets. I just need the damn thing to work. That has been my experience with Divi.
Thank you for the update!
When we occasionally find a bug, the only way to report it, is through the support chat, as the bug tracker is not public, like with wordpress it is.
The support staff on the chat tend to ask very basic questions like “is the power cord plugged in?” type of things, while we have delivered a detailed information about the lines of code, where the (suspected) bug is found.
These detailed reports do not seem to ever get to the developers, who could actually fix the bug with minor code edit.
For the agencies and web developers, this means child theme implementation, to work around the bug, and then keep verifying that nothing broke when there was a new release of Divi. We want to make the product better for everyone, but it seems our efforts are getting lost in the process.
We all understand that the bug reports must be verified, classified and prioritized, but it seems the current process has some room to improve. Same thing applies to feature requests.
While I hope this constructive feedback is received well, we will stay committed with Divi!
Well, as a small company owner that builds LARGE websites (5000+, or 10000+ blog posts) I am really happy that you are working on improving performance. Just one more thing: Do not forget your Extra theme and especially the category builder which has not beed updated for many years. I do not really need new features, just make the category builder functional, bugless and up to date. Also if you need a semi-advanced beta tester with large websites just let me know. Regards, Limaq
I’m glad you’re finally updating the builder. It’s been a thorn in my side every time I go to edit or update a website. So slow!! I just hope it doesn’t mess with existing stuff or implemented features from third parties. That going to be my biggest concern. I’m fine with no feature updates. I can’t keep up or utilize what’s been created thus far. While having new nav menus and such are something that are way past due.
Very excited for Divi 5.0
I just want to know will Divi 5.0 end the irony of no “Div” in Divi?
Please let us add our own div elements, it will open all sorts of possibilities .
Nice to know about the future of Divi.
Do you guys plan to add better layouts for starting point? current layouts are like all the same.
I hope in future some features will also get added / inbuilt so to avoid using more and more plugins for each small things.
more control for Mega menus, like contact form
Thanks and best wishes
Vinod Rawat
This Divi 5 foundation is going to allow us to completely revamp Divi’s grid and layout options in the future— so the design possibilities become even more versatile! Along those lines, like Nick mentioned, D5 is a new foundation upon which we can build more functionality into Divi in a sustainable way, full steam ahead 🙂
Looking forward to DIVI 5.0
Hopefully it’ll be the most inclusive Divi yet, and have better WCAG accessibility built-in from the ground up. 🙂
It’s exciting to hear that you are investing time and money into this big update. It shows your dedication and aspirations for the product. When I first joined as a lifetimer some 6-7 years ago, I thought Divi looked pretty good then … today, I can’t think of a better word that just awesome. I can honestly say that every single site I design/build now is a Divi website and no doubt will be for the rest of my career. Thanks Nick and Elegant Themes – can’t wait to see 5.0 next year!
Good update. Already mentioned some things we’d like to see in the new Divi +
– Faster loading of the builder
– No double loading
– Hide hidden elements in visual editor
– Ability to choose wireframe as default view + block other essential third party plugins from slowing loading of visual editor
– Good variety of Header + Footer starter layouts and quickly switch default WordPress layouts to Divi
– Nested rows / layouts
– Updated, more advanced modules
– Direct upload file for button links
– Slider layout builder
– More animation / transition choice + quick choice preview / apply to page items or global
– improve blog / archive editor and design template library and customisation
– More dynamic content integration to easily populate / filter custom fields without needing other plugins
Divi 5.0 will make Divi faster and fix the double loading issue. Beyond the core performance, stability, and extendability updates, Divi 5.0 won’t include any new features. But, Divi 5.0 will give our team the foundation we need to build new features much more quickly than before, and with fewer bugs along the way. So you can expect a great feature development pace to emerge after its release.
Great list here! I’ll be as transparent as I can here without setting any unrealistic expectations haha. I see a few groups of things here: some that already exist, some that are in scope of D5, and some that will be made possible after D5 is in place.
Some things that already exist are the ability to hide hidden elements in the visual builder. This option is in the Builder Settings modal called “Show disabled Modules at 50% Opacity”. This can be toggled off to hide hidden images completely in the builder. Also in these options is the ability to set Wireframe mode to the default building mode.
Some things that we have in our post D5 vision are those more advanced layout options such as nested elements, a larger variety of possible layout construction, and improved module functionality. As Nick mentioned, D5 will allow us to make these steps forward in a more sustainable way. We don’t have any concrete plans for the order or prioritization of new features after D5, but D5 makes these things possible!
The performance issues that you mentioned are definitely one of the biggest pillars of D5 and we are just as excited about them as you are 😀
Hi Nick,
I’ve been following divi for several years and for me divi is ahead of all competitors, sometimes I think the visual editor is a little heavy but I still think it’s amazing.
The only thing that bothers me and sometimes gets in the way of the divi builder is the columns part in the divi. Divi has several columns that go in a total of 6 columns but I end up being limited in some points.
I know there will be no changes in the constructor but since they are now doing 5.0 wouldn’t it be possible to make it as if it were containers?
It would be like Divi’s competitors, that would be amazing, imagine creating a section within the section aligning horizontally, within each section being able to create a section and being able to align horizontally or vertically and the items in each section can be aligned horizontally and vertically.
That would be more than awesome for divi. But this is my opinion it’s the only thing I would expect in the divi builder today.
Plus, Divi is amazing.
Congratulations to everyone working on this builder.
Divi 5.0 won’t ship with any new features, but it does provide us with the tools we need to do exactly what you are talking about. Right now, the use of shortcodes makes nested rows and containers problematic. Migrating away from shotcodes will open up new possibilities like this. However, we don’t have any concrete plans at the moment as to which features we will be prioritizing after Divi 5.0 is finished.
This does sound like a fairly large update.
One builder I use separately from Divi is Oxygen which can be integrated with barba.js and GSAP using custom attributes to create an SPA style experience.
Will we be able to use custom attributes in 5.0?
Hi Nick,
It’s excellent news, and looking forward to it, I would love to see more control over DIVI roles and the ability to lock them, a super admin sort of setup, and yes, speed improvements would be advantageous over competitors.
I wish you all the best.
I have been a member since 2011. Been a module developer since 2015. Was left out in the cold when Divi 3 came out. I got warm again and the same thing happened when React made the scene. Am I going to get even colder now? Seems working on new modules might be a waste of time. Will “partial” compatibility still be allowed?
We plan for old modules to be backwards compatible. They will work, but most likely they will require an ajax re-render in the Visual Builder. However, we also want developers to start learning the new API as soon as possible! That’s why we are releasing two developer alphas way before Divi 5.0 is launched. You will have lots of time to learn. Our documentation is going to be way better this time as well 😄
Good to know. I have worked my way around the ajax re-render thing for the most part with hacks, so trudging on ;^)
Sounds very interesting. Looking forward to some testing.
thanks for your hard work
i have one question, what about the integration of automation plug-ins like zapier ?
We don’t plan on adding any new features in Divi 5.0. But once Divi 5.0 is released, we are excited to launch new features and improvements faster than ever before 😄
I just need to know what we will need to do with all our old sites? Will there be a smooth update for them or will we need to check every page of every site? I’m not a developer, just love the ease of your templates back in the beginning and the ease of Divi now. So coding and remodeling is not something I want to do, I just want to create easy fast websites for clients.
There won’t be anything special you will need to do, any page created with pre-Divi 5.0 will continue to work like before, and then the first time that page is loaded and then saved in Divi 5.0 it will then be converted to the new storage format, and this will all be seamless and trouble free. We will even make sure to roll back a page to it’s pre-Divi 5.0 conversion state, in the off chance there was any issue after the conversion, so it’s truly risk free. We are keeping backwards compatibility as a top priority to ensure all existing customers have a great upgrade experience, and this is why were carefully rolling this all out in several phases.
Please make a feature that allows me to select a section, row, or module that is covered or hidden by one above it. Currently when I have adjusted the margins on the row above a module, I can not click the handler menu because it selects the one above. ( I probably am not describing this correctly, but you probably have had many people complain about this because I have seen the topic on Reddit.)
Currently, I have to leave the visual builder mode and to the blocks mode, but then it take time for me to find the module or row I want to edit.
Maybe a command or control key with click to reveal the menu bar for that row so I can click it.
I know that can be frustrating. Here is one tip: You can double click anywhere on the element to open its settings. So if you are having trouble clicking the settings icon specifically, you can just double click anywhere else on the element instead. You can also use Layers View to access any element without switching to block mode.
When you next produce a video like this, please, please, please drop the very annoying music, and find an environment that is less reverberant!
Love it! Glad to see future plans. Makes feel good about the future of Divi. Divi is invaluable to our work. Thank you!!! Cheers! 🎉
Hi Nick, thanks for the update. You mentioned a barely changing UI. Is that just in the front end? Can we assume that because of the re-write that some of the enhancements put in place to help the older version will no longer be needed for example the additions of Dynamic CSS, Critical CSS or is this an important part of the performance back end now. Will we need the performance tab in 5.0?
Another question. As part of Google’s lightspeed performance measurement, it looks at the DOM elements on a page and typically many sites end up (this is not Divi specific by the way even the new Gutenberg block manufacturers struggle with this) getting a warning message about using too many. Whilst I appreciate this is “it’s up to you how much you use”, has there been any consideration for this to try and minimise the layers of elements from a section right down to the icon in a module when building pages to help prevent a huge DOM? Google’s indexing servers cannot cope with many sites because of this.
Oh, and finally – when enabling the visual builder will the double loading be a thing of the past? That’s a speed boost right there!!
The “double loading” in the Visual Builder will be fixed in Divi 5.0 😄 That’s because the new version will be so much faster that we won’t need to rely on the same caching mechanisms that we use now. The reason that the visual builder “double loads” is right now is because one of your plugins is mistakenly adding dynamic content to the cache, which causes the cause the invalidate on every load.
As for the performance settings currently available in Divi, those will still be available in Divi 5.0. There won’t be any new performance settings either. All of the new performance benefits will be baked-in to the Divi 5.0 architecture.
This update won’t affect the amount of DOM elements. We are trying not to rock the boat too much when it comes to the structure of Divi designs. However, the performance updates we are implementing are much more important and should have a great impact.
I have always had the double loading issue and never been able to pinpoint which of the plugins I use could cause the issue. It even happens when I de-active all plugins. Do you have any tips to figure out the actual cause?
Also, the double loading got much (!) worse since one of the recent (pre Divi v4.19 and WP v6.1) updates. Often the VB keeps on re-loading and I have to exit the VB and then go back in to be able to work. When this happens, it almost always a page with dynamic content and/or a code module with third party widgets. Any ideas on that?
Thanks
PS: glad to be informed about the plans and status, keep on doing that please!
It’s possible that the content of the code module or third party widgets is invalidating the cache.
It’s also possible that the builder isn’t actually double loading, but rather the lazy-loaded framework is taking too long to initiate, resulting in a second spinner while things catch up. In any case, Divi 5.0 should load much faster and without any double loading!
Thanks Nick,
Since v5 is still going to take a while, would it be feasible to add a quick (?) fix in v4 that allows you to disable execution of third party widgets/scripts in code modules and integrations when you edit the page?
Thanks
JP
Super Excited about the release of 5.0.
Thanks for giving an update and quelling some of the questions concerning Divi’s lack of new features recently. As a developer and long-time user of Divi, I look forward to “jumping on” board the 5.0 train when it is available.
Thanks again,
Steve B.
This sounds great! I honestly have difficulty implementing new features as fast as you’ve been implementing them, so the performance enhancements seem like an awesome use of resources. Excited to see what you come up with. Divi makes my job fun!
Hi Nick, this sounds great and it’s really exciting to see the positive direction that Divi is heading! I have some worries though about compatibility for existing Divi sites. Thinking specifically about sites that manually override Divi CSS styles for example, or even sites that use third party Divi modules. What are you expecting the compatibility and upgrade path between Divi 4.x and Divi 5 to be like? And if there’s likely to be problems, will Divi 4.x receive security / maintenance updates after Divi 5 launches, for sites stuck on version 4.x?
Thanks!
Our plan is to make old Divi modules built with the current Divi API backwards-compatible. That means old modules will still work on the front end, and in a more limited capacity in the Visual Builder. However, we will be highly encouraging developers to move to the new API to take advantage of the performance benefits. That’s why we are releasing two developer alphas to give developers a head start.
We don’t plan to add any new features or make any changes to Divi’s design in this update. There shouldn’t be any issues with child themes and custom CSS.
Updating to Divi 5.0 will also require you to migrate existing websites away from the old shortcode system. After you update to Divi 5.0, there will likely be a button that you press to perform the migration, which will go through all of your posts and convert them to the new system.
Thanks for responding, that’s reassuring. Really looking forward to it and hoping for a smooth rollout.
Excellent work as always!
Thanks for letting us know! That’s a very promising roadmap. Keep on the good work 🙂
I’m looking forward to joining the early test stages.
Thank you, thank you thank you! As a designer who came up in print (the first Mac came on the market the year I graduated design school!)
I REFUSED to do website design for a very long time because it was so ugly and clunky, design-wise. Finally I learned WordPress because I knew it “wasn’t going anywhere” — it would be around and supported and I wouldn’t have to learn anything else. I found Elegant Themes and Divi early on, (excellent name — remember, web design was “too ugly” for me to want to do!) and it SAVED me! For someone who knows VERY little code, and is BIG on aesthetic design and ease of use, you all continue to astonish me with your vision, your persistence and your expertise in what you can create WITH CODE. Absolutely amazing! I’m super excited about Divi 5.0! HOORAY and SO WELL DONE to the entire team — you guys are incredible!
Thanks for your earnest presentation. Glad to hear you are addressing the blocks dilemma because classic widgets and advanced classic feature will only last so long based upon Matt’s talk at WordCamp; despite tears and begging from the crowd!
Hi Nick
Thanks for the update. It has really felt like time for a “big picture” update rather than incremental new features, so it’s great to read about what’s happening. Of course, managing the change over with as few issues as possible is key for those of us managing client sites, so don’t feel pressurised to rush to market; I’d much rather have a stable solution than an imminnent one.
Good Luck
Martin
That’s definitely the plan Martin! We won’t release this update until we are sure it’s ready. That’s why we are releasing Divi 5.0 in several alpha and beta phases.
Is all of this going to be included for current lifetime subscribers without extra cost or upgrades?
Yes, definitely. Lifetime members will never have to pay for a Divi update.
Hi Nick, great to hear the direction Divi 5.0 will take. Keep up the good work team!!
One gripe though is great features (like Divi Cloud, Teams) are not included for old timers. You should consider giving a Divi Cloud Basic Slab free for Lifetime Customers. That’s all in the wishlist;-)
Everyone gets to use Divi Cloud for free to store 50 items, including Lifetime customers. We have 800,000+ Divi users, so that’s a lot of free storage! It costs money to support that storage and the cloud infrastructure, but if the freemium model is profitable enough then we can consider raising the free item storage down the road.
Nick, Divi is absolutely awesome. During a time when everybody out there is converting LTDs into recurring plans, you are doing exactly the opposite and fully in favor of your old clients. Chapeau!
HYPE!
To the developers bought Divi already, wil it change something with 5.0 update? Will we have to re-pay in order to have your new DIVI 5.0 API?
No, this will be a normal Divi update available to all customers.
looking forward to it, thanks for the information. Any speed boosts are always welcome!
Thanx for ur answer Nick
and I will not spend the time of the readers with my congrats to you.
You are a great, positive team and we are delighted to work with you!
Peace!
As a designer intending to learn to code and become a developer, what language would you recommend would be best for a person building sites predominantly with Divi? What languages do your developers work with?
So excited you are looking to learn to code! In general you will want to learn HTML, CSS, PHP and JavaScript, these are the top starting web development languages.
Reminder, you don’t need to know code to build sites with Divi, but if you want to use the Divi API to build custom modules or extensions, you will be using JavaScript, React, PHP and CSS.
Internally, we are building Divi 5.0 using TypeScript, which is JavaScript but with awesome additional benefits that help us write better code with far fewer bugs, it’s also a top favorite language by developers of the world!
sounds great and looking forward to the new Divi.
Why is all content from Elegant Themes blog etc; every time I enlarge the screen to read clearly your box on the right margin covers the screen dead centre the worst case of visual disability discrimination, are we so desperate for attention that the box cannot be static
Love Divi now. I’m sure your changes will be super loved too! Thanks for an awesome product!
that’s really awesome Nick!
One question, as you said Divi has almost 10 years and over those years many things have changed in the web development, and one thing that Divi has been missing and i think neglecting too is the accessibility standards compatibility, will Divi 5.0 be WCAG standards compatible? I understand not all depends on Divi, but at least out of the box, the code should be more accessible.
Looking forward to hearing an answer from you personally!
Keep the great work!
Yes – making it easier for us to comply with WCAG standards would be VERY nice.
Agreed – this can’t be ignored
This all sounds awesome Nick. And I’m getting crazy deja vous flash backs about the post from your blog 9 years ago about the upcoming release of Divi itself 😄
👉 https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/theme-sneak-peeks/divi-theme-process-update
Top Comment: “Is it safe to assume that this new page builder concept will be the backbone of all new themes moving forward?”
I was partially right 😅
Crazy to think how far Divi has come and how far you’ll continue to take it with the new foundation of 5.0! 😎
I’d much rather have a more powerful and reliable Divi 5.0 than have new features. Take however long is needed to do it right.
Well done, (applause)
I await this revolution with great impatience.
I can imagine Divi as the first WordPress theme in the world 🙂
PS: I think Extra will benefit from the same improvements?
Yep, Extra will benefit from these updates as well.
I love when you work on performance and back end stuff. The feature set is already terrific but over time the back end grows old. Thanks again! I’ve been here since before Divi 1.0 and I plan to be working with Divi 5.0 and beyond!
Hi Nick, that’s great news. Looking forward to beta.
Will you be including fluid typography?
Thanks.
We don’t plan to add any new features in this update. We are re-building our foundation and improving performance, stability, scalability and extend-ability, as well as building a new API that will give our team and the community the tools we need to build great software. Once Divi 5.0 is released, we hope to be able to release new features much more quickly and with fewer bugs along the way. We are talking a pause to do a bunch of important stuff behind the scenes, and then we are going to sprint forward again!
Honestly, Nick, thats cool with us… we don’t need new features. We need to put an end to shortcodes! The speed will be just astonishing, I am certain of that. The extensibility is already incredible, and with a fresh API it’s gonna be 🔥.
Very exciting times. I was literally thinking this past week, “I have a lot of sites running on Divi. It’s a critical dependency for my business. I wonder how stable the future IS for Divi and ET?” Question answered !!!
Thanks for the info Nick.
I am proud to be part of this little family. For DIVI 5, in addition to speed (a must), I would ask for full native integration (not partial as now) with custom data systems like ACF, Pods or similar. Take your time to come up with a breakthrough product.
We would like to be kept informed during the development stage of the progress, at least for existing DIVI customers. Perhaps we can come up with ideas at the appropriate time and not when everything is already cooked.
Thanks for your support and yes things like stronger support for ACF etc will be possible to be built with the new Divi API!
We would love to keep you in the loop with the technical progress and get your feedback while things are still cooking, again, you developers are a first class priority so we want to hear what you need so we can do everything we can to make it possible, if we haven’t already made it possible. I’d invite you to complete our Divi API Feedback and Needs Survey, https://forms.gle/SLMwq6mWk8mHeims7
Hi Nick, I’m very excited about all these huge news! And very impressed about your wise approach to the future evolution of Divi. While I was reading the post and watching the video I had a question arising in my mind: will Divi 5.0 be so powerful to be your next choice to rebuild the whole Elegant Themes website in the future? I am always very impressed as a customer/user when WordPress developers use their own software for their websites and internal management. By the way I wish you all the best with this new huge task of Divi 5.0 and I’m ready to re-fall in love with your wonderful builder ❤️.
Pascal @imparaqui
I’d love to redesign our website using Divi 5.0. It’s just an issue of priority. Would you rather our developers spend time re-creating our website, or would you rather them spend time working on Divi? 😆
Ahah you’re right 😉 Keep on the great work Nick & ET team!
Thank you for the transparency and the constant hard work and improvements! I jumped on the Elegant Themes and Divi bandwagon pretty early on and am so glad I upgraded to lifetime a few years ago. Keep up the fantastic work!
Appreciate this communication from ET and the future direction of Divi. This form of transparency goes along way for site developers that hang their hat on Divi as their exclusive builder.
Such a great overview, thank you for sharing this important news!
Hey! did Nick take the info from your video “The Future Of Divi”? 🤣
As a small agency that uses Divi exclusively for new projects, this investment in the future of Divi is welcome news. We are looking forward to Divi 5.0 with patient anticipation!
Hi Nick,
This is very exciting to hear of the new developments coming soon with Divi 5.0. I’ve been with ET long before Divi, and now am an exclusive hosting provider for Divi clients. One question that I hear most often is “Why does the visual builder and the the divi (backend editor) builder always load twice?” I’ve been trying to find answers and it sounds like it is somehow related to caching. Can you tell me if this is something your teams are working on as they build the new divi builder?
I love the product and am a staunch advocate for my clients, and university students.
Scott McLaughlin, President/CEO
Heartland Hosting, LLC
The “visual builder loading twice” issue will be fixed in Divi 5.0. Technically, it’s not a Divi bug. The problem typically occurs when one of your plugins injects dynamic data into the Visual Builder cache. This causes the cache to invalidate on every load. In the new version of Divi, we won’t rely on the same caching mechanism so this issue should be gone for good.
This is good to know. Especially when you start to edit and it reloads and you lose stuff. It’s very annoying.
I can absolutely assure this problem will be in the past, we have overhauled the foundation fundamentally so there will never be a “double reload” problem again! 🎉
Will Divi 5.0 support Classic Editor?
Gutenberg performance for site editing is great, but for the post editor it’s really bad.
So that is why I’m asking
In the current version of Divi, you can build on the “front end” or you can build inside the classic editor, which is really just an iframe into the “front end.” We will likely be getting rid of that iframe implementation to remove the complexity.
good news! From user perspective I hope the visual builder will be much faster than now. Because Its speed on complex pages is the most annoying part that delays the work very much.
Making the Visual Builder faster is one of the major focuses of Divi 5.0, so I can assure you that’s the plan!
Nick, really glad to hear from you about the Divi road map. Well thought out and very much addresses the issues that will keep Divi at the forefront of WordPress site development. You’ve outlined an exciting future. Now, stop talking to us and get back to managing your team! 🙂
Thanks, Nick, this is great, but right now, there is a big problem with presets and performance problems caused by a sizeable et_divi file in WP OPTIONS, when can we get a fix for this? It’s crashing servers and making a lot of the divi-built sites unusable as they are so slow
I have the same problem on all my sites.
I Have rolledback to Divi 1.8 and the sites seem more stable now.
Or you can keep WP 6.0.3 until a new release fixes this.
I opted to keep Divi in 1.8 and update WordPress and all the sites seem stable now and running more smoothly again.
Hope this gets fixed soon too.
We are aware of this problem, which became an issue with the recent WordPress 6.1 update. We are working on a fix right now. You won’t have to wait for Divi 5.0 for that!
This is the post, I have been waiting for. I am excited, what the future of DIVI 5 will bring. Will there be a documentation or tutorials on how to develop functions and features for DIVI?
Yes, we are creating incredibly extensive documentation this time around. I am excited to share more details about that soon.
I always thought of a Divi API giving me more freedom as a developer, I’m very exited and can’t wait to get the new Divi 5.
Can’t wait. Anything to make my life easier as a designer, and my clients’ lives easier when editing, is very welcome. Speed improvements will be hugely beneficial too — both for editors and end-users.
Thank you for all your hard work.
I was waiting for this video before determining what path to take on new sites. As nice as Divi 5.0 sounds, it’s just sooo far away… especially since it won’t have the features I’m looking for at launch which will then take even longer if those features appear at all. I was really hoping Divi 5.0 would move more towards the Gutenberg block builder (other than back-end data storage etc). There seems to be a real arms race going on with block builders right now. Many are adding features that Divi simply can’t compete with now and will probably take years to match if at all. Far more flexible layouts especially when it comes to making your own post loops etc, more powerful features for displaying dynamic data or for collecting and storing data, and the ability to mix-and-match blocks from different creators so you don’t depend on a single provider like Divi.
Currently Divi does have a nicer and smoother UX and one of the best collections of design settings for making a “pretty” site, but Gutenberg and blocks are improving steadily. For making a brochure site or a blog, Divi is nice, but if you want your site to do something, I don’t think Divi is the right fit. Not unless Divi FULLY integrates with tools such as Jetengine, Toolset and the like. But I don’t see that happening any time soon as these powerful plugins seem more and more focused on the block builder rather than integrating with themes.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Divi and may continue to use it if I need to make a basic static site, but everything else I think will now be made using a combination of a block theme such as GeneratePress, a plugin like Crocoblock’s Jetengine etc for dynamic layouts and data display/storage, and a sprinkling of blocks from other block builders for styling if needed.
Good luck on Divi 5.0. Really hope you find a way to compete on the dynamic data front. I’ll be watching and rooting for yas!
It looks to me like Gutenberg is being fragmented by all the different options. I’m still far from comfortable with Gutenberg. I’ve tried various combos of Gutenberg and Generate Press and various themes and blocks plugins.
Divi has always met the challenges before and seems determined to do so again. I’m sticking with Divi.
I’m glad you brought that up with JetEngine and Toolset. That’s the most important thing to me. The compatibility between Divi and these Custom Post Types plugins.
I would like to see this compatibility. But this isn’t a deal maker or deal breaker for me. Just a “nice to have.”
Be careful with the block editor. While it has been a promising replacement to the classic editor, it really starts to fall apart when you get into layouts and implementing variations for the different breakpoints. Responsive functionality seems to have been overlooked in the development of the block editor. Yes there are some good third party solutions as provided by Kadence and Toolset but nothing that is consistent. It is something that should have been nailed down before rushing off to the FSE stage of the block editor.
The other flaw in the design of the block editor is something it purports to solve, consistency and some sort of standards, but may be failing to some degree in that area. As it is we get bombarded with a plethora of blocks aiming to have an answer for everything. But, if development stops or the plug-in is inadvertently deleted things start to fall apart. What should have been implemented with the block editor was a strict set of structural elements that could be overridden by third parties to add their own bells and whistles and UI. Turn off or switch to another vendors product and at least basic content and layout would remain somewhat intact.
Note, in context to the above, and many breaking changes in the fast paced changes in the block editor’s development, many third party developers such has Toolset have put the breaks on block development till things quieten down. Toolset posted in June a very no-comitial and vague outline of where they were heading into the future with the Toolset suite of plugins. Needless to say it put the wind up many longtime users of the Toolset software, mainly because Toolset has been showing little interest over the last while in its tried and tested older and reliable mechanisms for templates and views using raw html, css and js.
Elegant Themes is taking the right approach here, meeting the block editor half way and filling in the gaps that the later hasn’t been able to fulfil.
Until Gutenberg has a quality user interface I say it still stinks. At least it continues to get updates which has to happen.
> compete on the dynamic data front.
One of the ways Divi 5.0 will be distinguished from Gutenberg will be how Divi is not simply for static websites but rather is even more ideal at handling global and dynamic content than Gutenberg. One of the top complaints from Gutenberg developers is that once the JS built content is saved to post content then that block html remains static until the page is saved again. This is the type of dynamic nature that Divi has and will continue to be providing the best experience for.
> I was really hoping Divi 5.0 would move more towards the Gutenberg block builder
On the block theme front, as a part of Divi 5.0, we are also transitioning into a Block Based theme, and since Divi 5.0 is actually internally built using the same “packages” that Gutenberg itself is composed of, Divi 5.0 has a lot of compatibility built in from the core. We are working diligently to push Divi 5.0 for maximum Gutenberg block compatibility, with the goal being that you would be able to use Gutenberg blocks inside of your Divi built pages, and then apply all of the Divi design options you love to the otherwise plain Gutenberg blocks you have installed. This means you won’t have to choose between Divi or Gutenberg, and rather you get Divi AND Gutenberg.
Peter, I totally agree.
Josh, blocks are dynamic or static. e.g. the query loop block vs the paragraph block.
One of the biggest changes in Divi 5.0 will be the new builder API, which is quite similar to Gutenberg. That means WordPress developers will be able to more easily adapt their blocks to Divi and develop modules for our community. It may also open up opportunities for Divi/Gutenberg cross-compatibility. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a competition.
Even more importantly, the new API will allow the community to build things that they could never build before. We are going to empower our community and our team, just like WordPress has.
I was thinking of migrating my entire website to Generatte Press. Divi is too slow and generates a lot of code. Will Divi 5.0 be able to compete with the fastest themes? I think that out of laziness I will wait for the promises of Divi 5.0 but it will be my last chance.
A very nice builder but too slow.
Divi 5 is expected to be faster and more efficient, which is great news! However, it’s important to remember that GeneratePress doesn’t have its own built-in page builder like Divi does. This means that GeneratePress tends to load fewer resources since it relies more on external page builder plugins, contributing to its speed. So, while Divi 5’s improved performance is exciting, it’s worth considering the different design philosophies and resource loading approaches of both themes. Each has its own strengths and trade-offs.
I’ve been using Divi since v2, and I think I speak for the rest of use when I ask…
WHEN??????
I mean, take your time…but….when? LOL
Next year (2025) for BETA….wow! He dropped that BOMBSHELL near the end of the video.
WOW. I’m absolutely flabbergasted by that. That is just an insanely long time in this world.
Unbelievable. I feel like I am back in the 1980’s doing waterfall software development.
I’ll say it again…WOW!
It absolutely is. And like most of such development plans, there will likely be delays.
In my experience such “grand rewrites” tend to kill projects. Inevitable bugs, migration issues, unported features, and delays WILL inevitably disappoint users. And all support material and community tutorials are obsolete. Overall it leaves a project split up for way too long – the community can’t decide whether to use the old version (and face migration challenges) or wait for the new “coming soon” beta version (and wrestle with bugs in that).
In my opinion it IS much smarter to instead gradually modernize the codebase over a long stretch of time. Certainly 2022 to 2025 is a long time where Elegant Themes could gradually modernize Divi.
That said, I do realize the allure of “starting from scratch”. I’ve done it myself with some projects. Sometimes with success, other times not. When not, the projects ended up dying – because they were never finished, and the old version had been axed.
Yes PLEASE, give us some kind of rough dates of when the roadmap milestones will be happening. I can’t wait for Divi 5 to arrive, as I already have several websites built on Divi and would like them to run faster or to fix some block inside blocks structures I’ve built weirdly, as this is not easy to do using Divi 4.
Divi is GREAT, it’s the best solution I’ve found so far for web building, but the wait for Divi 5 and the new block structure it taking so long…
Interesting. Does this provide a similar amount of flexibility as it would to someone making a custom Gutenberg block using react?
Another quick question, are you able to make Divi modules using Tailwind CSS for styling?
Yes, it will definitely provide a similar amount of flexibility.
I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t use Tailwind for your own modules, but we aren’t introducing any CSS changes to Divi’s native modules in Divi 5.0.
It sounds promising.. My big question is if something like custom post types would be integrated natively. Running a publication with tons of different and specific content has proven very difficult on the Divi builder is it is now (using the Extra theme as it was advertised good for Magazines/Publishing, but it has proven to be really really complicated). I’m in the process of re-designing our website, urgently needed, and we’re stuck on funcionalites and the possibilites Divi offers against what we need and want to do.
Thanks Nick, really looking forward to this in the future and good that wee can se the roadmap ahead in how this will be implemented.
Just one thing on the house analogy. If you can help it, you should avoid using nails to hang pictures: there’s good brackets for that…or if you are old school picture rails. 😎
Bring back picture rails with Ruby on Rails. hehe