When it comes to choosing the best WordPress themes, there seems to be a lot of divergent opinions on the internet. While we know there is a lot of good WordPress themes out there, we believe some shouldn't be classified or compared (God tier).
This post is based on our personal experience and on the reviews we've seen around the internet about WordPress themes in general and Divi by Elegant Theme in particular. We'll, therefore, discuss the current state of WordPress themes, what we believe is the best WordPress theme, and why it is compared to other contestants.
As always, we do share a clear and independent review of the current premium themes. If it's true we're current affiliate at Envato Market and Elegant Themes, we haven't been paid in any kind to post this.
The State Of Premium WordPress Themes
Nowadays, there are literally millions of WordPress themes available on Envato Market, WordPress repository, Github, and around other marketplaces and private stores (Theme Isle). It should also be mentioned that hundreds are being released every day. With that forest of WordPress themes, how to know which theme will fit your business needs?
Create Amazing Websites
With the best free page builder Elementor
Start NowIf you want to create a WordPress website for healthcare and start your search on ThemeForest, you'll end up with a lot of results. But in our opinion, many themes out there (not only on Envato Market) aren't very diversified. The premium theme released these days looks to have been crafted from the same mold, with slight differences. These differences seem to be design adjustments in the settings.
This is more relevant because most theme supports the sames plugins and therefore offers pretty much the same features :
- WPBakery Page Builder
- Elementor
- Revolution Slider
Here are the most included plugins (or compatible) on premium WordPress sold on ThemeForest. If many themes look similar, what makes you choose a WordPress theme against another? If for most, the design is the reason, it must not only be the only key point. This is truer as the success of a WordPress theme is not based on how beautiful it is, but how useful it is for a customer for a long time basis.
We then believe authors should start focusing on what they already have created rather than publishing new common themes each week. So, if each author has a unique WordPress theme which could fit many needs, that makes it :
- Easier to remember
- More popular and acknowledged
- Easier to maintain for authors
- Upgradable with new features
In short, if themes were able to support templates (typically layout adjustment) that give it a specific look for a specific niche, that will be great as it will be more affordable and easier to produce for authors. Moreover, the authors will also focus on providing more features over time, rather than creating new themes. Templates will, therefore, be part of the extensibility of an existing theme, a little bit like Child Themes.
God tier WordPress Themes
Okay, what we've said previously is true for what we call generic WordPress themes. However, there are strong contestants that stand above these generic themes. And if they do, it's for the reasons we've mentioned above. Here they are (not exhaustive) :
Divi 4 by Elegant Theme
Divi is a literally a multi-purpose WordPress theme created by Elegant Theme, it comes with a powerful Page & Side Builder and a lot of flexibility. It supports Gutenberg and his own builder is not too different from a block editor.
Key Features
- Divi Theme Builder
- Fairly More Than 100+ Demos
- Intuitive UI
- Page Builder
- Gutenberg Integration
- Reusable Templates
- Awesome Community
- Responsive & Multipurpose
- Compatible with various plugins
- Scroll Animations
Avada by ThemeFusion
Over the years, Avada came to standout completely on Envato Market as the best-sold theme ever. It has been sold for a reason, as the theme pretty much offers everything you need to craft no matter the website you have in mind.
Key Features
- Theme builder
- An impressive layout options,
- Custom 404 error pages
- Up to 64 prebuilt professional demos
- WooCommerce
- Translations-Ready
- Seo-Ready
- Dedicated Support
- And much more
The7 by Dream-Team
The7 claims to be one of the most customizable WordPress themes available on ThemeForest. Being sold around 187.000 times, this theme is indeed a popular theme, which can be used to create almost any type of WordPress website. It has 6 premium WordPress plugins included and it offers a bunch of unique features.
Key Features
- Elementor Supported
- WooCommerce supported
- WPML Supported
- 48 Premium Demos
- Gutenberg Ready
- 1 Click installation
- Powerful Layout Options
- SEO Friendly
NewsPaper By tagDiv
NewsPaper focuses on a specific niche : News website and blog. As the other theme on this list, it's also a very popular theme which provides a lot of options to create a unique news/blog based WordPress website. The design used is quite modern and you won't have to perform a lot of change to get started. Here are the key features we've noted.
Key Features
- Visual Composer Supported
- Header Footer
- Footer Manager
- 90+ Different Demos
- AMP Version
- Ads Banner
- SEO Ready
- Premium Exclusive Plugins
Porto by P-themes
Porto is a Premium WordPress theme crafted for eCommerce stores. It's one of the most popular WordPress themes focusing on WooCommerce. It comes with around 99 Demos available. If you want to have a unique store, you'll probably find there a match. It's also compatible with Visual Composer and it offers a lot of other features.
Key Features
- 95+ Demos
- WooCommerce supported
- Header Builder
- Multiple Layout
- Premium Plugins Included
- Various UI Elements
- Multiple Settings
- WordPress Multisite
These themes can really be compared and in some way, they have unique features. But, amount them, we believe one stands out clearly and let us explain why.
Why Divi Stand Out From His Competitors?
Divi 4 which more than a WordPress theme, is backed by Elegant Theme, the company that has built and helped thousands of developers and designers over time. They offer full access to their items under a year/lifetime subscription.
When you subscribe to their offer, you don't only get a tool that easies a lot your works as a Website Designer, but you are also part of a family. Besides the features which are already nice enough, you get into a wide ecosystem :
Cheap & Affordable
On Envato, there is a 2 licenses types : Regular License and Extended License. While the regular license are for designer willing to create a single project for their customer and the price for that license is around $59. The Extended License are more for other developers willing to buy, edit and resell WordPress themes and the price is around $600 - $900. If it's obvious that the designer will choose the Regular License, that means the designer will have to buy $59 for every of his customer.
However, the pricing provided by Elegant Themes is $89 to create unlimited WordPress websites for a year. That's an affordable offer if yearly you create more than 20+ websites for your customers.
Forum & Community
The community is what will make you feel at home. With 600.000+ customers, Elegant Theme has found a way to provide what designers are looking for. From the community, you can receive help from other customers like you, but from the Live Chat as well (if you're in a hurry).
Free Exclusive Templates Weekly
On their blog, you'll find weekly exclusive templates for various niches. The templates are FREE and can be used by anyone having Divi. There are also various tutorials which show how to master Divi power with dedicated tutorials on how to achieve special modifications.
Various Plugins Offered
With the subscription, you have access to Bloom the Popup plugin & Monarch the social media plugin. The Page Builder or Divi Builder is already included in the theme. That builder includes many modules, from Forms to WooCommerce modules. To sum up, you have everything to build an amazing website.
MarketPlace (Coming Up)
Divi, as we used to say during this post, is not only a WordPress Theme, it can also be considered as an extensible framework. It can fairly be used for any type of website. But the marketplace takes things far further by offering templates and plugins, which will provide more specific features to those already using Divi.
Frequents And Well Introduced Updates
Elegant Themes put a lot of effort into informing people about what they are working on and what is currently released. They are using blog posts, youtube channels, email, and push (among knowns channels).
Ultimate WordPress Theme
Divi, as a WordPress theme, offers a lot. You have 40+ different modules including sliders, forms, galleries, blog, testimonials, pricing table, call to actions, etc. And all of these modules have options that allow visual modifications and can be added in a very fashionable way.
One interesting point with Divi is that, with their builder, you can use it with your current WordPress theme (even Avada is supported).
Summing Up
If with the tons of WordPress themes it's hard to choose a theme, you should take further your personal review of what a theme provider has to offer. Don't be blinded with what you see, care about what you get. Theme providers offering more than a theme but an ecosystem that grows over time should, therefore, come first when you're ready to take your decision.
According to us, even if other themes are great and have interesting features, they don't have a growing ecosystem as ElegantTheme. That what makes Divi be one of our top recommendations.
