After more than a year of public beta testing, Divi 5 officially launched on February 26, 2026 – ending its beta phase and ushering in what Elegant Themes CEO Nick Roach is calling a “fresh start” for the world’s most popular WordPress theme.
From humble beginnings to 3.8 million websites
When Divi first launched in December 2013, it arrived in a WordPress world where page builders were almost unheard of. Themes were rigid, customization required code, and drag-and-drop design was a novel concept. Divi changed all of that, introducing a modular, visual building system that quickly caught fire with designers, freelancers, and agencies alike.
Over the next decade, the theme grew through several major versions – Divi 2.0 cemented it as a go-to tool, Divi 3.0 in 2016 introduced a true front-end Visual Builder, and Divi 4.0 expanded it into a full theme builder capable of customizing headers, footers, and post templates. Today, Divi is used on over 3.8 million websites, making it the most-used premium WordPress theme in the world. It consistently ranks alongside Astra and Avada among the top WordPress themes overall, and holds the title of the #1 paid WordPress theme by active installations.
What’s new in Divi 5
Divi 5 represents the most significant rebuild in the product’s history. Elegant Themes spent years rewriting the platform from the ground up on a modern architecture, eliminating what the team describes as “a decade of technical debt.” The result is a faster, leaner builder with a streamlined interface, improved performance, and new features that users had been requesting for years – including customizable breakpoints, a new Command Center for power users, speculative prerendering for near-instant builder load times, and a redesigned design system that makes it easier to maintain consistency across an entire site.
The migration path from Divi 4 to Divi 5 has been made as smooth as possible. Users who upgrade will initially enter Backward Compatibility Mode, which allows their existing Divi 4 content to render normally on the front end without any immediate changes. When ready, a one-click migrator converts all legacy modules to the new Divi 5 format – a process that takes less than a minute on most websites. Critically, a built-in backup system means the migration is reversible if anything goes wrong.
For those who aren’t ready to make the jump yet, Elegant Themes has committed to supporting Divi 4 for at least the next 12 months, with continued security and compatibility updates throughout.
The road ahead
Elegant Themes is moving fast with Divi 5 now out of beta. The Divi Builder Plugin – used to power Divi within any WordPress theme – is next in line for the Divi 5 upgrade, and the team has indicated it won’t require a lengthy beta period. Nick Roach summed up the momentum simply:
Divi 5 is fast, development is nimble, and we’re going to leave the competition in the dust.
For web professionals who have built their workflow around Divi, this launch marks a meaningful inflection point. The theme that helped democratize WordPress design is now betting that its reinvention can keep it ahead of a growing field of competitors – and with nearly four million websites in its corner, it’s a bet that starts from a position of real strength.
Get Divi
Divi 5 is available now for all Elegant Themes members. Existing subscribers can opt in to the Divi 5 update path via Divi > Dashboard in their WordPress admin.
