UPDATED: May 4th 2016 – Discussion on why I switched to Extra from the Divi theme.
UPDATED: March 22nd 2016 – Plugin list updated to reflect current set of plugins used on this site.
Divi Discounts
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Important Message – Please Read!
Hello Elegant Themes Blog Readers
Many of you reading this will be coming to it from my guest post over on the Elegant Themes blog where I talked about why I chose to use the Divi theme to build my website. Well, eagle-eyed people might spot immediately that I am no longer using Divi, and in fact, Im now using Elegant Themes’ other Divi-based theme called EXTRA. Here’s why…
Divi was, actually still is, revolutionary for people like me. Someone who cases A LOT about the visuals of their site, but doesn’t have the developer skills to achieve the desired results on their own. I had a blast building my site in Divi, but then Elegant Themes released a new theme called Extra. Extra is built around the Divi core, but it caters a bit better for people that run a blog. It includes all the features of the Divi builder (and they get updates at the same time!), but it also includes a ton of additional features that allow me to design the archive pages of my blog (which you can read more about on the Extra page). I have close to 1000 blog posts on my site, so this was a big draw for me.
Since Extra includes Divi Builder within it, all my pages still look exactly the same when I switched to Extra from Divi. Many people won’t have noticed the swap at all, and from my end it was totally seamless. All the special designs I created for my pages on the home page, about page and contact page just worked as they did before, and looked identical!
The biggest difference is the blog post design (you’re looking at one, so how do you like it?), and the change in the menu design at the top of the posts and pages. Normally switching themes would constitute vast visual changes, but since Divi and Extra are built around the same core there’s not a whole lot that’s different.
Divi Vs. Extra
So, does this mean I now recommend you should use Extra? Not necessarily…
As a creative professional, I’m a bit different to many others in the same position because my blog is also part of my business model so I use it a lot and it has a ton of archive content on it. If you plan on blogging a lot, at a minimum I would say 1-2 times per week for years, then I would say Extra has some very beneficial features that will help you create a great experience for your readers. But you really have to be certain that you’re going to keep up the blogging, and not just “give it a try”, otherwise these benefits will be lost on you.
If you just want a portfolio site that’s primarily going to be composed of “Pages” rather than “Posts”, then Divi will still be the go-to choice. As I proved already, if you decide to make the switch later, it’s no trouble at all! All of your beautiful Divi Builder page designs will work in Extra right off the bat. Divi is still a great theme for a blogger as well and I’ve used it very effectively for three years to make a ton of additional money for my business. That means that if you don’t prefer to the look of the Extra blog posts over the Divi ones, it’s not a huge deal, you can still happily use the regular Divi theme.
I’m happy to answer questions on this topic in the comments!
