Those of you that use Divi might know that the Divi 5 downloadable Alpha was released today. Out of curiosity, I spun up two identical test sites on our agency hosting to see how it performed on the big 3 speed tests with a simple import of a pre-made Divi Layout.

Test Site 1: https://divi4test.1radwebhost.com

Test Site 2: https://divi5test.1radwebhost.com

There's no 3rd-party caching on the sites, no optimization, no plugins, just WordPress Core Installation -> Divi 4/5 -> Layout Import. Divi 4 is the latest version freshly downloaded from Elegant Theme's website. Divi's internal caching mechanism has been left at it's default (enabled) state for both sites. Both homepages were visited twice before running the tests to ensure caching occurred.

I then tested the speed at PageSpeed Insights, GTMetrix, and Pingdom to see what the differences were.

PageSpeed:
Divi 4: https://pagespeed.web.dev/analysis/https-divi4test-1radwebhost-com/8mfl0l9rk9?form_factor=mobile
Divi 5: https://pagespeed.web.dev/analysis/https-divi5test-1radwebhost-com/pqunj8cy0g?form_factor=mobile

GTMetrix (Comparison): https://gtmetrix.com/compare/Uv35xY0r/2AhOVf4O

Pingdom:
Divi 4: https://tools.pingdom.com/#648db93ede400000
Divi 5: https://tools.pingdom.com/#648db9e1a1400000

I found it interesting that the Pingdom score actually went DOWN, while the PageSpeed Insights score (especially mobile) went up by a pretty substantial amount.

Our agency hosting is optimized for WP builders: Vultr VPS with CloudLinux + Imunify360 running Litespeed Web Server. But again, no caching or optimization plugins were installed for these tests.

Observations:

Site activation was the same, just looked a little different. The "login to activate" was the same

Number of lines in page source code is reduced by 61% on the test page. A lot of whitespace has been trimmed out the gate. Divs seem a bit more organized, as they appear inline more often than separated by large chunks of whitespace.

Divi 5 seems to have some randomly generated codes built into it. This may have to do with conversion from Divi 4. After the layout import, I didn't try to convert the site. I may try that next and add to this list.

Backend observations, the builder does load quicker but on our hosting it's a bit hard to tell. The particular server it's on only has about 50 sites and is overbuilt for that number, so Divi 4 has always felt pretty fast, especially compared to our old Siteground GoGeek server. I kinda dig the new interface. Divi 5 did not present the tutorial window when creating the page, but probably will in the full release-to-public.

Console errors were reduced. The Divi 4 site generated 13 mixed content errors about various images trying to load over http rather than https. There were 0 errors on the Divi 5 site.

The Divi integrated cache files have been reduced in Divi 5. In Divi 4, wp-content/et-cache/7 there are two files (et-core-unified-deferred-7.min.css?ver=1727497524, and et-divi-dynamic-7-css?ver=1727497524). In Divi 5, there appears to be only 1 cache file: et-core-unified-deferred-7.min.css?ver=1727497527. The Divi 4 cache files contain a total of 2083 lines between the two of them. The Divi 5 cache file contains 1055.

Migrating the Divi 5 test site to Divi 5, I guess?

Process: Divi -> Divi 5 Migrator -> "Migrate This Site to Divi 5 Alpha" (button) -> "Confirm"

Here's the compatibility report it generated beforehand:

D5 Compatibility Report

All Theme Builder Templates are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha

• All Header Templates are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha
• All Body Templates are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha
• All Footer Templates are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha

All Library Items are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha

All Pages are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha

All Posts are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha

No Projects found

All Widget Areas are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha

All Active Plugins are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha

The migration on the Divi 5 test site took less than 3 seconds (there were only 3 pages, and only 1 of them was created with Divi during the layout import). It presented an option to "Restore Divi 4 Content", this might be why those randomly generated codes existed… sort of unique identifiers to revert a site.

The source code looks exactly the same on the Divi 5 site, so perhaps importing a layout always imports it into Divi 5 format. I won't bother re-running the tests with the test site. I may, however, copy over a completed Divi 4 site and test the migration, however we use Divi Pixel and Divi Machine on a lot of sites so I'll need to pick one that's relatively light on both while still moderately stacked with content. Stay tuned.

Alright, scientific curiosity got the best of me and I tried it on one of my own live sites. It went about as well as expected from an alpha, and crashed the site due to plugin incompatibility and did not resume out afterward.

Uploading Divi 5 over Divi 4 required a full replacement… aaand immediately generated a critical error on the site when trying to test. I then switched from our custom Child Theme to activate Divi 5 directly and then received this warning:

Unsupported Plugins Detected

Divi 5 cannot be activated while the following plugins are active. Please deactivate these plugins and activate Divi 5 again.

• Divi BodyCommerce
• Divi Machine
• Divi Mega Menu
• Divi Mobile

The creators of these plugins have chosen to opt out of the Divi 5 Public Alpha while they focus on creating new versions of their modules in preparation for the final release of Divi 5. 🎉

While Divi 5 was built to be backward compatible, the backward compatibility system is in its alpha stage. Some creators don't want to participate in the testing phase.

Third party modules aren't expected to be ready for Divi 5 during the alpha and beta phases.

This block will eventually be removed, so please check back again in the future. Thanks for testing Divi 5!

Now, stuck in a loop. Pressing "Back" at the bottom loops back to the same page. Trying to go to the plugin page directly loops back to the same page. Looks like I'm stuck. Renamed the plugin folders for the above and refreshing the page didn't seem to pick up that they were deactivated. Looks like it's time to restore from backup. Weeeee. I'll create another staging site and copy the full backup over and test it without the plugins.

My site has been successfully restored (thanks Blogvault!). The time is currently 1107PM Arizona Time and I've created a new site and am restoring a full-site backup to it to run the comparisons. I will first disable the 4 plugins (BodyCommerce, Machine, Mega Menu, and Mobile), THEN I will attempt to activate Divi 5. Stay tuned. Site is 27% transferred as of this message

11:26PM and site is now fully copied. I'm running a database update (search/replace) to update any URL references that didn't update correctly to fix display issues. Then I'll disable the four plugins and run another set of speed tests. Then I'll update to Divi 5 and re-run the same speed tests.

Original site I'm testing: (removed, testing is over)

Staging site I've set up as exact 1:1 copy: (removed, testing is over)

Plugins on this site:

Advanced Custom Fields Pro

All-In-One WP Security

Aurora Heatmap

Better Search Replace

Business Hours Indicator Pro

(Divi BodyCommerce, Machine, Mega Menu, Mobile – which will all be disabled)

Divi Pixel

Google for WooCommerce

Imagify

LiteSpeed Cache

Mailchimp for WooCommerce

Blogvault

Reading Time WP

Reviews Feed Pro (from Smashballoon)

Site Kit by Google

The SEO Framework

WooCommerce (set to "Test" mode to prevent live transactions)

WooCommerce PayPal Payments

WooCommerce Shipping

WooCommerce Shipping & Tax

WooCommerce Stripe Gateway

Zapier for WordPress

Divi 4 speed tests (original site):

PageSpeed: https://pagespeed.web.dev/analysis/https-1radpc-com/92x047ts9t?form_factor=mobile

GTMetrix: https://gtmetrix.com/reports/1radpc.com/gbwYqfx0/

Pingdom: https://tools.pingdom.com/#648dc7faf2c00000

Disabled the 4 incompatible Divi plugins (BodyCommerce, Mobile, Mega Menu, and Machine)

Uploading Divi 5 over Divi 4 required a full replacement… Replace current theme with uploaded? Sure. In my overzealousness, I forgot to take another speed test before replacing Divi 4 with 5. I also got the same critical error, but was able to activate the Divi 5 alpha (I think)… The Divi Dashboard, instead of asking me to log in, says "Something went wrong". This may be because the site was migrated from another URL. We'll see. *clicks close*

When attempting to visit the site, I still get "There has been a critical error on this website"

Navigated to the Divi 5 Migrator, and it's running it's checks… it's been about 3 minutes so far.

It's been about 10 minutes so far. This site has a lot more on it than the test sites from earlier… I'll continue to update this line as time progresses, but I'll probably only give this process 30 minutes or so before I consider it failed. The button to migrate to Divi 5 Alpha doesn't appear until these checks have completed. All the checkboxes came up except the one at the very top – "Checking Theme Builder Compatibility" is still circling…

It's been about 15 minutes so far. Still circling. I'm going to go watch an episode of "Lost" and see if this is done when I get back, otherwise I'll consider this part failed.

30 minutes went by, and I figured I'd try disabling Divi Pixel, and I immediately got the following messages when re-running the Divi 5 Migrator:

D5 Compatibility Report

Some Theme Builder Templates are Incompatible with Divi 5 Alpha

• All Header Templates are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha
• All Footer Templates are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha
• 4 Body Templates are Incompatible with Divi 5 Alpha

The Body Template below contain modules that are not yet compatible with Divi 5. These modules will not be converted, and will continue to rely on the Divi 4 framework.

* Computers for Sale – WooCommerce Module Use

* Computers for Sale – WooCommerce Module Use

* Computers for Sale – WooCommerce Module Use

* Computers for Sale – WooCommerce Module Use

All Posts are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha

No Projects found

All Products are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha

All Widget Areas are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha

All Active Plugins are Compatible with Divi 5 Alpha

However, it now allows me to do the migration. Let's see how this goes. *Clicks "Migrate This Site to Divi 5 Alpha" , "Confirm"*

That only took a few seconds again… Alright, well… the site isn't crashing without Divi Pixel enabled, but it's also basically blank. Unfortunately, this site is so heavily tied into Divi Pixel that there's no content being displayed. Re-enabling Divi Pixel causes the "Critical Error on this Website" again. Clearly since there's not enough content on the page, I won't bother with running new speed tests. :/

How about reverting? Heading back to the migrator and clicking "Restore Divi 4 Content" only took a few seconds. The site has most of its content that isn't Divi Pixel related, but enabling Divi Pixel causes the site to crash again.

Can we install Divi 4 on top of Divi 5 Alpha? Yes, re-installing Divi 4 over Divi 5 alpha went without a hitch. I was able to re-activate the child theme, and reactivate the plugins (BodyCommerce, Mobile, Machine, Mega Menu, and Divi Pixel) without issues and the site looks normal again

Conclusion: Obviously, don't try this on a live site, especially if you're using other Divi-related plugins. The 3rd party Divi Plugins clearly need to be Divi 5 compatible before trying to convert a site. Keep that in mind before you upgrade to Divi 5, since you'll need to ensure ALL Divi-related plugins are battle tested and ready to go with Divi 5 for the site to continue working as intended.

Hope this helps satisfy the curiosity of anyone interested. Thanks for being here.