Divi 5 Gets an Official Release Date: What WordPress Teams Should Do Before February 26

Elegant Themes has put a clear marker on the calendar: Divi 5’s official release is scheduled for February 26. Divi 5 has already been available for a while (and is even recommended by the team for new builds), but this date is when it stops being “beta” and starts being treated as the default future of the product.

If you’re a WordPress developer or agency running a portfolio of Divi sites, that single change in labeling matters. It signals a shift in expectations: clients will ask about it, third‑party vendors will prioritize it, and your internal maintenance plans need to account for it.

What’s actually happening on February 26?

According to the announcement, February 26 is the day Elegant Themes removes the beta label from Divi 5. In practical terms, it’s not described as a hard cutover where everything changes overnight—if you’re already running Divi 5, you should not expect a sudden workflow shift just because the label changes.

What does change is the posture around adoption. Elegant Themes has kept Divi 5 in beta intentionally for an extended period, aiming to give the ecosystem time to catch up and letting users move at their own pace while Divi 5 continued to receive frequent improvements and new features.

Divi 5 adoption is already real (and that’s the point)

One of the more telling details in the announcement is that a significant portion of customers are already choosing Divi 5 for new sites. That lines up with what most agencies experience with major builder upgrades: once a new foundation feels faster and more modern, greenfield projects move first, while legacy client sites lag behind until migration is predictable.

Elegant Themes also notes that some third‑party plugins still don’t support Divi 5, but updates are starting to land. That’s a familiar pattern: the closer a platform gets to “official release,” the more plugin authors ship compatibility work.

Divi 4 isn’t being abandoned immediately

The key operational detail for teams managing existing sites: Elegant Themes says it will continue supporting Divi 4 for at least six months after Divi 5’s official release.

During that grace period, you’ll be able to opt in to Divi 5 or stay on the Divi 4 update path, while still receiving critical security and compatibility updates. After that period, the announcement says the update paths will converge and Divi 4 sites will receive the Divi 5 update notification.

A practical pre-release checklist for agencies and maintainers

If you’re responsible for a fleet of Divi installs, treat February 26 less like “update day” and more like a milestone that triggers your internal readiness. Here’s a workflow that fits how most WordPress teams operate.

1) Segment your Divi sites by risk

• New or recently rebuilt sites: likely the best candidates to standardize on Divi 5 quickly.
• Heavily customized legacy builds: higher risk (custom CSS/JS, unusual layout hacks, older module patterns).
• Commerce or mission-critical sites: require stricter staging/testing and a rollback plan.
• Sites with many third‑party Divi extensions: compatibility is the gating factor more than Divi itself.

2) Audit third-party plugin dependencies (Divi-specific first)

The announcement explicitly calls out that some third‑party plugins still need Divi 5 support. Before you flip any production sites, list every Divi extension/plugin in use (modules, layouts, integrations) and confirm whether it advertises Divi 5 compatibility. If support is unclear, assume it’s not ready until you test it.

3) Use staging—and treat it like a real rehearsal

For serious client work, a staging migration isn’t just “does the homepage load.” Use it to validate the stuff that actually breaks in real life: templates, conditional display logic, responsive behavior, dynamic content loops, and any third-party integrations embedded in modules.

• Clone production to staging.
• Enable Divi 5 on staging and run through the critical user journeys (forms, search, checkout, gated content).
• Run a visual pass on the top templates (home, landing pages, posts, archives).
• Measure regressions you can’t see easily: performance, layout shifts, and editor usability for the client team.
• Document a rollback procedure before you touch production.

4) Decide migration vs. “hold and maintain”

Even with a six-month Divi 4 support runway, you’ll likely end up with two policies: migrate the sites that can move cleanly, and keep the rest stable until a proper rebuild budget exists.

In the comments on the announcement post, Elegant Themes also references two tools intended to help legacy sites transition: a Divi 5 Migrator (meant to convert Divi 4 content to the new format) and a Backward Compatibility Mode (intended to keep legacy modules working while you transition). Even with those tools available, your safest approach is still to validate migrations on staging first—especially for older, highly customized builds.

What to tell clients (in one sentence)

If you need a clear, non-alarmist client summary: Divi 5 becomes officially released on February 26, and Divi 4 will still receive critical updates for at least six months, giving us time to test and migrate safely.

Where to track the rollout

The announcement points to two official channels worth bookmarking: the Divi 5 product page (for trying it and keeping an eye on positioning) and Elegant Themes’ YouTube channel, which they describe as their primary communication channel for new feature updates.

• Divi 5 page: https://www.elegantthemes.com/divi-5/
• Elegant Themes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/elegantthemes?sub_confirmation=1

Summary: the smart way to approach February 26

1. Divi 5 drops its beta label on February 26.
2. Divi 5 is already being used for new builds, but plugin ecosystem support is still catching up.
3. Divi 4 will remain supported for at least six months after Divi 5’s official release, with critical security and compatibility updates.
4. Use the grace period to audit dependencies, test migrations on staging, and choose which sites should migrate versus remain on Divi 4 temporarily.