AVADA is the clear winner for me.
I’ve read reviews on both AVADA, DIVI, and X theme. I installed both AVADA and DIVI and played around for 15 minutes. My experience is mostly with Thesis but I do understand the idea of frameworks.
DIVI for me is the weakest choice out of those 3, many people complaining about styling limitations or hard to deal with if you want make a large site. AVADA and X Theme are the best.
Why I like AVADA best:
– Easier to use and understand than DIVI or X.
– It’s far more easily customizable than DIVI or X. Divi has a problem of always feeling like one theme.
– From the way, it’s organized, I feel it’s easier to splice a PSD into AVADA theme.
– Friendlier for developers. If you know how to work with code, AVADA won’t get in your way.
– I hear it loads faster than others.
– I hear they have great support, I never used it.
– I hear their team has only AVADA. This means all their energy and support goes into one theme instead of multiple.
REAL LIFE UPDATE (9/9/16): AVADA is major bloat. I’m going back to Genesis or Thesis. It’s great to use AVADA if you need inspiration. But to have a clean well-designed website that runs fast…use a cleaner framework that doesn’t focus on trying to be everything.
Remember that you only design your website once and then a few minor tweaks later. Most of your website will be running and loading, rather than designing. At the end of the day, as attractive as it may be try not to choose a framework built for design rather than for function.
I haven’t had a chance to play around with AVADA yet, but so far the reviews seem very positive. I’m more familiar with Genesis than Thesis and most of my niche sites are built using that framework, but I’m always interested to test and try out the newest platforms and pro themes that come along.