Cut a Divi site's page weight 48% without leaving Divi

Cut a Divi site's page weight 48% without leaving Divi

The client refused to migrate, so we optimized in place on Divi 4.27. The homepage was 4.1MB, mostly uncompressed module backgrounds and Divi's global JS.

What we changed and measured:
— Disabled unused Divi modules: -190KB JS
— Converted 11 backgrounds to WebP: -1.9MB
— Enabled Divi's critical CSS + deferred jQuery

Result: homepage 4.1MB to 2.1MB, LCP 4.6s to 2.4s.

Pros:
— Real gains without a rebuild or retraining
— Client kept their familiar editor

Cons:
— Divi's baseline JS is still heavy; floor is ~250KB
— Critical CSS occasionally broke on template edits

Best for: Divi sites where a full migration isn't politically possible but speed still matters.