What about Monarch?
Sometimes I receive questions or see comments referring to our plugin like, “What about Monarch?”
My reply is quite simple. “Well, what about it? There’s no comparison!”
Yes, Elegant Themes does have a separate social sharing plugin called Monarch that is available with your Divi license, but to be honest, it’s not very useful for Divi users. I can think of some majorly lacking features compared to our Divi Social Sharing Buttons module.
- There is no Divi module
- You are very limited in where you can add the icons
- There are no design or customization options
- The plugin is basically forgotten
- It is complicated to use
- There is no integration with Divi
- There are not even any shortcodes
- No layout options
- No responsive settings
- No social sharing options for custom image, title, text, or links
Take a look at this table below. I tried to be as fair as possible.
| Feature | Ours | Monarch |
|---|---|---|
| Divi Module | ||
| Divi Integration | ||
| Divi Theme Builder Compatible | ||
| Use Anywhere In A Divi Layout | ||
| Design Settings | ||
| Responsive Settings | ||
| Icon Design Settings | ||
| Custom Button Text | ||
| Familiar Interface | ||
| Custom Sharing Image | ||
| Custom Sharing Title | ||
| Custom Sharing Text | ||
| Custom Sharing Link | ||
| Active Development + Future Plans | ||
| Floating/Fixed Position | ||
| Choose Colors | ||
| Social Networks (so far) | 13 | 20 |
| Orientation/Layouts | 5+ | 3 |
| Target Audience | Divi | WordPress |
| Live Share Counts | ||
| Triggers | ||
| Statistics |
Does Monarch have some features that ours does not? Absolutely! But are they necessary? Hmm, not sure. Maybe the proper question should be if they are valuable to the bottom line.
Our social sharing module is meant to work seamlessly and beautifully with Divi, whereas Monarch is made for WordPress in general. That right there should be a bit of a red flag.
Keep in mind that our module can be added anywhere, such as in a Theme Builder template. But there’s does not even have a shortcode!
Admittedly we don’t have quite as many social networks yet, but adding more networks means more API connections and a little more strain on the server, so we are adding new networks wisely. Let us know which ones to add next!
One of the few things that Monarch has that ours doesn’t is live share counts. But this is intentional, I currently have no desire to develop that. Those are nasty for page performance, and are not necessary in our opinion. If we get some requests for it, maybe we will do it. But first, think through this scenario with me. Imagine you write a great blog post, are very proud of it. But your post says zero shares. Nobody cares 🙁 That doesn’t look very great, does it? It is more hassle and performance comprises than it is worth, IMHO. Let us know if you disagree and convince me to add them! 🙂
The Divi Social Sharing Buttons are thoughtful. Have we missed something? Probably, please tell us! We want to continue making this plugin better and better!