There are so many programs out there to build websites… But, what are the differences among them? If you are at the point where you are looking for Adobe Muse alternatives, you are a professional web designer looking for new options, you are a student or new in the online business, this is a full guide to understand the pros & cons and help you choose the right tool for you. Here you will find all the advantages and disadvantages that, in our opinion, we find in these website builders.
As there are so many Muse users out there looking for new options, we are going to compare Adobe Muse, Adobe XD, Spark, WordPress, Wix, Bootstrap Studio, Squarespace, Webflow and Dreamweaver. We are going to analyze the following:
- Coding knowledge. Do you need to learn any programming language like HTML/CSS, or these type of skills aren’t required?
- Learning curve. How hard is it to learn to use? How fast will I progress learning this tool?
- Pricing/License fee. How much does it cost to use it and for how long?
- Hosting and maintenance fees. Can I host my site on my own server? How much will it cost a month/year to host my site with them?
- Community sizes. Are there many users using it? Are there forums, tutorials from others that I can search for whenever I am stuck?
- Professional results. Can I build professional websites for my clients or is it just for amateurs?
- E-commerce. How hard or easy is it to turn my site into an online shop?
- Full site property. You own the site’s files and database and you have the freedom to move it to any other provider.
We think these features are important when choosing a software that you are going to work with to build your websites. Before we begin our comparisons, we must analyze Muse according to the features that we have mentioned above.
Adobe Muse
Adobe Muse is a website builder that allows you to create responsive designs without writing a line of code. Muse is famous because of its design freedom. You can export your designs so it gives users the ability to publish their sites in any server.
- Coding knowledge. You can build professional websites without writing a single line of code.
- Learning curve. Easy to learn, especially for designers who are familiar with Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign.
- Pricing/License fee. $52.99/month for the Creative Cloud license. You get all the programs from the Creative Cloud.
- Hosting and maintenance fees. You can host your site in your own server and no extra fees are charged.
- Community sizes. Available tutorials on YouTube from users and widget/template developers, and an active forum in Adobe official site.
- Professional results. It is easy to build professional-looking websites but you will encounter issues when sites are complex.
- E-commerce. You can build a simple online store with a premium third-party widget or link to your Shopify/Ecwid store. Credit card payment not available, only PayPal, Payoneer and similar.
- Full site property. Yes
Dreamweaver
Muse and Dreamweaver are two website builders that belong to Adobe. Although they serve the same purpose, they aren’t direct competitors as the users’ profiles are different.
- Coding knowledge. Yes, you need to know HTML and CSS as Dreamweaver is an advanced code editor that has a visual editing feature for faster and more flexible coding. You can preview in real time the changes you are making to the code.
- Learning curve. A steep learning curve, not recommended for beginners but for professionals with coding experience.
- Pricing/License fee. $52.99/month for the Creative Cloud license. You get all the programs from the Creative Cloud.
- Hosting and maintenance fees. You can upload your sites to your own servers, with no extra fees charged.
- Community sizes. Git support, an active forum in Adobe official website, YouTube tutorials, and forums started by Dreamweaver users with articles and tutorials.
- Professional results. The desktop app offers a lot of tools for building professionally-looking sites.
- E-commerce. You can build online stores, with different payment options but mostly, a lot of coding will be required depending on the level of customization you are trying to achieve.
- Full site property. Yes
Adobe XD
Adobe XD is an app to prototype and share any user experience, from websites to mobile apps. It isn’t a website builder as you cannot export your designs into HTML.
- Coding knowledge. No coding required.
- Learning curve. A light learning curve, especially for experienced graphic designers.
- Pricing/License fee. There is a free limited version but you can get Adobe XD by purchasing the Creative Cloud license for $52.99/month. You get all the programs from the Creative Cloud.
- Hosting and maintenance fees. No hosting is required. You still cannot export websites from Adobe XD.
- Community sizes. A growing community, as Adobe Experience Design was launched in 2016. Right now you can find most of the community in the forum in Adobe official site, third parties developing extensions, blogs, and tutorials on YouTube.
- Professional results. You still cannot export your designs into HTML. So far, it’s a prototyping tool although we think that in the future, Adobe will make this possible.
- E-commerce. You cannot build real online shops yet. You need to export your assets and use another software to build your site.
- Full site property. Yes… but again, it still isn’t a website builder.
Webflow
Webflow is another website platform builder that offers templates, the software to design and a hosting service. You will build your designs based on code with a visual builder.
- Coding knowledge. Basic CSS and HTML knowledge.
- Learning curve. The learning curve isn’t that intuitive if you are a beginner.
- Pricing/License fee. You can build a project in Webflow for free but cannot publish it. Website plans start from $12/month per site but extra fees are charged for CMS or e-commerce.
- Hosting and maintenance fees. You can publish your site on the .webflow.io subdomain or you will need to pay hosting services to Webflow.
- Community sizes. You can find more Webflow users in their official forum, tutorials in the Webflow University, and a market for Webflow templates. You can find everything on their site.
- Professional results. You can build professional looking websites but it has some feature limitations, that their users are requesting for on their forums.
- E-commerce. On November 14, 2018, they announced that Webflow e-commerce was on Beta for everyone.
- Full site property. No.
WordPress
WordPress (WordPress.org, not the same as .com) is the most popular CMS where you can build a website, online store, portfolio, e-commerce, or a blog for free. No fees will be charged on WordPress’ side.
- Coding knowledge. No coding knowledge required to build your site.
- Learning curve. Fast learning curve.
- Pricing/License fee. It’s free!
- Hosting and maintenance fees. You can host your site on your own server.
- Community sizes. WordPress has been around for years and there is a huge community where you can find lots of help, not only from WordPress official forum but thousands of experts contribute with free plugins and themes.
- Professional results. You can easily build a professional site using visual builders like Page Builder by SiteOrigin, Themes Generator or Elementr.
- E-commerce. Turning your site into an online shop is as easy as installing a free plugin called WooCommerce.
- Full site property. Yes.
Wix
A drag and drop website builder that requires no experience at all. It’s also an all-in-one-platform that offers templates, hosting, and domain registrar.
- Coding knowledge. No coding knowledge required.
- Learning curve. Easy and fast to learn as you are required to build your site starting from one of their templates.
- Pricing/License fee. You can build your site for free but if you want extra features like e-commerce, you will pay starting from $16.50/month.
- Hosting and maintenance fees. Free hosting if you publish sites in WIX subdomain but if you want to upload your site to your domain, you must host the site in WIX and get the Unlimited Plan ($12.50/month) at least to get a decent hosting and remove adds.
- Community sizes. There are many WIX themes, but it seems that they are all designed by them and not from a community of users.
- Professional results. You can build professional-looking sites, but if you are a professional web designer, WIX isn’t a choice. It’s more suitable for users with no knowledge at all about web design
- E-commerce. It seems that switching your site to an online shop is easy once you pay for it.
- Full site property. No.
Bootstrap Studio
This desktop app allows you to create responsive websites using bootstrap framework. It uses a drag and drop interface that also suggests you which elements can be nested in one another. If this system isn’t enough for you, it also gives you full control of the code so you can edit it in a text editor like Sublime.
- Coding knowledge. No coding knowledge is required although you have the option to edit the code.
- Learning curve. It’s intuitive and easy to use.
- Pricing/License fee. The standard license is $29 with free updates during a year, or you can get the lifetime license for $60.
- Hosting and maintenance fees. You get a free .bss subdomain with your plan, and you can also export your site and upload it to any standard server.
- Community sizes. It’s not very big, mostly tutorials on their webpage and YouTube and a forum.
- Professional results. You can build beautiful sites but with some limitations, like e-commerce.
- E-commerce. You can add payment forms into your sites but you would need to add custom code if you really want to turn your site into an online shop.
- Full site property. Yes.
Spark
Adobe Spark is a free online design app. It’s not really an app for professionals, but for amateurs, students or anybody who wants to build a presentation or tell a story.
- Coding knowledge. No coding required. You drag and drop simple-ready made and animated blocs.
- Learning curve. This app is super easy to learn. It takes you less than 1 hour to get how it works.
- Pricing/License fee. There is a free option and a paid version with premium features starting from $12/month. Also, you can find this app in the Creative Cloud.
- Hosting and maintenance fees. No hosting required.
- Community sizes. So far we have just found a forum in Adobe official website and some How to-tutorials on YouTube.
- Professional results. No, you cannot build professionals websites with Spark. This app is more for amateurs, students or for anybody who wants to make a nice one-page presentation.
- E-commerce. You cannot adapt your creations in Spark to a website nor to an online shop.
- Full site property. It’s not a website builder.
Squarespace
Squarespace is another all-in-one-solution for web designers. As you can read on their site, you begin with one of their award-winning templates, host the site with them and use their own marketing tools. You also get to try this web app for free.
- Coding knowledge. No coding knowledge or experience is required.
- Learning curve. It seems easy to use at the beginning but when you try to setup your site, it gets confusing and not user-friendly.
- Pricing/License fee. A personal site license is $11/month and you will be charged extra for e-commerce or complex sites.
- Hosting and maintenance fees. You must host your site with them and the price of this service is included in your license fee.
- Community sizes. It seems they have the whole community around their site with a forum, support, learning, and templates.
- Professional results. You can build professional websites but their lack of support of 3rd party apps and extensions makes some functionalities too basic.
- E-commerce. You can build a simple online shop with Squarespace but it won’t work for big and complex sites.
- Full site property. No.
After testing and trying all these apps, we are definitely moving onto WordPress and Themes Generator, because we find it the most powerful tool, it also offers the design freedom that we had in Muse, all the extra functionalities are free and no fees are charged for using it as it’s an open source CMS.
Join us!
We are preparing lots of new videos on our YouTube Channel. Subscribe to get notified when the first chapter is out!
