Web design on a budget. Six free alternatives to Dreamweaver.
As webdevelopers most of us have been born and bred on Adobe’s (formerly Macromedia’s) weapon of choice Dreamweaver. I have seen the various incarnations of the program through from version 3, to UltraDev (cutting my teeth with ASP), to the latest version CS3. However there are a couple of alternatives available on the market, which are well worth a look if you are on a budget, or are on an alternative platform. Dreamweaver has always been traditionally Windows based, and if you are looking to make the switch to Linux, you need to find yourself a solid alternative. If you are making the switch, have a browse over some of these badboys..
Kompozer
License GPL, cost Free. Platforms Win | Mac | Linux
Some of you will know kompozer as Nvu, which grew out of the Mozilla Composer WYSIWYG editor, as a result its rendering engine uses Mozilla Gecko, so you can pretty much expect to see the same things as the Firefox browser gives you, and for those of you who use CSS layouts when developing, this is an absolute Godsend. Develop for firefox, fix for I.E is the way to go. Kompozer also has built in support for FTP, similar to DW in that respect, the download is also surprisingly small for the capabilities of the program – a testament to how tight the codebase is. Simply download and extract and away you go. As well as a fully integrated site manager, Kompozer also shines with its CSS editor. Think of the way Dreamweaver handles its CSS, well Kompozer is alot cleaner, and gives access to a few more less known CSS attributes. There’s also a useful “HTML tags” window, which allows the same functionality as the Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox, outlining all your elements so you can see which part of your code relates to what. Problems I encountered were the support for server side languages. Kompozer doesn’t know how to handle include files, but if you are looking for a good static site editor, Kompozer fits the bill.
Amaya
http://www.w3.org/Amaya/User/BinDist.html
License: W3C, cost free. Platforms Win | Mac | Linux
Amaya 10 (released Feb 2008) is the latest incarnation of the web browser and authoring tool from the W3C. As you would expect from the W3C, it has a strong focus on standards, and new web technologies, including SVG image format..(although personally I find SVG as a format complete waste of time) . The download size comes in at around 7 MB, similar to Kompozer, although it extracts to a good bit bigger than that. As well as being a fully featured web page editor, it has the added bonus of being a web browser too, and the program allows you to switch between these “modes” if you want. I’d like to have seen either a site manager, or FTP support built into the editor, one of DW’s strengths is good site management as well as being a good code editor. That said, Amaya has a wealth of options including theming, quick tags and a good css designer.
Bluefish Editor
License: GPL, cost free. Platforms Mac | Linux | (Windows with CYGWIN)
Bluefish is one of the better text editors available for Linux, although it is not as focused on Web development exclusively than some of the other alternatives to dreamweaver listed here. If you are a code monkey on Linux, and need a stable and extremely fast editor, you wont go wrong with Bluefish. They state on their site that the program can open up to 500+ simulataneous documents without so much as a blink, and any of my tests on the program have more or less proven that statement. Not strictly a web editor, but good if you know what you are doing. Bluefish also has syntax support for a number of different programming languages, including the following..
C, Coldfusion, CSS, HTML, Java, Javascript, JSP, Perl, PHP, Python, SQL, XHTML, XML
Screem
License: GNU, cost free. Platforms Mac | Linux
Whilst Screem supports only POSIX based OS , it has all the features that you could want in a webpage WYSIWYG editor. It has site support / FTP access, built in HTML structure layouts, thanks to the developers of Bluefish, Screem also provides a complete PHP help reference. The find and replace also support RegEx’s which to those who know what they are doing is pretty neato.
Quanta Plus
License: GNU, cost free. Available for: linux (KDE).
Quanta Plus is steadily becoming a worthwhile competitor to the commercial web editors on the market, the project is steadily gaining a number of open source software developers. Certainly if you use PHP as your main development language it’s going to be very difficult to find a better tool than Quanta. Quanta Plus’s feature set includes multi-document interface, WYSIWYG editing and templates. Among the more advanced features your will find plug-in support and integrated PHP debugging. It also has third party support for revision control, and source control (with teams). It is part of KDE, a Linux distro, so for you Windows monkey’s out there it aint gonna fly.
Aptana Studio
http://www.aptana.com/studio/download/
License: Closed Source Cost Free. Win | Mac OSX 10.4+ | Linux (with GTK)
Aptana’s business model is to release the community version for free, then get you hooked into the pro version, however the program itself is a robust environment for building web pages and applications supporting JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, and PHP development. It has great Ajax, DOM, HTML and CSS support and plug-ins for Adobe AIR and Apple iPhone development. Think of Aptana Studio as the Web 2.0 of free web development tools, their site also gives the impression that this is a super slick tool. It has more of focus on people developing for Rails, but is equal as useful for PHP developers.
linky
posted:April 12, 2008 3:24 pm
The community edition of Aptana is open source and licensed under GPL.
Nicolas Nierenberg
linky
posted:April 12, 2008 5:03 pm
I have a different opinion about SVG, see http://steltenpower.com/livreSVGeng.html
stelt
linky
posted:April 13, 2008 9:26 am
i think html kit should be mentioned http://www.chami.com/html-kit/ i like it more than kompozer – but that is a personal choice of course.
Jens
linky
posted:April 13, 2008 12:08 pm
Amaya is actually quite nice, Microsoft has Visual Studio Express which is available legally for free, it’s a stripped down basic code html/php/javascript/asp/etc editor – so it’s not WYSIWYG but it’s quite a good alternative. There’s also 1stcup
FreeTube
linky
posted:April 13, 2008 11:32 pm
I’ve had some terrible experiences with Komposer switching between editing code and the WYSIWYG mode — it actively changes my HTML… but also screws it up, perhaps trying to “fix” problems, but that code is buggy and destructive.
I don’t know if there’s still development happening — no updates since last August — but that made it unusable for me.
Rob W
linky
posted:April 14, 2008 4:29 am
I personally use Zend Studio, free if you change your system clock forward a few years before installing the 30 day trial :-D
Smith
linky
posted:April 14, 2008 6:38 am
Your comments on SVG seem ignorant.. On a page where you promote “free” software, you ‘dis SVG? That’s senseless!
What free, common, useful vector graphics format do you propose we use instead?
Stephen Waits
linky
posted:April 14, 2008 8:05 am
@Stephen – perhaps. I hold my hands up, Ive not used it. Maybe thats because just not seen it in use..or indeed used in the same applications as PNG or Flash.
Have you any examples online with graphics exclusively SVG?
Or am i missing the point?
admin
linky
posted:April 20, 2008 6:57 am
Kompozer is the best that I have used. I have now replaced Frontpage with Kompozer.
kaushik
linky
posted:May 11, 2008 10:39 pm
I have been using N-Vu/Kompozer for a little while now to do bits of coding for my website.
Something that I did find frustrating was that it is not possible to simply drag and drop page elements where ever you want them on the web page.
After a bit of exploring on the net I found More Motion Web Express available at http://www.moremotion.com/ . This does have that particular feature and does seem to be more functional that Kompozer.
David Ballantyne
linky
posted:August 18, 2008 7:07 pm
How about Netbeans and Visual Web Developer?
I also had some thoughts about this today: http://symbioxys.blogspot.com/2008/08/so-you-cant-afford-dreamweaver.html
Xander
linky
posted:September 21, 2008 11:19 pm
I have to agree with Rob W, Kompozer does have a tendency to be destructive. Also a bit buggy when connecting through the FTP.
However given that it can be switched to portable mode, meaning it can be taken on an USB I have no complaint.
I would like to see patches being made to kompozer but it seems development has sort of stopped. Sad.
Aric
Aric H
linky
posted:October 20, 2008 5:05 am
For Mac, Coda (http://www.panic.com/coda/) is really the only game in town.
Notepad++ is decent on the win32 environment. And loads fast which is a huge plus for me.
Adam
linky
posted:October 21, 2008 11:01 pm
I’ve been using Aptana Studio for a while now. First started using it for development at work, as my employer wouldnt stump up for the Dreamweaver license fee, so had to find something either free or within my own budget, which is when I came accross Aptana Studio. I’ve been using it ever since, and have been extremely happy…so much so, that I weened myself off Dreamweaver altogether. Have even shared similar opinions on my own blog (http://www.vincecutting.co.uk/aptana-studio-better-than-dreamweaver-and-free.html).
Vince
Vince
linky
posted:December 11, 2008 5:51 pm
I find Iceape Composer to be easier for WYSIWYG editing.
Gary Efron
linky
posted:January 8, 2009 10:15 am
Nice resources for Dreamweaver alternative, if you have any open source software about photoshop please post it.
[idiot trying to spam - i nofollow]
linky
posted:January 8, 2009 11:30 am
I’m giving this advice with a pinch of salt, considering your comment looks like spam. But for other visitors, a good photoshop alternative is the Gimp.
The Gimp
Paul Anthony
linky
posted:April 12, 2009 7:39 am
You Paul, are God-sent. I had been looking for free dreamweaver alternatives and you not only offer one, but six. I will definitely install one of them.
Oluniyi David Ajao
linky
posted:April 12, 2009 11:52 am
@David – ahh your too kind. Thanks for the feedback, keeps me right!
Paul Anthony
linky
posted:June 16, 2009 12:29 pm
Not sure I would be prepared to give-up the image round-trip editing between Dreamweaver and Phothosop/Fireworks.
Hey, as a Dreamweaver trainer, I guess I have to stand up for Dreamweaver. LOL.
Billy Gee
p.s. do any of these programs above come with built in FTP?
Billy – Training Connection
linky
posted:June 24, 2009 2:09 pm
Thank you for posting alternatives to Dreamweaver. I am just beginning to develop my own web site. Although I did create one a few years ago using the free Yahoo program, it takes hours for up images (many) to upload. So, I need a better program. I do appreciate your recommendations here, but I’m afraid the jargon is a bit over my head. Could you recommend a program for a beginner with lots of photos to upload? Thanks again.
Paula
linky
posted:June 24, 2009 3:26 pm
Hi Paula,
You’ll need a good image resizing program firstly, IrFanView is free, and good at image resizing if thats all you need to do. After that, an FTP program such as FileZilla provides a bulk way to get image up to the web. Hope that helps,
Regards,
Paul.
Paul Anthony
linky
posted:June 24, 2009 7:51 pm
Nice list! Thank you!
Yigit Ozdamar
linky
posted:July 1, 2009 10:11 pm
+1 for bluefish. (bcoz I’m c0der :D)
M.S. Babaei
linky
posted:August 20, 2009 4:46 am
I’ve been using Kompozer for about six months now and the only time I’ve had any problem was when I put an iframe in the page that I was working on. When I reopened it do some more work it said for an unknown reason the page could not be edited but switching between preview mode and normal mode cleared the problem and I was able to work with the page.
Cheers,
Mark
Mark
linky
posted:September 27, 2009 7:01 am
Which one of the six is the best for somebody who is going to design a basic html site then hand it over to a PHP coder to build a backend to it? I like less html coding- I prefer having something code for me while I use the tools of the software- then bounce in to clean up the basics. I am looking for the idiot version I guess that is really user friendly.
James
linky
posted:September 27, 2009 7:25 am
I downloaded this KompoZer for windows, and I try to use the color tool for the background, and there are no colors to choose from.
James
linky
posted:October 1, 2009 8:24 am
I’ve been looking for something that my daughter can use to create a basic website with. I’ve used Dreamweaver commercially for years, but was unwilling to pay its price-tag for software which may only be used a couple of times on a single project. We’re going to give Kompozer a go, so thank you very much for your roundup :)
Bones
linky
posted:October 1, 2009 11:08 am
Hi there Bones- no worries, glad it helped a bit! Oh – and thanks for the Twitter follow!
Paul Anthony
linky
posted:November 15, 2009 5:53 pm
I abandoned Windows last Oct, for Linux Kubuntu, I finished developeing my whole website with Quanta plus for code and GIMP for graphics.
Thanks for the list, I’ll try them all.
Viva Linux ;)
Wesam Alalem
linky
posted:November 24, 2009 7:35 am
I have been using DW for years and have DW8 working v well. Have now just had to upgrade to new computer due to failing hardware. New box is Win7! Reinstalled DW but not working well – not at all really! Been through the 8.0.2 patch routine with Adobe’s most *unhelpful* wizard – which also crashed. So after almost 10 years of being a DW fan (fanatic) I am fed up with being forced to pay for upgrades just because I move platforms. Adobe must be trying to force me into CS4. I am going to try Open Source first – so thank you for the list. And thank you to all the contributors who have made constructive comments.
Roger Hallett
linky
posted:December 9, 2009 1:25 am
Okay, after downloading nearly every one of these programs, here’s my comment and I think the developers should be listening closely …. The company that comes out with a software like this that is user friendly and EASY is going to be a very successful company. Not one of these programs was easy. Not one of them made it easy to simple get started nor was the help or tutorial readily available. Wake up guys, everyone’s not a geek nor does everyone want to be one.
Jason
linky
posted:February 2, 2010 11:13 am
An excellent blogpost. Thank you.
I have heard that Aptana Studio is in excess of 200MB in comparison to Kompozers 20MB, and that it can be buggy on a mac, and therefore have opted for Kompzer.
Thanks
Bill Ambrose
linky
posted:February 16, 2010 1:27 pm
I use Codelobster PHP Edition.
It’s the best free IDE if taken all round. Besides of standard highlighting and autocomplete for PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript it has pair tag highlighting, easy navigation through tags, preview in all browsers, hot keys for marking tags’ content, attributes and its value.
Tooltips for images in code should be also noted, as the ability of navigation through the links with Ctrl-key holding.
It also includes special HTML code inspector, that allows to compare visible element with the lines of code, that are in charge of it (as in FireBug).
There also are plug-ins for Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, Smarty and JQuery.
Stas
linky
posted:March 3, 2010 12:26 pm
And Ms Visual Web Dev 2008 ? (http://www.asp.net) It’s more than an html editor (and JS, and co). You can build dynamic web site in design view.
Netah
linky
posted:March 22, 2010 2:35 pm
However I like Komodo Edit. Color picker, CSS auto-completions, support PHP, HTML, XML, and several PHPFramework, Javascript Framework , jQuery .
putude
linky
posted:April 5, 2010 6:21 pm
Komodo Edit is great (and free). I just find it to be a resource hog sometime. I love it, don’t get me wrong, but on my work machine, having it use 80MB of memory without any files open, makes me want to explore other options.
Jaymoon
linky
posted:April 14, 2010 11:00 pm
I use Dreamweaver which is truly a WYSIWYG Editor you can work on something as you see it. Is there anything out there like it. About.com said Aptana was so I downloaded that at 120MB and it’s no where close to a WYSIWYG editor, it’s a text editor with a preview whoopie dooda.
PGFracing.com
linky
posted:May 2, 2010 12:20 am
I know absolutely nothing about web design, coding etc.
Im good at graphics etc but cant be arsed to learn coding, css html blt gcse hiv etc
Sure, maybe Im ignorant bastard. But what can I use to make a simple website? i.e, few buttons and exhibit of images?
Considering I know nothing and dont want to spend days learning crap i dont need to know?????????
Help or suggestions much appreciated
xxxxxxxxxxx
Luke
linky
posted:May 2, 2010 9:12 pm
Luke,
If you are more into graphic design than web design, you may find more joy in some portfolio hosting sites, rather than learning web design / development. Try this post
http://blog.webdistortion.com/2008/04/21/9-online-portfolio-tools-for-artists-and-designers/
HTH,
Paul.
Paul Anthony
linky
posted:May 12, 2010 4:43 pm
Hi, thanks for this post. Can someone please tell me do any of these free software support FTP? Great post BTW.
Thanks
Lm
linky
posted:June 26, 2010 9:43 pm
I have a pretty basic knowledge of web design. The technique I know is the one of creating the appearance of the page as an image in photoshop and then turning it into an actual site by adding links etc in dreamweaver. I’ve tried a couple on this list (Kompozer and Amaya) and neither of them seem to work with this technique. I would rather stick with what I know if I can, especially as I have already done much of the photoshop part. Can anyone help me on whether any freeware WYSIWYG programmes, on this list or otherwise, work well with this method? I’d be grateful for any info.
Matthew
linky
posted:June 27, 2010 10:06 am
Hi Matthew,
I think the technique you are talking about is the use of “imagemaps” to draw the links on the image. Linking page to page. (Little blue icon in DW?) Whilst this works, I wouldn’t endorse it by any means, as it fundamentally goes against everything, including usability, speed etc. Your problem highlights one of the reasons WYSIWYG are dangerous – that they allow people to skip the fundamentals in understanding the code to ‘get the job’ done.
I’d have to recommend perhaps utilising some of the PSD to HTML services out there if you aren’t willing to learn the fundamentals. The end result will be much more professional than your current methodology.
Paul.
Paul Anthony
linky
posted:June 27, 2010 12:37 pm
Thanks a lot for your response. It probably is a good idea for me to try and learn the fundamentals better as you suggest, but in the meantime I will try what you suggest so I can get on with things roughly the way I know until I can learn a better way.
Matthew
linky
posted:July 9, 2010 12:49 pm
Hi,
I have a rudimentary understanding of HTML and I’ve been doing a lot of reading. So I have a lot of knowledge in my head and I’m ready to put it into practice. While I want nice web design, I want nice graphic design as well. I would like to focus first on Good web design. In short, I am learning. I want to start with a FREE option before I spend the big bucks. What would be your suggestion on an application to begin with? and do you have any other suggestions on where to start?
Tiiz
linky
posted:July 9, 2010 1:20 pm
I’d say probably Kompozer, its a good all round bet, although if you are comfortable with HTML, perhaps something like Notepad++ would be sufficient.
Paul
Paul Anthony
linky
posted:August 12, 2010 5:34 am
This post is really nice.I never know about these things which we can use as alternate of dream weaver. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Rashi
linky
posted:August 24, 2010 4:13 pm
Try ShiftEdit – Web Based IDE
http://edit.shiftcreate.com
Features: Syntax highlighting, Integrated (S)FTP, Tabs, Find/Replace, Revision history, bookmarks + it’s free.
Adam Jimenez
linky
posted:August 26, 2010 3:49 pm
Hi,
I’m about to try building a website for the first time – a simple ‘advertising’ one for a small business partnership. Googling for a free alternative to DW turned up something called ‘Arachnophilia’. It may sound like something obscene (!), but it does seem to have a decent tutorial.
Now I’ve found your Webdistortion site, and I’m confused… I was hoping it might be reviewed amongst the six – but it ain’t! Have you, or anyone else, got any experience of the above spider-loving software? If so, how good/bad is it, and would Kompozer (I’m guessing) still be your recommendation?
Thanks for any advice you can offer
Rover
linky
posted:September 3, 2010 7:07 am
I am web designing on a small netbook and was looking for a good alernative to dreamweaver. Having read this artice I decided to download Kompozer because it has been built around mozilla and I use their firebug tool all the time. Thank you for the article and the site looks great, very sharp, clean and clear design.
Web Design Southampot
linky
posted:September 3, 2010 7:12 am
Kompozer and is Amaya is Very good.
jay bharat
linky
posted:October 30, 2010 12:48 pm
Hi there,
Does anyone know if Kompozer runs on VISTA without problems?
Ben
linky
posted:November 15, 2010 6:16 am
This is a godsend! I find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place as a new designer working for an independent non-profit who wants things done yesterday, and having only one computer at home with Dreamweaver (and unable to buy on a student license until next year). Much appreciate the suggestions!
Ian Lesser
linky
posted:November 25, 2010 3:51 pm
Hi there,
Had a read through the suggestions above however I can’t find a free alternative to DW which has the ‘design view’ capability – does anybody know of one?
Thanks,
M
Mark
linky
posted:December 29, 2010 2:26 pm
I have been checking out many of your posts and i must say nice stuff. I will definitely bookmark your blog.
Leanna Derrig
linky
posted:December 31, 2010 9:12 am
I think eclipse for J2ee is a good choice for developing web pages.It also has php plugin too.Ofcourse,it is more of developer centric than a designer one (like dreamweaver).But using netbeans for any development purpose sux time..
max
linky
posted:March 31, 2011 10:53 pm
hi,
I had my website up and running until recently and now DW will not conneact with FileZilla for me to publish the site and corrections. I have Kompozer loaded and have tried it but keep getting errors. I know I am probably not puttint the right stuff in the righr places. The help indez is no help to me. Is there a tutorial or screen shots of just what goes into the settings tab and the other tab(I can’t remember it and I don’t want to loose my place her. If anyone can help, I would be most appreciative.
Gary
Gary Pape