Long ago, when the internet was young, two juggernauts fought for control of the website creation market: Macromedia’s Dreamweaver and GoLive’s Cyberstudio.
How times have changed. Adobe acquired the latter in 1999, and the former in 2005. But with alternative web builders sprouting up all over the place these days, is Dreamweaver still the best web design software on the market, and is it still relevant to today’s online world? We tested it to find out.
Adobe Dreamweaver: Pricing & plans
- We appreciate that you can subscribe to Dreamweaver on its own, although the full (and expensive) package is still better value considering what you get.
As with most professional Adobe products, Dreamweaver is available as both a standalone subscription or as part of the Creative Cloud All Apps package. Both subscriptions offer three ways to pay: annual, monthly, and the contract-style annual paid monthly plan.
The advantage of getting the full Creative Cloud package is you can then design assets in packages such as Illustrator or Photoshop, and easily import them into your webpages, but at that cost, it’s really something only professional creatives can justify. You can try either option free for seven days.
Adobe Dreamweaver: Updates
- An excellent tool that has only received minor updates in years, doesn’t inspire confidence for its long term future.
We last took a look at Dreamweaver in 2020, and we would’ve expected some major changes and improvements since then, however, the last release was version 21.3 in June 2022 which mostly contained library updates and bug fixes. Before that, version 21.2 brought in support for Apple Silicon – a very welcome update for Mac users, granted, but not one that introduced new features. We have to go all the way back to October 2020 for the last major revision, version 21.0.
All this to say, that despite the possibility of renting this app on its own (not all Adobe apps have that privilege, which means Dreamweaver is seen by Adobe as an important part of its arsenal), the lack of major updates in years, in an ever evolving market, does not give the right reassurance.
Still, this is a major piece of software if you’re serious about wanting to design websites without having to rely on oh-so-samey templates from the plethora of website builders available today.
Adobe Dreamweaver: Website design
- This software is incredibly flexible and versatile giving you the power to create whatever page you please… as long as you can read and understand the code that runs it.
The first thing to be aware of is this is not software for novices. Yes Adobe’s Creative Cloud website hosts a large number of tutorials, to help you understand the app’s inner workings, even if some haven’t been updated in years – another hint that the app hasn’t evolved much in a while, but the software’s features are vast and complex, starting with being able to work with the basics such as HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and including more modern functionalities, such as Bootstrap.
It should be clear that unlike other website builders that do the whole thing for you, you need some knowledge of the web’s inner workings before you can start. The advantage is that Dreamweaver can help you create much more optimised code than other services who do it all for you, leading to faster, more responsive sites. It might not feel like this is an important facet of website creation these days as more and more people have access to faster connections and powerful machines, but a page that loads fast and doesn’t unnecessarily eat up your visitor’s power should still be viewed as a valuable asset, especially since an increasing number do so from a mobile device.
You’ll find a handful of templates available, although these are very bare bones if you’re used to those from other services. Nevertheless, they are most welcome and much more useful than starting with a blank page.
You’ll also see occasional tips popping up now and again to help you along the creation process, showing that although you do need some knowledge to use this app, Dreamweaver does go out of its way to do its best to help you.
Dreamweaver is adept at creating static and responsive web pages, whatever suits the type of visitor you’re after. If you select the former, you then have the ability of redirecting them to different pages depending on the screen size they’re using. Flexibility is key with Dreamweaver.
Adobe Dreamweaver: Interface
- A good and flexible interface, giving you all the tools you need within easy reach.
The interface can be customised to some degree. The thin sidebar on the left grants you access to common commands, such as opening documents, file management and comment options, and you’re free to add or remove menus from it that suit your workflow. On the right is where you manage your files and libraries.
The central and main part of the interface is dedicated to your project, which you can view either purely as source code, a rendered preview of the page you’re building, or a little of both.
You’ll quickly find that working with the code is essential (hence your need to know and understand the net’s various languages). Dreamweaver will try to ease your job in many ways: highlight some text in the preview or the code section for instance, and the same section will be highlighted in the other, helping you find what you need to change quickly. Code hints is another great tool: start typing and Dreamweaver will offer you various options to help you complete a command more quickly, which also has the added benefit of limiting typos.
There’s a lot to love with Dreamweaver, from the sheer creative freedom that’s on offer to the numerous ways the interface is designed to help you. It’s just a shame nothing radical has changed in years, making us wonder just how much longer will Adobe support this crucial piece of software.
Adobe Dreamweaver: Scorecard
| Row 0 – Cell 0 | Row 0 – Cell 1 | Row 0 – Cell 2 |
| Pricing & plans | Standard Adobe subscription plans, as a solo app or as part of Creative Cloud | 4 |
| Updates | Precious few updates make this software on life-support | 2.5 |
| Website design | Powerful and flexible website creation tool | 4.5 |
| Interface | Intuitively designed and well-organized, placing all tools in reach | 4.5 |
Should I buy?
Buy it if…
You don’t like to rely on templates from automatic website builders, you’d prefer designing unique websites, and have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the languages that power the web.
Don’t buy it if…
You’d rather some other service did all or most of the work for you, or you’d rather avoid a subscription package.