Adobe Dreamweaver 8

Best professional web editor.If you need to create complex websites with e-commerce features such as shopping carts, real-time database interaction, drop-down menus and integrated multimedia, Dreamweaver is the best (albeit expensive) choice of web authoring tools for Windows and Mac users. Adobe Dreamweaver 8 is the darling of the professional web design community for its powerhouse features, including strong support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and all major scripting languages. Reviews agree that though installation is a breeze and the user interface is so well organized that it gives an illusion of simplicity, Dreamweaver is anything but simple. It is heavy duty software built for the most advanced web design and editing. For the average user, CoffeeCup or even free software is far easier to learn and much cheaper.



Best web-design software for non-pros.Reviews say CoffeeCup 2006 is a good choice in website software for the average home or small business user. It's best for those seeking a far less expensive and intimidating product that will still yield very impressive results. You don't need a $400 program like Dreamweaver just to design simple, effective websites. CoffeeCup is easy to learn, with an excellent tutorial to accommodate beginners. Coffee Cup lacks sophisticated e-commerce features, so it's best for straightforward home or business Websites. You'll still need a domain name and a web-hosting service to actually post your Website.


Site building tools plus web hosting.Homestead is a website hosting service offering web design tools for subscribers. To build your own website, download Homestead's free award-winning SiteBuilder software and drag and drop content onto your pages. No programming or HTML skills are needed. Among the useful website features are site statistics, password protection, web polls, feedback forms and multimedia support. More expensive monthly plans offer matching e-mail accounts and support for accepting PayPal, so Homestead can even be used for small business websites. Since web hosting is included in the monthly fee, Homestead is ultimately less expensive than most solutions, and it's the best choice for beginners.


Free web-design software.Pronounced "N-view," Nvu 1.0 is a complete, although very basic web design solution for Windows, Mac and Linux that is 100% free, available to anyone for download. Based on Mozilla Composer, Nvu 1.0 lets users create quick and easy websites, without having to know HTML. The software still includes some more advanced bells and whistles like JavaScript coding and CSS support. Tech support and documentation is a common weakness of freeware, and reviews found Nvu thin in this area, though there is a forum for posting questions to other users. As with paid web-design software, you will still need a hosting service to post your website.


Free blog software.If you want to build a blog rather than a website, you could simply use the free blog design template tools provided by blog hosting services like MySpace.com, Blogger.com, and LiveJournal.com. But for greater control over the final look of your blogs, reviews prefer WordPress 2.0. This free blog design software is highly customizable through plug-ins and template editors. If you want to, it even lets you modify code just like high end HTML editors. WordPress can be used with most blog hosting services or with WordPress's own servers. As is typical of freeware, there is limited or no tech support, though experts comment that WordPress enjoys a very active forum of intelligent users who will respond to questions.


We found the best web-design software reviews at Smart Computing, PC Magazine and Macworld, as well as websites with knowledgeable tech writers like CNet.com and About.com. Of these, Smart Computing tops our All Reviews chart with their excellent overview, "Building A Home On The Web - Four Top Web Editors." This article is a good stepping-stone for learning what types of features to consider, as well as making software recommendations. PC Magazine also publishes good reviews of web design software, but the magazine tends to review each title individually rather than making detailed comparisons. CNet.com provides a valuable resource in that, although comparison reviews are rare, each software title gets a numerical rating. CNet's section for downloads also offers a huge number of user reviews and ratings. Macworld publishes in-depth reviews from an Apple-centric perspective, which counterbalances the more PC-oriented reviews from other publications.
We checked for reviews of this category at Consumer Reports, but that magazine has not tested web design software. The market can't quite agree on a universal name for this type of software, which you'll also see called website software, web authoring tools, HTML editors or website publishing software.

Three industry leading web design software products are conspicuously absent from our comparison: Microsoft FrontPage 2003 , Microsoft Expression Web Designer and Adobe GoLive CS2 . Microsoft's decade-old FrontPage is being phased out. They've announced they will soon discontinue support for this venerable program, so we feel it's best to exclude it from comparison.