Adobe has announced they are no longer developing new features for Muse and ended technical support in 2020. Because of that many users are looking for alternatives— here are five that I recommend.
Squarespace
The Best All-Around Website Builder… Adobe Muse didn’t come with any themes, forcing you to design your website from scratch. That made creating a good looking website with Muse a lengthy process.
By contrast, Squarespace comes with 90+ professionally designed templates which are defined by their sophisticated look and feel. I think that they’re some of the best offered by any website builder. Unlike Adobe Muse, Squarespace includes a website hosting service along with its website building software.
Squarespace isn’t the easiest to use website creator— I describe as intuitive rather than user-friendly. That shouldn’t be a problem for Adobe Muse users though as it’s still significantly less complex than Muse was.
Example Squarespace template.
Try Squarespace →
Webflow
If you liked the Muse user interface… Webflow is an Adobe Muse alternative which operates similarly to Adobe Muse, but within your browser.
Adobe Muse stood out as a powerful design tool that didn’t restrict where you placed content on a page or how you structured your website. Similarly, Webflow is an advanced platform better suited to tech-savvy users rather than beginners.
It’s similar in complexity to Photoshop, which is great news for Adobe regulars. With Webflow, you can create your own theme and customize your website to an insane extent. If you have any coding experience, you’ll be able to tweak even the finest details of your Webflow website. Note that using Webflow doesn’t require you to know any programming languages, it just uses a code-like environment.
Webflow lets you tweak just about anything.
Try Webflow →
Pinegrow
If you want to keep building websites offline… The website builder market has shifted toward in-browser software packages. But Pinegrow, like Adobe Muse, is a website editor that allows you to design websites locally.
It can be installed on computers running Windows, Mac or Linux. Pinegrow’s interface is roughly as complicated as Adobe Muse’s, meaning that using it involves a fairly steep learning curve. This platform is most appropriate for highly-skilled designers or other professionals.
Pinegrow should be thought of as a ‘visual HTML editor’ rather than a traditional website builder. That means it can be used to edit websites that were originally created with using platforms, such as WordPress.
Pinegrow
Try Pinegrow →
Wix
For anyone that needs hosting and precise design control… Adobe cited the popularity of Do-It-Yourself website builders like Wix as a key reason why there was no longer a market for Muse.
Wix offers very precise design control— more granular than other website builders. Its editor uses a blank canvas style, meaning you can move content around and position it wherever you like. The process of building a website with Wix starts with choosing one of its 500+ templates, so it’s less time-consuming than Muse.
Like Squarespace, Wix is an inclusive hosting and website designing service.
You can drag any element anywhere on your page with Wix— even pixel by pixel.
Try Wix →
WordPress
To maintain the freedom to change hosting service… A major Adobe Muse selling point was that it allowed you to export websites as HTML files, so they could be uploaded to any web server.
Likewise, WordPress won’t tie you down to a single hosting provider. It’s the world’s most popular CMS (content management system) and is used by over 30% of the internet’s top 10 million websites.
Adobe Muse was an extremely flexible platform, and so is WordPress. But in a different way— Muse offered precise control over your website code through an advanced visual editor. With WordPress, incredible customizability is achieved through an active developer community that has created 54,000+ plugins which can be added to your site.
WordPress backend.
Try WordPress →
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