Adobe Muse EOL announcement - Alternatives to Adobe Muse?

[Preran]

Hi all,

For those of you that haven't received the email around the Adobe Muse EOL, see the FAQ Product Announcement that tries to answer some the common questions around the announcement including the reasons behind the decision.

Before we proceed with discussing alternatives, the Muse application will continue to open on your computer. You will be able to continue to edit existing or create new websites with the application. Adobe Muse will continue to be supported until May 20, 2019 and will deliver compatibility updates with the Mac and Windows OS or fix any bugs that might crop up when publishing Muse sites to the web. However, it is quite possible that web standards and browsers will continue to change after Adobe stops support for the application.

While there is no 1:1 replacement for Adobe Muse at this stage, the FAQ link above provides some alternatives. Also, Adobe is making our own investment in DIY website creation and welcomes all Muse customers to join our upcoming pre-release program for a new format that will be introduced this year as part of Adobe Spark. Build a beautiful website—in minutes | Adobe Spark

That being said, I would like to open up this discussion for discussing other solutions and migration paths. It would be ideal if we could focus our efforts on the topic at hand.

Thanks,

Preran

[Swandive stream]

It's rather like getting in a taxi (long trip) and suddenly being dumped out in the middle of nowhere for no clear reason and forced to hunt for alternative means of transport.

[Lonnie_Kunkel]

I've seen suggestions to try plugins for Dreamweaver, but one DW extension developer, Extend Studio, sent me this email:

Hi Lonnie,

To be completely honest, our Dreamweaver extensions are close to the end of their lives, too, so I wouldn't recommend them as an alternative to Muse.

Dreamweaver has decreased significantly in popularity over the last few years so we're seriously considering discontinuing these products.

The largest part of our revenues are brought by our WordPress products while our DW products are not profitable anymore.

[Nancy OShea]

Lonnie_Kunkel  wrote

I've seen suggestions to try plugins for Dreamweaver, but one DW extension developer, Extend Studio, sent me this email:

Hi Lonnie,

To be completely honest, our Dreamweaver extensions are close to the end of their lives, too, so I wouldn't recommend them as an alternative to Muse.

Dreamweaver has decreased significantly in popularity over the last few years so we're seriously considering discontinuing these products.

The largest part of our revenues are brought by our WordPress products while our DW products are not profitable anymore.

That doesn't surprise me much because Extend Studio was a late comer and never quite captured the DW user market.  The only extension developers I deal with are Project Seven who makes great widgets by the way, DMX Zone and Web Assist.   They each have a long relationship with  Dreamweaver that goes back many years and in some cases decades.   None of them branched into extensions for Muse because Muse was just too problematic.

[Lonnie_Kunkel]

Nancy OShea​ -- I've been to Project Seven's site and couldn't find any free trials -- do you know where I can find the free trials?

[Nancy OShea]

PVII has excellent products and excellent customer support.  I'm not aware of any free trials for premium products.  If you have questions, contact details are on the bottom of this link.

Responsive Web Design Extensions, Apps, Add-ons and Plugins for Dreamweaver

Their Extension Manager is free and installs other extensions besides their own.

PVII Extension Manager for Adobe Creative Cloud

[Lonnie_Kunkel]

Sent PVII an email at 3:30 asking a simple question and now they are closed. Doesn't sound like great support to me. And no free trial? They've already wasted too much of my time.  I had a problem getting an Extend Studio plugin to work and a dude was on my computer fixing it in less than five minutes.

Glad your having a better experience with PVII than I am.

[Nancy OShea]

PVII is on the east coast of United States. They have normal business hours,  M-F the same as other software vendors (Adobe included).  Or post a question on their support forums. 

PVII Support Forums + General Web Design, CSS, and Dreamweaver Discussions

[ALsp]

We did not get an email from you. We answer our emails

Perhaps you can try to telephone us. We answer our phones, too.

[ALsp]

Lonnie_Kunkel  wrote

Sent PVII an email at 3:30 asking a simple question and now they are closed. Doesn't sound like great support to me. And no free trial? They've already wasted too much of my time.  I had a problem getting an Extend Studio plugin to work and a dude was on my computer fixing it in less than five minutes.

Glad your having a better experience with PVII than I am.

No unanswered emails on our server or in our junk folders. You either typed in the wrong address or this is a case of negative PR . Kindly state your question here and I'll be happy to answer you. You can also call us. Our telephone number is listed on our site and we do answer our phone calls.

[bernwa]

This is all just such a disaster.  With so many people let down and so enthusiastic about Muse you would think Adobe would really listen and do the right thing.  Do not kill this program!  I've been messing with Webflow, Pinegrow and a few others and I'm telling you, they don't come close to Muse in the concept of ease of design and building sites.  I just don't get Adobe.  They've gotten thousands of dollars from me over the years and I've been a faithful customer.  And this is what I get.  The ONLY solution to fix this mistake is to reverse this stupid decision.  ONLY one!

[Studio96]

IN terms of business model and an approach to existing clients, I am 'circling' around presenting these three options:

- Leave it all as it is, however after next year or the year after, not charge a maintenance fee or be able to guarantee making site side changes. I would charge the hourly rate to see if I could assist.

- Migrate to a new software to build the site - effectively - rebuild what they already have. I have yet to decide which software is best suited to me but we would have a year - 18 months to transition. This is unlikely to be chargeable if the site is simply copied but I cannot guarantee replicating the exact design and functions.

- Plan in a site redesign / new site in a year - 18 months time based on the new software. This would be chargeable but would attract a heavy discount.

Still keeping up with other members thoughts and taking some time to find my options too. I have a whole day booked out to consider and practice some others but I may delay choosing for another 6 months - again, giving it time to settle and sort out what's what.

[Peter Villevoye]

@Studio96 – Great to see you're making progress on defining plans to look ahead !

Hawkeye wrote he's going to give it some time, to see what's going to happen with all the existing other tools and maybe some new ones. I think that's a good thought. Others are already exploring several alternatives and writing lots of their findings in this discussion. Even staffers and endorsers of such tools are kindly and helpfully chiming in.

Coincidentally, last two days I've been attending an app design & development conference. Many of the sessions went deep into extremely technical matters, like testing procedures in Agile app development, monetising on apps by ads and user attribution, design apps for accessibility. And most of the stuff also relates to websites. It's astonishing how whole ecosystems of suppliers and workflows have gradually grown around apps within just 10 years ! Or should I say in our Muse context: it's actually astonishing how an ecosystem has grown around Muse, like a walled garden, with many users not being bothered too much (or at all) about testing, analysing, optimising, monetising, content management, etcetera ?

That's why most of the websites built with Muse are better off being kept small, like nurturing a bonsai tree.

Whenever repetitive and dynamic content structures need to be implemented, any proper CMS would do so much better than the wanna-be solutions with Muse. Whenever lots of scripted parts need to be added to a website, Muse's inelegantly defined code turns out horrible to work with. Whenever some one pushes the limits of a responsive design, Muse can be tricky and bitchy...

Nevertheless, Muse joyfully continued to cater for all those builders of smaller websites and their happy website owners. Until now...

IMHO, I think Muse users will eventually split up into two directions:

(1) Many will take the plunge into tools like Webflow, and finally step up, making themselves more familiar with the technical principles behind web design, like getting a grip on the flow of HTML. Lots of tools are already available to them, varying from appealing desktop applications and online services, to more technically inclined tools like Dreamweaver and WordPress. I doubt if they'll ever lay hands on bare bones code editors, coming from Muse.

(2) Others will resort to less freeform tools and online services, and just be satisfied with the enormous amounts of presets and prebuilt templates. In case of designers building a website for a client, they even need to worry if their client might also be comfortable with using such tools themselves...

But in each way, Muse, the inspirational Goddess of the Web, had to admit that the web world has grown out of her head and hands, and that the greater Adobe Gods and their bean counters decided that mere mortals should be happy enough with other tools...

[Marco Romano]

@ Peter: your posts are always useful and clear. Thank you!

Premise: unfortunately the road to get out of CC is long and far from easy (adobe has studied very well...) but step by step I will work hard to do it because it's the only way to let them know all my disappointment: when will be ready and mature different solutions especially for InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop (which are my real target) will be the time to greet them (revenge is a cold dish and sooner or later will come), as for Muse I decided that I'll permanently return to WordPress even for smaller sites (I'm already quite familiar to).

That's said,in the meantime, two of my clients to whom I published the website two months ago, absolutely don't want to change for at least a couple of years or until the Muse-based system will hold

So now, I currently have the Muse 2018.0 version installed on my Mac and I read in some comments in this discussion that the latest update of Muse (2018.1) released concurrently with the EOL would have encountered some problems in those who have updated...

Is it true?

Can anyone kindly advise me whether to continue to keep the previous version (2018.0) or if I can easily update it to 2018.1 without incurring any problems? It would still be another hoax ...

Thanks in advance

[HawkeEye]

In my career I have been in this spot both giving and receiving bad news and it is not easy.  It is important for all of us to remember that good people like Preran and others are not policy makers.  We have all had our chance to vent and now need to work to find a good answer.  The Adobe employees we are dealing with can help, but they cannot reverse corporate level decisions.

[work_at_it]

@ Peter Villevoye... We were already using Muse to build mid to large websites, with some nice functionality and interest, without need to go into the code. The kind of sites that my code-friendly Wordpress developer friends would take twice as long to do.... especially with the designer still handing off to the developer. SEO and load speed comparable.

Many people on this forum like to characterize Muse as for simple websites only and that those using it didn't care about testing, analyzing etc....so-called "proper website building." That wasn't what many of us were doing. This is more a function of the individual, not the software they are using, and I see plenty of Wordpress and otherwise-built sites not living up to the standards.

Lots of scripted parts... it didn't matter that the code was inelegant to work with, because you didn't have to go into it. Sites these days generally, call out all over the web to load a page anyway, whether they were built in Muse or not. Appreciating this concept, and the ever increasing processing power and bandwidth on mobile and desktop devices, is what renders the whole ugly code argument somewhat moot. You know, if a page loads in 1.4 seconds vs. 1.2 seconds, no one cares what's under the hood.

But cutting out a step in the production process.... now that is still going to win out in the end. The original Adobe philosophy behind Muse/BC was not flawed, I think they just programmed themselves into a corner trying to fit two puzzle pieces together, where on the BC end, you had traditional developers and the Muse audience to BOTH please, but BC was originally only built for the traditional code-friendly audience.

[Guest]

Totally agree...there were and are many larger sites built with Muse for some major clients. Len at Design Strategies has over one hundred clients websites builrpt with it . We have 23. Those of us who make a living “full time” at running a business got the advantage of efficiency, cost and benefits to many companies. Not all Muse sites were one page vanity sites. Several are for multimillion dollar companies. One a well known mattress company you see all the time. The site was findable, Good messaging, did its job. A little slow to load but was faster than its previous WordPress built site.

[W_J_T]

HMAM  wrote

there were and are many larger sites built with Muse for some major clients. Len at Design Strategies has over one hundred clients websites built with it.

DSI - thats an interesting example, as most of the sites by Design Strategies in their portfolio, show no need for the freeform expressive design aspect Muse offers. Instead most simply and easily conform to the more rigid design styles of any common CSS framework (Bootstrap / Foundation, etc.,). Which honestly seems true for most Muse sites in general, aside from perhaps some found on various Muse showcase sites. They also state they employ a Programming Specialist who does “custom-built back end programming and that nothing is too difficult for”. Also a Wordpress Specialist who “blows everyone away with their technical knowledge and design capabilities” So its curious that they ever needed Muse. But because of that they seem to be in a better position than most moving forward from Muse and BC with such rockstars already on staff.

[Guest]

No...read some of his posts...he’s as upset as everyone else ...he has to redo all of the websites at some point...

[W_J_T]

HMAM  wrote

No...read some of his posts...he’s as upset as everyone else ...he has to redo all of the websites at some point...

I can imagine they are discouraged and disappointed like most having used Muse given the current EOL situation. But as stated above its curious as to why they chose to rely on Muse so heavily in the first place given those things which were mentioned above.

[Guest]

For all of the the obvious reasons. We used Muse for major accounts as well who needed a fast deplyment for intranet testing sites. Len, a very competent designer and I have been atthis for many many years. Over 40 for me.

Adobe just has made some bad management choices taking its customers down some bad pathways. Flash, (not to mention the h@ck into their accounts awhile back) Muse was a tool that many were relying g on...

150,000,000 Adobe Creative Cloud Accounts Compromised | The Tech Guy

[W_J_T]

I understand the ease of use with Muse and appeal to designers. It was just an observation based upon those things in which I stated per that usage case you gave. No ones competency is being questioned.

Sometimes seeking "easy", can allow people to lead themselves down their own bad pathways.

[HawkeEye]

I agree and just want a replacement with as much functionality in time.  With the cost of hardware dropping and the availability of higher bandwidth, the efficiency of code takes a back seat to speed, ease, and cost of development.  But Muse was not a toy for people who built one page web sites.

I have one educational site with about 1,300 pages linked to 8,000 images.  Muse can scale because I am sure I did not push the limits.  I am sure my lack of coding skill makes it less efficient than it could be, but the data is largely static once produced and adding content was my big priority. 

There is an alternative out there, or one will step forward.  If I were earning a living doing this I would have been in more of a panic and I understand the angst.  But we have two or three years to do whatever transition fits our specific needs.

[Studio96]

I also agree, i have multiple page complex sites and this is part of the challenge to find a migration path to another product, everything did fit and scale around Muse. It’s too simple to say it was simple softeare for simple sites only becuase Adobe have opted for a ‘simpler’ solution - its a different market

[HawkeEye]

I am old enough to have gone through wired boards with punch cards, to Assembler, to Fortran, to Basic, to Cobol, to Visual Basic, to HTML... and thankfully to Muse.  In this business there is always something new right around the corner and you are usually both surprised and wowed by it.  Some patience and a lot of thought is the path to the replacement for Muse.

[Peter Villevoye]

Hey Work-at-it, great to hear you've been able to build larger websites with Muse ! And good job that you've been able to pull these jobs off without the need to insert or edit any code.

And many "proper" web builders indeed tend to use WordPress for websites which don't need it at all, and would be better off being built with Muse...

I'm curious to see some of them.

Would you mind putting up some links to them ?