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

[Illostraight]

Although you may be right, it's not going to happen. There's a split here, coders vs wysiwyg. So coders need or want bootstrap, CSS, HTML, Wordpress and to be able to get under the hood, and wysiwyg needs drag and drop. We don't mind if it's proprietary. For us, and if we're on macs, we're down to Sparkle and Everweb. For coders, it appears they can go almost anywhere else, which is fortunate for them. But it makes me wonder why they picked Muse in the first place If they're now so against sites similar to Muse. Maybe to keep us from the same demise, but some of us are too busy to learn code and will forget it if we did as not all will use it every day, week, month or year.

[atillahun]

You make some valid points, but what I am saying is not that wysiwg is invalid, just that it leaves you vulnerable if you depend on it in totality. I picked Muse and used it for low level sites on a tight budget, the kind of site where you have day's worth of budget. Also, sites where the customer did not require any CMS or complex response forms. To be honest, I liked it because from launching Muse for the first time to building a small three page site took be three quarters of a day including Photoshop work, great, very profitable. The interface was similar to InDesign so easy to understand.

Perhaps Adobe realised the market was fragmenting between professional web coders and developers and a DIY market of drag and drop sites, hence Spark I suspect. Perhaps therefore they saw the writing on the wall for Muse. I would suggest one thing however, if you place your commercial camp with drag and drop construction, you might by association loose commercial credibility. Why pay someone to do something you can do yourself.

[Illostraight]

I get that, but like many Muse expats, I'm not going to learn code, I don't have time and won't retain it in the long run. It will change and we'll all have to keep up with the changes. I knew DW before CSS, html4 and html5, and didn't want to go farther. When I downloaded Sparkle I had half of one of my Muse websites done Within a few days.

    And about small companies closing their apps....how large is Adobe And who would have thought? Any could go out, except places that use something like Wordpress, etc. So at this point, it's which apps will work with drag and drop people, and which apps will work for coders. Lectures on what we should or shouldn't do have been hashed and rehashed, you're prob right, but thx for the advice, sticking with wysiwyg.

[GARRogers]

I must say, I have wondered the same thing at Illostraight: If people are so devoted to coding, why were/are they using Muse to start with? It does seem like we are divided. I admire people who can and do code their websites, and it isn't for lack of interest that some of us don't. Before Muse, I learned and used quite a bit of it. The problem is, I could never have had the time to maintain the size website I need. Muse was a great answer; now I would like to find something that makes my life as easy as Muse does.

I think the majority of people who visit websites are much more interested in the content of the website than in how beautifully coded the website is. Of course, both good content and good code would be ideal, but the time just isn't there.

[danielf]

There is also Blocs, which is bootstrap framework no-code app for Mac only: Blocs - Fast, easy to use and powerful visual web design software that lets you create beautiful and... It's gonna release a 3.0 this year, has recently opened up it API for 3rd party development of 'widgets' or what is called 'brics' in the app, and worth looking into.  Nice user forum to get questions answered, and an really good native tutorial videos, and ones provided for free here: https://store.eldargezalov.com/getting-started-with-blocs

[rayek.elfin]

danielf​ I downloaded the trial of Blocs, and played around with it. My first impressions:

The bad stuff:

• just like Sparkle, Mac only. Such outdated thinking - why no Windows and Linux version? As far as I can tell, both apps rely on frameworks that should make it relatively easy to support on other OSs.
• the GUI is completely static and cannot be customized AT ALL - again, just like Sparkle. Why is it that these applications eschew even basic GUI standards? The ONLY thing Blocs allows me to change is moving the sidebar to the left of the screen. Really?
• Using the GUI in Blocs is a pretty bad experience. It feels as if I am working with a phone app, but this is probably a personal thing of mine. Blocs tries to be too smart in places for its own good. For example, the add block section that pops up removes itself again when the user moves the mouse cursor off that area. That is bad GUI design indeed.
• no option to show multiple breakpoint views side by side, or an option to work on multiple breakpoints simultaneously.
• no option to show the page manager in a side panel.
• no option to collapse panels, or search for properties.
• no page structure/element outline to quickly select an element on the page. No overview is killing. Imagine working with Photoshop and Illustrator without the layer panel. Ugh. Terrible oversight.
• class manager dialog plus modal class manager properties dialog a GUI disaster.
• no custom workspaces (obviously)
• no option to have two or more pages open side by side, or even to open a second or third instance of Blocs to work on multiple pages simultaneously.
• can only zoom out to 50%. Sigh.
• Bootstrap only. No Foundation, or 960grid. No support for plain html.
• no option to add your own frameworks and elements easily. For example, in Pinegrow I can add my own framework (skeleton) if I need it.
• no previews of the Bootstrap blocks. Just simplistic icons that sometimes are hard to distinguish from each-other.
• Like Sparkle and Muse, Blocs again insists on its own proprietary project file format. WHY? Html, CSS, js, etc. - all open standards. I just don't get it. It makes it SO much harder to integrate these tools in a team workflow, or an existing web dev pipeline. It immediately shows these apps are meant for small-scale sites and only one person working on it.
• and once more it is not possible to import existing (Bootstrap-based) pages, or html.

The good stuff:

• the brick builder is nice and easy. The GUI is somewhat limiting again, however, and gets in the way too much.
• animation options
• integration options with multiple CMS is really nice to have.
• multi resolution images are easy to do in Blocs.
• good Bootstrap support (but no choice of versions).
• easy to use

Anyway, interesting product. The GUI had me wanting to throw my cup of tea at it on many occasions: just not my type of GUI. I think the GUI is non-standard, and just plain gets in the way of work. The GUI is severely limiting, and the lack of a page outline is a bad design choice. It's just SO SLOW to work with.

At this point I think the developers should hire a UX designer, and have a long serious discussion. Because the GUI is mindbogglingly frustrating to work with. Simple is one thing, but TOO simple and throwing basic usability rules out of the window is just a bad design decision. Blocs is supposed to be a desktop app, not a phone app.

[Illostraight]

The GUI on Blocs drove me nuts. I had to drop it. Remember I'm wysiwyg. But I had no problem with Sparkle. At some point, I'm going to try Everweb. I'm waiting until the fall. Seems there's lots of improvements coming no matter where we all land. Thx for the update!

[rayek.elfin]

I forgot a couple of additional good points of Blocs:

• no subscription!
• personal edition very affordable
• good developer API

Illostraight​ Yes, I agree. Blocs seems to think it's a phone app, or something. While it is easy to use initially, after a couple of minutes I really had to suppress the urge to scream at the screen.

Haven't tried Everweb yet myself. And yes, all these apps seem to have renewed developer energy since the demise of Muse.

[danielf]

rayek.elfin  wrote

danielf  I downloaded the trial of Blocs, and played around with it. My first impressions:

The bad stuff:

The good stuff:

What a fine review...consider positing it on the Blocs forum and see what kind of answers, feedback, clarifications you can stir up!  https://forum.blocsapp.com/

[Yorh_Ekin]

I have tested Blocs as well as EverWeb.

BOTH web development tools are good. Some features are missing, but very fast stable so far.

The entire subject is about design methodology. How much freedom in terms of creation does the

designer need or the client want. That's the whole thing. End of story.

Blocs = Less design freedom but more automation in terms of responsive

Which means, less work and more cost efficient for the client

EverWeb = More design freedom but less automation in terms of responsive

Which means in clear words, the client has to spend more money for the creation of

individual pages on different devices.

I can recommend both software tools depending on what challenges the designer needs

to achieve with what kind of design freedom and budget.

[Illostraight]

Thank you, Yorth! Great input!

[danielf]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Yorh+Ekin  wrote

The entire subject is about design methodology. How much freedom in terms of creation does the

designer need or the client want. That's the whole thing. End of story.

Excellent post! 

For myself, I'm not a designer by trade, but one of those folks that used Muse to create an individual personal website, and loved the freedom it provided, and the fun in learning something new (not being a website designer, but enjoying learning software).

The process of comparing apps/services is indeed ripe with disappointments, and even some nice surprises, when trying to replicate the positives that muse provides...that's certainly how i feel. 

The effort to explore alternatives is demanding, to truly vet what any alternative can provide -- and of course this vetting is relative to what each user needs, expects, must have, and the skill set to vet accordingly.

Blocs is a radical departure from Muse from a creative process and a user experience lens, and I'm still exploring it to decide if I will ultimately use it as a replacement -- the fact that the API was recently released and that folks appear to be scrambling to produce stuff is promising.  The API tools are immediately available within the app menu, too (pretty cool for developers, I would think). 

So, knowing that it exists worthy to explore was the purpose of my original post!

[sergioo32892440]

TommyHood I share your opinion. It does not matter if Adobe with its staff of lawyers wins the fight, trying to get our voice heard is what counts. It will be a David vs. Giliat fight but you try to do something and not be a sheep that follows the flock like so many here.

[TommyHood]

I'm contacting attorneys.

[bernadettem48867173]

I feel let down and betrayed. I committed and talked my clients into committing, to Muse because of the graphic interface and the in-browser editing. It is an enormous undertaking to START ALL OVER. Are you creating software that can import sites? My clients will be very angry. You can't just take your ball and go home. This is grossly unfair, and unethical business practice.

[Ussnorway]

no Adobe is not making anything that can import sites... you can use the assets to rebuild a site in some other software for some other host server but that is it sorry

[DS WildOutWest]

Imagine if we edited print documents in Postscript. Hand coding websites is a ridiculously inefficient way to build 90% of what's on the web. Wix and templated solutions are mindlessly simplistic - imagine if you did this with print... color-by-numbers instead of design. 

To be clear, building a solution that creates elegant, semantic code from visual design is possibly the biggest challenge Adobe ever confronted. Adobe however did the MINIMUM to make it work (responsive solution was 2 years late). They are running away from it and it may be the end of them.  Personally, I only use Adobe for Illustrator and Photoshop now... InDesign's failed attempts to be a useful web tool failed at the starting gate, and print is essentially a micro market.

THERE ARE SOME GREAT ALTERNATIVES TO MUSE

1. You can export your muse Site to WordPress without too much difficulty - a short term migration solution.

2. Webflow!  may be a better solution.  More functionality.

The only downside is that all these options cost us more. There should be a discount to the CC subscription. I only use Adobe for Photo shop and Illustrator now... The new mobile apps are so light as to be ridiculous, and video editing is best done with Final Cut..

So Adobe is failing to develop new platforms for the web, and will eventually become a dinosaur... all that needs to happen is someone to develop a decent replacement to the legacy tools.  The best alternatives to Adobe Illustrator / Photoshop

So we will see if the way that this company has chosen not to tackle the difficult and expensive challenges, and to outsource most of its training and help pays off. Adobe seems to be milking the profits at the expense of the future.

[Membership_for_muse]

thanks, but I'm going to cancel my subscription, by the way it's very very expensive and I'm going to webflow

[jack_ttcoms]

Webflow is even more expensive and is not as flexible as Muse!!!!

[Illostraight]

Good to know. Anyone use EverWeb for macs yet? I'd like to know how it compares to Muse.

[Studio96]

an associate of mine uses it - macdoctornorwich.co.uk and likes it. You buy add ons much like widgets.

[Illostraight]

Thx, @studio96, I see they have ecommerce capabilities as well. I haven't done that yet but might at some point. I think webhosts have add one for that as well.

[Studio96]

The sparkle links are fixed.

[carolync60050887]

Has anyone tried Without Code from musethemes.com?

[Studio96]

It’s not launched yet. I emailed to join the beta but had no reply.