Online Web Design Apps

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Below is a comparison of available, free, online web design software that could be used for personal or classroom projects at WSU.


PLATFORM

PROS

CONS

FEATURES

WordpressMU

(multi user build that we would host on our wordpress server)

 

WordPress.com offers hosting, but it’s not as dynamic as WordPressMU from wordpress.org (as far as I can tell)

·         Popular CMS for more than just blogs

·         Extremely easy for site creation and management

·         Don’t have to deal with 3rd party nonsense

·         Tons of free plug-ins to enhance the CMS

·         Post pictures, movies, flash

·         Can create a post by sending an email

·         Easy upgrade and installation

·         All pages are generated by database and the templates

·         Clean URL’s

·         Organized

·         Moderation of comments before posted

·         Moderate comments from specific IP address

·         moderate comments with a specific # of links

·         Adding images or logo – tells you how big and what kind of files to upload

·         A WordPress site has already been created

·         Hosting is not provided

·         you need a new installation of the software for every blog you want to control

·         Locally installed on your own webserver

·         Uses user levels to control user-access to different features, so you can restrict the ability of individual users to create or modify content in your weblog, by changing their user-level

·         Each user can create a user profile

·         Dynamic page generation

·         Inter-blog communication

·         Template Driven Design

·         Password protection option

·         Organize posts into categories, sub-categories and sub-sub-categories

Movable Type

·         Personal use is free

·         Offers a super easy WYSIWYG editor

·         Tailored for multiple user blogs

·         MT sites run faster than WordPress

·         Open Source

·          

·         For educational uses we would need to buy a license that may range from $50-$1000 (depends on # of users)

·         Swapping themes isn’t as easy as in other programs like WordPress

·         Must install Plug ins to protect against spam (aren’t ready out of the box like WordPress is)

·         Modifying templates are difficult

·         Built in Support for multiple blogs

·         Open source platform

·         Template based output

·         Manage and archive media (video, audio,  images etc)

·         See your revision history for entries, pages and templates

·         Build community with the interactive tools

·         Trackbacks

·         Comment Control

·         Built in RSS

·         Manage authors and permissions from single screen

·         Spam protection

·         “world class” customer support

Blogger

·         No need to worry about server, hostin, or hacking problems

·         Custom domains

·         Fast direct image uploading

·         One of the best free ways to set up a website

·         Visual confirmation and moderation options for comments

·         Videos are kept private on Google Videos

·         Able to embed music and audio – podcasts and other audio (host your own files or from 3rd party sites)

·         Inserting images and audio is really easy – just click the icon in the toolbar

·         Switching themes is easy

·         Post video from YouTube

·         There are some users who experience errors uploading videos

·         Doesn’t have many plug-ins or widgets

·         Site is slow to load

·         Cannot edit comments

·         When embedding music/audio from 3rd party sites – you need to get code from the 3rd party site to embed the files into blogger widget

·         You can’t see the site in real time when creating pages or editing

·         Layout is not very customizable

·         Themes are not as many or as attractive as other programs

·         Unable to make photo galleries

·         Seems like everything media wise is 3rd party ..just one more step in the process. If you already use picasa or google videos, it would be a snap.

·         There is no documentation on how to insert flash files

·         Themes and customization

·         Visitor stats

·         1GB storage

·         Create up to 10 static pages

·         Submit posts by email

·         You can restrict access to invited Google account holders.

·         Administrators and non-administrators only for team blogs

·         Upload videos from your computer (hosted on Google Vidoes)

·         Photos are hosted free in your Picasa Web account (automatically?)

·         PG, GIF, PNG, TIF or BMP format supported

·         Add posts from your phone or email

Google Sites

·         easy user interface

·         “website up and running in an hour”

·         ad free

·         free hosting

·         page background themes

·         integration with youtube, picasa, google analytics, and google docs

·         Image insertion is easy

·         Customizable header image/logo

·         Each file that is uploaded to the Attachments area is available for use throughout the site.

·         :  A File Cabinet page can be used as a central management point for a group of attached files.  It is easily accessible, and can be accessed with little effort

·         Flash is not inserted easily

·         User  needs to code a “gadget” in order to display flash

·         Themes are not as attractive as other web authoring programs (dated looking designs)

·         Email addresses do not embed well

·          The Insert >> Image method leaves you with relatively little control over the image once it has been uploaded. 

·          The only way to remove images added using this method is to access the global Attachments interface for your site, which is less than ideal.

·          Not on any top recommended lists that I could find

·          File Cabinet  documents will appear in the sitemap, which is accessible to all site visitors

·         edit page layout

·         web page holds up to 100 MB of space

·         can be shared among a group of users

·          

Weebly

·         pop ups tell you what to do next

·         User friendly as it doesn’t take much to get going on your site

·         Drag and drop method

·         You can easily insert SWF files

·         No HTML or technical skills required

·         Ability to customize html code

·         In order to insert audio, video or embedded document you need to pay for the Weebly Pro version

·         URL is not custom (name.weebly.com)

·         New product, so it could have some underlying challenges

·         Weebly limits how many pages and websites you can have for free

·         Reported glitches from users (not loading or saving properly)

·         Drag and drop

·         Free

·         Password protect pages

·         No advertising

·         Hosting provided

·         Template backgrounds

·         Customizable lay out  

iWeb (Mac only)

·         Video tutorials on Apple.com

·         Drag and drop photos onto place holder

·         Deleting objects just by using the delete key on keyboard

·         Images and objects can be moved and resized by using mouse

·         You can add movies, audio, and widgets

·         FLV, SWF, quicktime, real, WMV

·          

·         Adding files (doc, pdf, xls) requires you to make them zip files and links that go to them

·         PDFs can be tricky to embed

·          

·         Apple designed themes with place holder text and photos

·         Nav bar is automatically updated when pages are added

·         Alignment guides to help when you move objects around

·         Add widgets

·         Manage and publish with MobileMe or FTP

·         Notify Facebook about updates to your site

 

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