Which is it - RapidWeaver or iWeb?

[HarryK]

I've seen a lot of good sites made with iWeb, but some of them load up kind of slow, but some a lot quicker....and frankly I'd like mine to get up and go asap.....I like working with iWeb, but then again, investing in RapidWeaver is not going to bankrupt me either...... so I'd appreciate it if someone would care to elaborate on this....
thanks
Harry

 

[MarketingGuy]

Hi Harry,

I personally love iWeb for quick personal websites that look slick. If you wanted something a little more complex with blogs and other features, I would recommend using WordPress to create the site.

I haven't personally tried RapidWeaver but I've heard that's just OK from friends that have used it. I normally recommend Adobe Dream Weaver for anyone who wants to build a site that's more custom, but needs a little help. It really depends on the type of site you are building and how comfortable you are with coding.

 

[maflynn]

I love the simplicity of iWeb but found it too restricted, too few templates and it produced bad html code that was also not very SEO friendly.

I now use rapidweaver, it has a gazillion templates available, a lot of them are free but most cost about 4 bucks and up. The performance is much better, and it produces cleaner code. You can also have a much more complex site design as well.

 

[HarryK]

Hi Harry,

I personally love iWeb for quick personal websites that look slick. If you wanted something a little more complex with blogs and other features, I would recommend using WordPress to create the site.


Hi, and thanks for your suggestion, alright, I'll just wait for some news on RapidWeaver, but meanwhile, I started to work with WordPress, but found it kind of tough,(yes I am a newbie) not on the basic stuff, but I wanted to do something different and I chose Elegant Themes, and just got myself in trouble, so to speak. And then while I was pondering that, I started to play with my iWeb, and found it very easy to work with, but now, I am kind of confused, I may wish to go a bit beyond iWeb, but I guess I am at a point now that I really need to know which way should I go?

As I said, I am a newbie, but an advanced sort, so if I put my mind to it, I'll do WordPress if that's the way it has to be.....but I just hate doing something for the next 48 hrs, just to find out it is still not working, and it needs another 48 hrs +, you know what I mean? So, that's my dilemma, and when I checked some info on RapidWeaver, it seemed to have some answers....but then again......

 

[HarryK]

thanks!

I love the simplicity of iWeb but found it too restricted, too few templates and it produced bad html code that was also not very SEO friendly.

I now use rapidweaver, it has a gazillion templates available, a lot of them are free but most cost about 4 bucks and up. The performance is much better, and it produces cleaner code. You can also have a much more complex site design as well.

That is kind of what I thought.......I am heading over to their site.....

 

[MarketingGuy]

If you think RapidWeaver will work for you, then give it a try. I personally have not used the program, so I can only pass along what other have told me.

Learning to use a new software package is not trivial, so WordPress might be something that you could look into in the future. WordPress is probably the easiest light website utility that uses a content management system. But, if you don't need to go that far, then finding an nice editor like RapidWeaver may be a perfect fit for your needs.

Best of luck with the site!

 

[alm99]

I love iWeb for its easy to use interface, wysiwyg ability. I picked up rapidweaver in the last macheist bundle and I find it to have a bit of a learning curve.

I have basic html knowledge and no CSS knowledge. It is no where near as easy to design your own website beyond a prebuilt template and I want my site to look a certain way. There a couple of plugins you can purchase to make it more like iWeb, blocks and stacks, but still isn't the same. There is also a blank theme you can purchase to use those newly purchased plug-ins to build a site, however its not as easy as iWeb because you are confined to that theme/templates predefined settings unless you can code.

Rapidweaver is definitely stronger under the hood in what it can do, but isn't as user friendly starting out. I also find that you can get nickeled and dimed with the various plug-ins you can buy.

 

[dumfweaver]

I've tried iweb in the past and wasn't impressed, but found weebly.com the best of the online site builders, my 13 year old son is building a weebly site for his school project

I've had a very brief play with drupal garden beta and it looks really good - its based on drupal 7 and they have really worked on functionality and easy design changes.

It may not be what you're looking for but if you are still learning the coding and need to focus on the design give them both a try.