Adobe Dreamweaver

A WYSIWYG Editor for Windows and Macintosh

Dreamweaver CC - Screen shot by J Kyrnin courtesy Adobe — Opening screen of Dreamweaver CC. Screen shot by J Kyrnin courtesy Adobe

Updated December 10, 2014.

About.com Rating

Dreamweaver remains one of the most popular professional web design programs available. It offers a lot of power and flexibility for both designers and developers. There are a lot of features, which can make it intimidating, but in general, it is easy to pick up and start using and the advanced features make it possible to go from beginning web designer to professional in a very short period of time.

Dreamweaver is a WYSIWYG editor and code editor for Windows and Macintosh. You can use it to write HTML, CSS, JSP, XML, PHP, JavaScript, and more. It can read WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal templates and it includesa grid system to do grid-based responsive layouts for three different device sizes at once. Plus, Dreamweaver offers a lot of tools for doing mobile web development including creating native apps for iOS and Android devices.

Some of the most interesting new features of Dreamweaver CC include:

the live view now runs on Chromium for a closer to reality view of your pages
visual CSS editor
includes Adobe Edge fonts

Dreamweaver is now fully integrated into the Adobe Creative Cloud series of products and can only be purchased by getting a membership with the Creative Cloud.

Review last updated: January 5, 2014

Product Information

Operating Systems: Windows and Macintosh
Cost: $19.99 per month
Upgrade Pricing: n/a
Free Trial: 30 days
Editor Type: WYSIWYG / Text Editor
Best Suited For: Professional Web Designers and Professional Web Developers

Reviews of Current and Previous Versions

Dreamweaver CC

Scores for Dreamweaver CC when evaluated against the needs of Web Designers:

General Features: 59
Text Editor Features: 13
Technology Features: 29
Scripting Features: 29
Connectivity Features: 25
Mobile Development Features: 20
Validators: 18
Graphics Features: 14
Multimedia Features: 13
Extra Features: 44

And here are the total scores for all audience types I evaluated:

For Web Designers: 84%
For Web Developers: 84%
For Small Business Owners: 78%
For Beginners: 82%

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