Is it about time to ditch dreamweaver?

Dreamweaver, according to some developers is THE tool every designer or web site builder should be using! And yes, while that is true it's sometimes not realistic to own Dreamweaver! The softwares price tag is quite high so here are some free alternativea we think is just as good ( if not better in some ways) as Dreamweaver! 

BlueGriffon (Top Recommendation)   Download Now 

BlueGriffon a fairly new contender in the market, but we here at HostSphere think it's got a real change of succedding.  It's powered by Gecko which is the engine for Firefox 4 and it adheres to the latest web standards which is fantastic news! That means it supports HTML5 and CSS3!  

Becuase BlueGriffon runs on Gecko, it means that what you see in your editor window is EXACTLY what will appear in Firefox 4, and for advanced users you can always use the Source View to hard-code anything you like into the pages!  

 BlueGriffon is tri-licensed under the Mozilla Public License 1.1, the GNU General Public License Version 2 and the GNU Lesser General Public License Version 2.1.   Please Note: While the main software is completely free to download and use, certain extensions to the software are paid for addons! We still highly recommend this software however and you can still do a LOT without the addons! 

We'll be doing a full Blog Review on this FREE Software very very soon! So keep checking the blog! 

Aptana Studio Download Now

Aptana is a fantastic piece of software thats completely free of charge to use... for everyone! So you can use the software for personal or commerical use with no charges at all. This is because it's available as an Open Source Community Edition.  It has growing support from many industry proffesionals and features some fantastic tools and extras that make it a big competitor for Dreamweaver.

KompoZer   Download Now

Another Free HTML editor with a "What you see is what you get" feature... but this time with a difference! It's powered by Mozilla, the guys who bring your FireFox and ThunderBird. So that means this editor has remarkable support for XML, CSS, Javascript, HTML5 and much more!  Those of you who have used Dreamweaver before will notice similarities in kompoZer straight away. For starters you can edit pages using the WYSIWYG Editor which is similar to Dreamwevers version, Built In FTP management, switch from WYSIWYG and SOURCE using tabs and some other features too! 

We'll be the first to admit the interface does look a bit dated the engine running this software is top notch and up to date!! 

Perhaps it's not quite time....

If we're completely honest, all three software titles we've mentioned are really good! However Dreamweaver is still a very powerful piece of software. While the free alternatives do compete well against it, if you can afford to purchase Dreamweaver we would recommend it!  You can currently purchase the latest version of Dreamweaver (In Student/Teacher version) for around £100 however be aware that features are limited in this version! 

We did manage to find Dreamweaver for £89 here: http://www.studica.com/adobe_dreamweaver_cs55_1.html  however you need to prove you are a student or have someone related to you who is a student.   Alternatively you can try Amazon who have it available for £108 here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004V926LW/ref=asc_df_B004V926LW3370804?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&tag=googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B004V926LW Again, you will need to provide proof of academic entitlement!