Adobe Introduces 'Muse' Subscription-Based Website Creation Tools

adobe muse iconAdobe today announced the launch of a beta version of new website-building tools codenamed "Muse" that will allow users to easily create websites without needing to know HTML. Being compared in some ways as an advanced version of Apple's phased-out iWeb software, Muse is targeted at print designers with little or no experience in web design.

Plan your project — Easy-to-use sitemaps, master pages, and a host of flexible, site-wide tools make it fast and intuitive to get your site planned out and ready for design.
Design your pages — Combine imagery, graphics and text with complete control, flexibility and power (almost as if you were using Adobe InDesign).
Add interactivity — Drag and drop fully customizable widgets like navigation menus and slide shows, embed HTML code snippets to include things like Google Maps, enable tool tips, rollovers and much more.
Publish your site — Preview your site with Muse to see how it looks and test how it works. Then convert to a live website using Adobe for hosting, or export the HTML for hosting with a provider of your choice.

Adobe Muse offers users familiar with such products as Illustrator, InDesign, and Dreamweaver an easy transition to HTML-free web design, with customizable drag-and-drop widgets being complemented by embeddable code from sites like Google Maps and Facebook to extend the functionality.


As Macworld notes, users will not be required to use Adobe's hosting service for projects created in Muse, but the company is planning to introduce new features such as blogs, contact forms, and shopping carts that would require users to utilize Adobe hosting if they wish to take advantage of the features.

Muse is currently in a free public beta phase, with the official version set to launch early next year. Muse will be a subscription-based product, with pricing set at $20 per month or $180 per year. Adobe notes that it intends to roll out new features for Muse on a regular basis ("probably quarterly"), making a subscription model a better option than Adobe's traditional system of standalone purchases of major versions released every 18-24 months.

Popular Stories

AirPods Pro 3 Mock Feature

AirPods Pro 3 Just Months Away – Here's What We Know

Friday April 18, 2025 5:16 am PDT by
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
iphone 17 air dummy unbox therapy

iPhone 17 Air's Extreme Thinness Demoed in New Video

Tuesday April 22, 2025 10:22 am PDT by
Apple plans to release an all-new super thin iPhone this year, debuting it alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We've seen pictures of dummy models, cases, and renders with the design, but Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy today showed off newer dummy models that give us a better idea of just how thin the "iPhone 17 Air" will be. The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be ...
ipad air windows 11 arm

M2 iPad Air Runs Windows 11 ARM via Emulation, Thanks to EU Rules

Tuesday April 22, 2025 5:01 am PDT by
A developer has demonstrated Windows 11 ARM running on an M2 iPad Air using emulation, which has become much easier since the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulations came into effect. As spotted by Windows Latest, NTDev shared an instance of the emulation on social media and posted a video on YouTube (embedded below) demonstrating it in action. The achievement relies on new EU regulatory...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday April 17, 2025 4:12 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
iOS 18

iOS 18.5 Includes Only a Few Changes So Far

Monday April 21, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
Apple seeded the third beta of iOS 18.5 to developers today, and so far the software update includes only a few minor changes. The changes are in the Mail and Settings apps. In the Mail app, you can now easily turn off contact photos directly within the app, by tapping on the circle with three dots in the top-right corner. In the Settings app, AppleCare+ coverage information is more...
iphone 17 dummies sonny dickson

iPhone 17 Air Almost as Thin as Its Buttons, New Images Show

Thursday April 24, 2025 2:14 am PDT by
If you missed the video showing dummy models of Apple's all-new super thin iPhone 17 Air that's expected later this year, Sonny Dickson this morning shared some further images of the device in close alignment with the other dummy models in the iPhone 17 lineup, indicating just how thin it is likely to be in comparison. The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be around 5.5mm thick – with a thicker ...
iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 13 New Features

Wednesday April 23, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...

Top Rated Comments

fredfnord Avatar
179 months ago
Requirements

"Ooh, that sounds interesting, I've definitely got to try..."

"First, download Adobe AIR."

"Uh... riiiight. Next!"
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
imgonephishin Avatar
179 months ago
Three main problems with this

Subscription software. I mean, $20/month or $180/year? Really? That's a bit steep. Why does everything have to be a subscription these days? Movies, music, software, ad naseum. I like to buy something outright. Besides, there are a lot of great alternatives (Flux, RapidWeaver, and many more) for 3 or 4 months of Muse's price (or less).

Bloated output code. Dreamweaver produces absolutely atrocious code. Judging by the home page (http://muse.adobe.com/) which was "made in Muse" they've only made some baby steps. But it still suffers from a severe case of "div-itis" with dozens of layered nested divs. Also, that one pretty simple homepage has TWENTY linked .js files. Talk about performance hogs. The code may validate, but it is far from optimized. Now, you may say, "a print designer doesn't care what the code is like." That's true to a point, but imagine a scenario where someone creates a site in Muse and then later, after canceling the expensive software subscription, tries to make some small incremental changes to it themselves (as they learn HTML) or hires a web designer. Navigating the code jungle below is next to impossible.
<div class="grpelem" id="n37"><!-- group -->
<div class="grpelem" id="n38"><!-- group -->
<div class="PamphletWidget widget_invisible grpelem" id="n39"><!-- group -->
<div class="popup_anchor">
<div class="ContainerGroup" id="n40"><!-- stack box -->
<div class="Container grpelem" id="n41"><!-- group -->
<div class="PamphletWidget widget_invisible grpelem" id="n42"><!-- group -->
<div class="ThumbGroup grpelem" id="n43"><!-- none box -->
<div class="popup_anchor">
<div class="Thumb popup_element" id="n44"><!-- simple frame --></div>
</div>
<div class="wrap"></div>
</div>
<div class="popup_anchor">
<div class="ContainerGroup" id="n45"><!-- stack box -->
<div class="Container grpelem" id="n46"><!-- column -->
<div class="colelem" id="n47"><!-- group -->
<div class="grpelem" id="n48"><!-- group -->
<div class="grpelem" id="n49"><!-- group -->
<div class="grpelem" id="n50"><!-- simple frame --></div>
<div class="grpelem" id="n51"><!-- group -->
<div class="grpelem" id="n52"><!-- group -->
<div class="grpelem" id="n53"><!-- content -->
<h4 class="heading-4" id="n55">Share this video</h4>


I could go on: 24 iFrames... 1400 lines of HTML for a very simple page. A fully duplicated site code for IE conditional comments (rather than handling that in the .css).

Bloated native software. It runs on the Adobe Air platform which is still relatively nascent technology and suffers from some performance and stability issues. For example, I just launched the beta right now and it froze on startup. I appreciate that it's merely a public beta, but the reliance on Air does not give me much hope. Also, since when do the tech specs for web design software require a minimum 2.3 GHz dual core processor???
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ScoobyMcDoo Avatar
179 months ago
Muse will be a subscription-based product, with pricing set at $20 per month or $180 per year.

Don't really care for this idea of renting software.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Small White Car Avatar
179 months ago
Adobe was built on the concept that really useful, creative programs will keep your customers loyal.

The last decade I've seen that vision fade more and more. It was looking like they'd soon be the next Microsoft...profiting from minor upgrades to decades-old software and doing few new things to excite people.

But I gotta say, these last few months have shown more and more promise. There have been a couple of new things like this recently that really gives me hope that Adobe will soon be back on track.

Here's hoping.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
wildmac Avatar
179 months ago


If the code output is a garbled mess or a JavaScript file, it's a huge fail.

How about you leave web design to people that understand the web? If you can't learn a couple simple scripting languages, forget it.

Worse yet, in 6 or 12 months, imagine the poor sap that's asked to fix the site after the guy that built it with this is long gone. Fixing Dreamweaver based sites was bad enough, now this?..

Get Wordpress, buy a theme, and get on with it. This Adobe junk isn't needed.

Props to Adobe for creating another 1998 solution in 2011.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Lesser Evets Avatar
179 months ago
Uhg. That video... half of it was COMPLETE bullsh-t blathery nothingness waste-o-time words. After 2 Mins, got it, quit talking and show something. They kept showing the same 2 or 3 screens with boxes tweaking. Woopti! Show us what $180/year buys, or package it with CS as another add-on software suite.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)