Dreamweaver and Wordpress

[ScottMb]

Hi all, i'm looking into developing a domain. At the moment i'm considering learning Dreamweaver or Wordpress . I was more in favour of Wordpress but by the time you start buying themes, paying for plugins etc the costs rack up so was thinking a years subscription for Dreamweaver might be the better option.

 

[jamesosix]

Wordpress is much easier than DW. Do you have any web design experience? You can get many good free themes and in the 15+ years of my web design time I think I have bought like two plugins. I guarantee Wordpress is the cheaper option.

edit:
I see a year subs to DW is about $200. You would never spend that on one wordpress website (if thats all you plan on doing).

Plus the benefits of a CMS far outweigh learning and making a static site.

 

[DU]

Dreamweaver is like having bricks, glass, lumber, tiles in a big pile when you want to build a house... but then what it's really good for is painting, window treatments, and all the flourishes that make a building unique.

Wordpress is like having a house pre-built but you might need to add a kitchen, or bathroom (with prefitted cabinetry)

Basically they are nothing alike and serve completely different purposes.

1. Define what it is you want to do
2. Evaluate your options based on 1
3. Seriously, define what it is you want to do, go back to step 1

Dreamweaver is a lot of money if you don't know that you actually want it. If you are doing php/css there are cheaper better tools available. If you're doing wordpress you don't need it unless you're going to get into templating. Look into Joomla and other tools too ...

Good summary here to start:
http://alternativeto.net/software/wordpress/

If you want to start developing, look into frameworks to help you out. If you don't have jquery /php in your arsenal it's going to be a tough slog.

Agree with @jamesosix though - you can build much better WP sites for FREE than you think. You do not need a professional template to get started.

 

[N-A]

There are a lot of poorly coded themes that are free which will keep you back in my opinion. With that being said, if you don't look at obtaining the knowledge of what poor code verses good code is, DreamWeaver isn't going to help you the least bit.

The cost of ownership is $399 (may be coupons, I'm seeing a returning user [possibly cookie] bringing it down to $299) for the Genesis Framework and all child themes on unlimited sites that you can develop and have full rights to sell or develop for others. There may be coupons out there knocking the price down.

The framework boasts increased speed and security. Once you learn the ins and outs of it by following tutorials or guides by 3rd parties, you're good to go.

I think twice the price of DreamWeaver is well worth it with ~30 HTML5 themes and ~45 total.

I'd suggest Yoast for SEO and W3 Cache to speed your site up. They're both free, taking down your cost of ownership on unlimited sites which would save you time.

Time is the most expensive commodity in my opinion and you're going to spend much more of that learning DreamWeaver than installing themes which can take minutes.

Whichever route you take, good luck.

 

[tekkybabao]

in conclusion,wordpress is easier,cheaper,saves time and affordable.20% of sites on the web are built with it

 

[vdonline]

Wordpress should be better for you if you need something fast, reliable, cheap, and awesome.

 

[ScottMb]

Thank you for the responses, it has given me a few things to think about over the next couple of weeks.

 

[Chris2412]

If cost is an issue, I completely understand using WP instead of learning to create for yourself, with Dreamweaver.

I am in the learning process myself and learning to code is very challenging...and I'm talking about CSS.
PHP is a whole other language to me that one day I hope to acquire. I think learning to be an architect is like everything else, it's gets easier with practice.

And I'm still working on wireframes! Isn't even worth it!? But you've got to start somewhere. That's my feeling.

The main reason I am learning to be an architect is because, how can I expect customers to believe in my credibility, when ultimately I took the easy, fast, cheap, route to get online?

 

[SeriousName.com]

dreamweaver/wordpress, whats the diff? both platforms are bloated with nonsense code

 

[SeriousName.com]

its kinda like the lessons that I think some of you learned in life.......is you get what you pay for......you want open source free stuff easy to hack...go for wordpress.......

 

[Chris2412]

I'm learning a bunch with DW.

You can literally build anything your mind can imagine!

 

[Chris2412]

I want to learn FireWorks, also. But sometimes its overwhelming trying to take on so much at once.

Baby steps!

 

[SeriousName.com]

dreamweaver I don't respect that platform because its adobe......if you actually picked things up from it.. great

 

[SeriousName.com]

but for the noob readers on this thread....learn basic coding on your own.