For what it's worth, by the time I'd finished reading the post there were about 450 errors about "Cannot set property 'className' of null" sitting in my console. Assuming Makeswift are dogfooding their own product that's not great.
Why build another website builder?
21–30 of 89 posts
Re: Why build another website builder?
#22So is it like a WebFlow competitor ? I would love a website builder that has Drag Drop CMS capability for non technical users (kinda like page builders in WordPress) but allows clean static HTML export finally (kinda like static site generators). The problem is we either have the WordPress or static site gens.
You could say Webflow is a direct competitor, yes. The way we see it, though, Webflow is a tad too complex for non-technical users and you end up just shifting the bottleneck from developers to the "Webflow expert". Heck, they have a whole Webflow University for learning how to use the product.
We believe there is an opportunity to build a website builder that is much more flexible than the usual template-driven ones, but not as complicated as Webflow. I would say Makeswift is to Figma like Webflow is to Photoshop.
Re: Why build another website builder?
#23For what it's worth, by the time I'd finished reading the post there were about 450 errors about "Cannot set property 'className' of null" sitting in my console. Assuming Makeswift are dogfooding their own product that's not great.
Hah! Nice catch there :)
This is actually not part of the core Makeswift code, but a custom snippet we added to this blog post to tweak the navigation. It sets a class on scroll, which is why you saw so many errors in the console.
I just fixed it. Thanks for letting us know!
Re: Why build another website builder?
#24From https://www.makeswift.com/early-access : > Can I host a Makeswift site elsewhere? > Makeswift code can't be exported. Every page created in Makeswift is securely hosted and served via Google Cloud. I'm sorry, maybe I'm just being absolutist and cranky, but this doesn't sound to me like it's a 'website builder' - it's a tool that allows users to create presentations that can be displayed on the web. I get why you…
I am not the most educated person on the matter, but I think there is an argument to be had about what constitutes a "website" and what is just a "multi-paged presentation" or even a "multi-paged advertisement" that is hosted on the web. I can imagine that even certain presentations can foster more intrigue and be more informative than just a place online that supports brands, products and services. I wish I was more well-versed on the history and principles behind the web so that I can express myself better, but I am quite unnerved by this service and how it presents itself.
Re: Why build another website builder?
#25So is it like a WebFlow competitor ? I would love a website builder that has Drag Drop CMS capability for non technical users (kinda like page builders in WordPress) but allows clean static HTML export finally (kinda like static site generators). The problem is we either have the WordPress or static site gens.
You could say Webflow is a direct competitor, yes. The way we see it, though, Webflow is a tad too complex for non-technical users and you end up just shifting the bottleneck from developers to the "Webflow expert". Heck, they have a whole Webflow University for learning how to use the product. We believe there is an opportunity to build a website builder that is much more flexible than the usual template-driven ones…
Great. Would love an invite if you are up for it.
Re: Why build another website builder?
#26Hey everyone! With what seems like a new website builder popping up every week, I'm often asked the same question. Why build another one? Here's my answer. We're starting to invite people to our early access program and would love your feedback.
Thanks for sharing your project, certainly looks like an interesting start!
Quick feedback, it seems you forgot to answer the question "Why build another one" before submitting your comment, I'm still awaiting your answer :)
Re: Why build another website builder?
#27Developers hate these tools for a reason: they're the ones maintaining it after it's been deployed. The whole concept of "no-code website builder" ultimately goes back to "where is the code and how do we modify or integrate it with our current systems".
Maybe if it was marketed as a "fast prototyping" tool, I'd be more on board with the product.
Re: Why build another website builder?
#28I realize this sort of tool targets a completely different audience, but what we desperately need is not more no-code builders, but a robust, DB-backed builder with an object-based workflow, and with code-behind for custom workflow logic. Like something that can compete with Zoho Creator, but is actually engineered in a sane manner, and offered at a sane price. It would take the market by storm.
Most of the solutions out there either are stunted by no-code workflow that severely limits what you can do (ala Casio), or are code-behind solutions that are poorly engineered, fragile, and require deep platform knowledge and far too much coding to accomplish simple tasks (ala Alpha).
Zoho Creator is the happy medium, but it's cludgy, badly organized, has terrible support, missing key functionality, and its engineering choices are mind-numbingly stupid.
We need an Access for the web, but nothing comes close.
Re: Why build another website builder?
#29I do think we need better website designers for lay-people. I have a couple key points I would want in a web designer. -Output accessibility (eg for blind users) -Clean and efficient output html (every square space site I visit is slow as shit) -No cdn resources. Allows you to pack your own fonts and assets. Does this do that?
Clean and efficient output is my biggest gripe with many of the current builders.
I would like to add:
- good multi-language support
Re: Why build another website builder?
#30From https://www.makeswift.com/early-access : > Can I host a Makeswift site elsewhere? > Makeswift code can't be exported. Every page created in Makeswift is securely hosted and served via Google Cloud. I'm sorry, maybe I'm just being absolutist and cranky, but this doesn't sound to me like it's a 'website builder' - it's a tool that allows users to create presentations that can be displayed on the web. I get why you…
I am not the most educated person on the matter, but I think there is an argument to be had about what constitutes a "website" and what is just a "multi-paged presentation" or even a "multi-paged advertisement" that is hosted on the web. I can imagine that even certain presentations can foster more intrigue and be more informative than just a place online that supports brands, products and services. I wish I was more…
I agree that there's a clear difference between the two. Makeswift sites aren't just a "presentation", though. They're hybrid (server-side rendered on first load and client-side rendered after) React apps. And because of that you can have components that do all sorts of things a "presentation" can't do. For example, you can pull in data from third party APIs, you can build dynamic UIs with dialogs, you can animate components, you can submit forms, etc.
Not all of this is exposed just yet, which is why we're in early access. But a Makeswift site couldn't be further away from a "presentation builder".
That being said, it does seem the way we're presenting ourselves leaves much to be desired. So I appreciate you pointing that you!