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

iPhone Top Left Hole Punch Face ID Feature Purple

iPhone 18 Pro Features Leaked in New Report, Including Under-Screen Face ID

Tuesday December 16, 2025 8:44 am PST by
Next year's iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be equipped with under-screen Face ID, and the front camera will be moved to the top-left corner of the screen, according to a new report from The Information's Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu. As a result of these changes, the report said the iPhone 18 Pro models will not have a pill-shaped Dynamic Island cutout at the top of the screen....
Apple Logo Top Half

Early iOS 26 Software Leak Uncovers Dozens of Upcoming Apple Features

Monday December 15, 2025 3:05 pm PST by
Software from an iPhone prototype running an early build of iOS 26 leaked last week, giving us a glimpse at future Apple devices and iOS features. We recapped device codenames in our prior article, and now we have a list of some of the most notable feature flags that were found in the software code. In some cases, it's obvious what the feature flags are referring to, while some are more...
iOS 26

iOS 26.3 Beta 1 Features: What's New So Far

Monday December 15, 2025 4:23 pm PST by
Apple is testing iOS 26.3, the next version of iOS 26 that will launch around January. Since iOS 26.3's testing is happening over the holidays, it is a smaller update with fewer features than we've seen in prior betas. We've rounded up what's new so far, and we'll add to our list with subsequent betas if we come across any other features. Transfer to Android Apple is making it simpler...
apple beta 26 lineup

Apple Leak Confirms Work on Foldable iPhone, AirTag 2, and Dozens More Devices

Monday December 15, 2025 2:05 pm PST by
Last week, details about unreleased Apple devices and future iOS features were shared by Macworld. This week, we learned where the information came from, plus we have more findings from the leak. As it turns out, an Apple prototype device running an early build of iOS 26 was sold, and the person who bought it shared the software. The OS has a version number of 23A5234w, and the first...
apple music chatgpt

ChatGPT's Apple Music Integration Is Now Live

Wednesday December 17, 2025 3:50 pm PST by
There's now a dedicated Apple Music app for ChatGPT, which allows ChatGPT to make music recommendations and build playlists. Apple Music can be added to ChatGPT through the Settings section in the Mac app, website, or iOS app. Apple Music is listed under the apps option, and connecting to it requires signing in with your Apple Account for authorization purposes. ChatGPT can be used to...
apple iphone air battery pack

Apple Aims to Boost Popularity of iPhone Air 2 in Two Ways

Tuesday December 16, 2025 11:06 am PST by
We have been covering iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 17e, and iPhone Fold details from The Information's report about future iPhone models, and next up is the iPhone Air 2. The report says that Apple aims to make the iPhone Air 2 more attractive in two ways. First, Apple is apparently considering adding a second rear camera to the device, which would resolve a key limitation. The current iPhone...
maxresdefault

Apple Developing iMac Pro With M5 Max Chip

Tuesday December 16, 2025 7:30 am PST by
Apple is developing a high-end iMac featuring the M5 Max chip, according to information from leaked internal software. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The finding comes from leaked kernel debug kit files used by Apple engineers. These kernel debug kit files enumerate unreleased Apple hardware by internal identifiers, such as codenames and platform names, and they...
Apple Foldable Thumb

Leak Reveals Foldable iPhone Details

Monday December 15, 2025 9:09 am PST by
The first foldable iPhone will feature a series of design and hardware firsts for Apple, according to details shared by the Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station. According to a new post, via machine translation, Apple is developing what the leaker describes as a "wide foldable" device, a term used to refer to a horizontally oriented, book-style foldable with a large internal display....
apple beta 26 lineup

Apple's 2026 and 2027 Product Roadmap: Foldable iPhone, iPhone 18 Pro, M5 Macs, and More

Tuesday December 16, 2025 4:42 pm PST by
There has been a whirlwind of rumors over the last few days, sourced from leaked internal software designed for the iPhone and the Mac, and news sites like The Information. Below, we have a quick recap of everything we've heard this week, which serves as a guide to Apple's product plans in 2026 and beyond. We've organized the info by likely release date, though there are some products that...

Top Rated Comments

fredfnord Avatar
187 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
187 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
187 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
187 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
187 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
187 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)