Small business owners don’t always have time to learn HTML and web design, and their business might not support hiring a full-time web designer. These editors are easy to use, but include functions useful to many online small businesses.
I have reviewed over 60 different HTML editors for Macintosh (criteria). The following are the best web editors for small businesses for Macintosh, in order from best to worst.
Each editor below will have a score, percentage, and a link to more information. All reviews were completed between September and November 2010. This list was compiled on November 6, 2010.
1. SeaMonkey
Screen shot by J Kyrnin
SeaMonkey is the Mozilla project all-in-one Internet application suite. It includes a web browser, email and newsgroup client, IRC chat client, and composer — the web page editor. One of the nice things about using SeaMonkey is that you have the browser built-in already so testing is a breeze. Plus it's a free WYSIWYG editor with an embedded FTP to publish your web pages.
Version: 2.0.8
Score: 139 / 45%
2. Rapidweaver
Screen shot by J Kyrnin
At first glance RapidWeaver appears to be a WYSIWYG editor, but there is a lot to surprise you. I created a site with a large photo gallery, a blog, and two stand-alone web pages in about 15 minutes. These included images and fancy formatting. This is a great program for newcomers to web design. You get started quickly and advance to more complicated pages including PHP. It doesn't validate HTML that you hand code and I couldn't figure out how to add an external link in one of the WYSIWYG pages. There is also a large user-base with lots of plugins to get more support for advanced features including HTML 5, ecommerce, Google sitemaps, and more.
Version: 4.4.2
Score: 133 / 43%
3. Contribute
Screen shot by J Kyrnin
Contribute is a WYSIWYG editor for people who have no interest or need to learning HTML. It can connect directly to a blog to give you more editing features or to an existing website to manage the pages there. Contribute works best when working with a site created using Dreamweaver templates. Contribute also provides version control and authoring information that is not included in Dreamweaver. Contribute can also edit XML files and has built-in ecommerce functions to add simple shopping carts and stores to your website.
Version: CS5
Score: 130 / 42%
4. Freeway Pro
Screen shot by J Kyrnin
5. Freeway Express
Screen shot by J Kyrnin
Freeway Express is a great basic web page editor for the Macintosh. It includes basic graphics editing and creation so that you only need one software package to create simple websites. One drawback is that you can only save your files as HTML 4, there is no support for any other DTD.
There are two versions of the Freeway editor: Express and Pro
Version: 5.5
Score: 55 / 18%
6. Manila
Screen shot by J Kyrnin
Manila is a WYSIWYG editor for Windows Macintosh best suited to Small Business Owners. It costs $1,099.00. There is a free trial.
Rating
1 Stars
Score: 15 / 6%
