WordPress vs Dreamweaver – What’s the Difference & Which is Better?

It can definitely be confusing to choose a website builder as an online course creator. 

While both WordPress and Dreamweaver can create elegant, professional websites, they offer wildly different features and tools to the user.

In this post, we’ll discuss their pros and cons, and how they work to determine which site builder is the best option for online course creators.

Features	WordPress	Dreamweaver
Pricing	5 stars	2 stars
User-Friendliness	4 stars	2 and a half stars
Customization Options	4 stars	4 stars
Domain and Hosting Solutions	0 stars	0 stars
SEO and eCommerce Tools	4 stars	2 stars

Now that you’ve had a quick look at what each web designer has to offer, let’s delve deeper to figure out which one is best for you: 

WordPress Review – Reliable and Simple to Use

WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system that has been used to create websites that power almost 40% of the internet. 

It’s an extremely easy-to-use website builder that can create all types of different websites such as blogs, forums, online stores, corporate branding, and personal branding websites as well as websites to host online courses. 

Due to its popularity, it has a huge library of WordPress plugins. You can utilize these plugins in many different stages of website creation (as well as maintenance) to make your job much easier. 

Pros	Cons
• Completely free • In-line HTML and CSS editing options • Huge library of plugins • Extensive customization and flexibility • Complete control	• Does not come with a domain and hosting solution • Does not come with security and backup options

Benefits of WordPress

To start off with the most obvious benefit: WordPress.org is open-source software that is completely free to use. Thus, as an online course creator with a tight budget, this is definitely something that will help you out. 

It should be noted, however, that while you won’t pay anything for the web development platform, you may still have to pay for premium themes, plugins as well as a web hosting service. 

WordPress themes are very easy to come by and WordPress has extensive options for you to customize these themes as you see fit. 

Thus, you can use these themes as a jumping-off point and then, make the appropriate changes to make the WordPress site according to your personal brand. 

While coding skills are beneficial when it comes to web development of any kind, you don’t really need to have coding knowledge to make a professional and clean WordPress site. 

Lastly, as we mentioned previously, you’ll have access to a ton of plugins and Jquery UI widgets which will help make the web design process much more streamlined. 

The vast library of plugins is something that only WordPress can offer you compared to other website builders. 

Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy WordPress

Pricing

As an online course creator, it’s important that you go for a conservatively priced site builder because you’ll most likely already need to pay for a whole bunch of services to help with your course creation. 

In terms of pricing, WordPress is pretty much the best you can get since it’s completely free. 

However, you should keep in mind that you’ll have to pay for a web hosting service if you choose WordPress.

User-Friendliness

WordPress strikes the perfect balance between user-friendliness and functionality. 

If you’re a beginner who doesn’t know anything about web development, you can use WordPress’s editor to make static web pages for your website. 

If you’d like your layout to be more unique and dynamic with extensive control, then WordPress allows you to achieve that as well through different plugins as well as its in-line HTML editing option. 

Customization Options

There are a wide variety of WordPress themes and templates to choose from that you can use as a starting off point. 

Once you choose one to start off with, you can customize them according to your own personal branding to suit its aesthetic. 

Furthermore, there are templates for different types of pages that you can utilize to predetermine the layout of pages. 

Domain and Hosting Solutions

WordPress does not provide domain and hosting solutions which is something you should definitely keep in mind when you opt for a site builder. 

This means that WordPress will only facilitate you to create websites but in order to make the websites available online, you’ll have to seek the services of a separate web host that will provide you with a web server. 

This can sometimes be a hassle because different web hosting services may not be fully compatible with the site builder you use.

However, finding a web hosting service that’s compatible with WordPress isn’t that hard due to its popularity. 

SEO and eCommerce Tools

In terms of SEO tools, WordPress offers extensive settings that you can use to make your website completely SEO-friendly. 

For further SEO optimization, you can also make use of the available WordPress plugins such as SEOPress, Yoast SEO, etc. 

What Do the Customers Think?

People love how intuitive WordPress.org is and they love its HTML editor and code editor. 

It’s the best site development platform when it comes to both novices and veterans since it has options for both. 

Its extensive plugins are also something that its users love because even if you don’t have coding skills, there are several plugins that can help you out with whatever you want.

Here are some of the reviews that we came across online: 

Best User-Friendly Site Builder

The best user-friendly site builder is WordPress.org thanks to its intuitive interface and a vast library of plugins. Its popularity also means that you can find several resources to make a website exactly the way you want. 

Adobe Dreamweaver Review – Professional and Flexible

Dreamweaver is an advanced offline web development tool by Adobe that is utilized to design, customize and publish different types of websites. 

When it comes to Dreamweaver vs WordPress, the Dreamweaver website builder is not a SaaS platform which means that you will not be able to use this Adobe software within a browser online. 

When it comes to Dreamweaver vs WordPress, Dreamweaver is designed for expert web designers that have extensive knowledge of HTML, CSS, JQuery, and PHP. 

If you’re someone who doesn’t know much about web development, then Dreamweaver is definitely not the option for you. 

Pros	Cons
• Library of templates • Site-wide find-and-replace options • Extensive coding suggestions • Fully integrated with other Adobe software • Affordable	• Steep learning curve

Benefits of Dreamweaver

As we mentioned earlier, Adobe Dreamweaver is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. 

As an online course creator currently working on your first online course, there’s a high chance that you may already have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. 

If that is the case, you can get started with Dreamweaver already as it’s part of the subscription. 

As you would probably imagine, Dreamweaver is fully integrated with other Adobe software such as Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, etc. 

Thus, you can use whatever assets you create in those software and import it right into Dreamweaver to incorporate them on your website. 

Dreamweaver also has great options to make site-wide changes whenever you make a certain change to a specific page. 

This ensures there are no broken links on your website whenever you make any changes, all with the click of one button. 

Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Dreamweaver

Pricing

If you already have a Creative Cloud subscription, you can use Dreamweaver instantly. 

A Creative Cloud subscription costs $52.99 per month and contains all of the tools that Adobe has to offer. 

On the other hand, if you don’t have a Creative Cloud subscription, then you can opt to get just Dreamweaver with a few other Adobe tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom for $20.99 per month. 

If you already have a CC subscription, then opting to use Dreamweaver makes sense. However, as a site builder on its own, we feel a price tag of $20.99 per month is fairly expensive. 

User-Friendliness

As we mentioned earlier, you need to have extensive knowledge of HTML, PHP, CSS, JQuery, and Javascript as well as web development in general to utilize Dreamweaver’s full potential. 

However, if you do have decent coding skills, then Dreamweaver is definitely a good option because it provides highlighting and extensive checks on your code to ensure there are no errors. 

Furthermore, making site-wide changes with the code within Dreamweaver is also quite easy. 

Dreamweaver also provides you with a visual design interface that shows you exactly what your code is doing. 

Your code is shown at the bottom and then the preview of your web page is shown above it so you can see the changes you make on the same screen. 

Customization Options

As Dreamweaver works mainly through code, the number of customization options you have is limitless. 

You can choose to use external templates and then alter the code for them to create a website that works perfectly for you and your online course business. 

Given that you have knowledge of coding and know what you’re doing. 

Domain and Hosting Solutions

When you compare Dreamweaver to WordPress, this is something where both platforms fall short on. 

Dreamweaver allows you to create your entire site but in order to make it available online, you will have to seek services from a web hosting service. 

SEO and eCommerce Tools

The main idea and purpose of Dreamweaver are to make your design come to life using a powerful visual and code editor. 

This, in turn, means that Dreamweaver does not have a lot of features when it comes to advanced SEO. 

Dreamweaver has a steep learning curve but it allows you to build websites exactly according to your needs. 

However, when it comes to SEO and eCommerce tools, these are not something that Dreamweaver has great support for. 

Thus, you’ll have to take care of search engine promotion manually as much as you can. This can oftentimes be less than ideal and your website may struggle to rank on different search engines. 

What Do the Customers Think?

Dreamweaver is extremely popular among experienced web designers because it allows them to bring their vision to life. 

People love how easy it is to make site-wide changes using Dreamweaver as that’s something that can often result in many broken links on other platforms. 

People also love how you can manage PHP files and navigate through them similar to how you would navigate through tabs on a browser. 

Dreamweaver’s code checking feature is also very popular among users as it instantly tells them whenever you make syntax or other types of error. 

Some reviews we found online had this to say: 

Best Site Builder for Advanced Web Design

The best site builder for advanced web design is Dreamweaver thanks to its advanced interface that emphasizes coding over visuals. It allows you to preview changes on the same screen with your code underneath so you can tell what each line does to your web page. 

WordPress vs Dreamweaver  – Buyers’ Guide

Pricing

As an online course creator, when you go for a site builder, make sure it doesn’t cost more than $15 per month. 

This is because you’ll already need to pay for other services, so you want your spending to be as little as possible. 

User-Friendliness 

If a web development tool is not user-friendly, you’ll have to spend a lot of time learning it. 

Even if you learn it well, there might be some changes you want to make that you might not be able to due to the tools’ unintuitive interface. 

Thus, it’s important that you go for a user-friendly web development tool that takes little time to learn and allows you to make the changes you want to make easily. 

Customization Options 

Depending on your online course’s niche, you may have some ideas about how you want your website to look and function. 

Make sure the web development tool you go for has extensive customization options that ensure you can customize the layout and the way your website functions. 

Domain and Hosting Solutions 

Once you create a website, you need a live webserver to host that website and make it available to everyone online. 

Some site builders provide you with hosting solutions as part of their package. 

These are usually preferable because you won’t have to pay for a separate web hosting service and won’t have to spend time finding one that’s compatible with your builder.

SEO and eCommerce Tools

The whole purpose of building websites for your online course is to increase your reach and widen your audience. 

Thus, your site builder should definitely have extensive SEO features that can make it as SEO-friendly as possible. 

Secondly, if you want to host your online course on your website, then it’s important that your builder has eCommerce tools for purchasing and payment processing for your customers. 

Dreamweaver vs WordPress – Final Verdict

This brings us to the end of our post for Dreamweaver vs WordPress.

In the end, we must say that WordPress is the better of the two because it offers a platform for novices as well as veterans, unlike Dreamweaver which is only meant for experts. 

WordPress also has many resources and a blogging platform you can consult to effectively create your online course website. 

Which do you prefer when it comes to Dreamweaver vs WordPress? Let us know in the comments below.