All 100 ideasWebsites
#77 of 100 · Websites
Dreamweaver for plain HTML
A modern Dreamweaver-like local editor that edits plain HTML and CSS visually, with no cloud or subscription, and publishes in one click.
Asks per year
What the askers want
- Would pay0%
- Want it local or private33%
- Object to subscriptions11%
- Want it open source or self-hosted0%
- Want AI to do it0%
Share of the 9 asks that say so, as judged by Jev.
What exists on Show HN
Built, still asked for5 Show HN launches do this job, and 27 more do part of it. People still ask, so the launches are missed, unknown, or not what they want. Ask what they’re missing before you build.
- Moebius – HTML5 Canvas Drag and Drop Website Builder (macOS Alpha)2017 · 50 pts
- Build websites with drag and drop and WYSIWYG editor in VSCode2023 · 9 pts
- VvvebJs Open Source drag and drop website builder JavaScript library2018 · 8 pts
- Almost-a-CMS an in browser visual HTML editor for live static websites2020 · 5 pts
- A 'what you see is what you get' HTML editor for Mac2026 · 2 pts
Instead of: Dreamweaver, FrontPage
The idea, as matched
A modern Dreamweaver or FrontPage-style visual editor that lets anyone build pages by editing plain HTML/CSS directly, outputs clean vanilla code and publishes in one click, ideally a local app with no subscription.
Jev first matched 12 requests to this idea; a second reader kept 9 of 12.
Every ask, newest first
Each line is an AI paraphrase of what the writer wanted. The link goes to their own words on Hacker News.
Reader’s note. No subscription is a recurring theme.
- Oct 2026Wants a GUI desktop app for easily making a website. Read it: a comment in “Facebook Pages require paid subscription to post more than two links per month”
- Jan 2026Wants an HTML editor that actually delivers, with DOM-level templating, instead of Markdown's edge cases. Read it: a comment in “Why does SSH send 100 packets per keystroke?”
- Apr 2024Wants a maintained WYSIWYG HTML editor with CSS support and modern HTML. Read it: a comment in “I Used Netscape Composer in 2024”
- Oct 2023Wants a Sublime-like visual editor that opens an HTML folder, edits visually and saves. Read it: a comment in “Ask HN: Local Mac Wysiwyg HTML Editor? (for “Lo-fi” website)”
- Jul 2023Wants a modern Dreamweaver that has no phone-home, no cloud and no subscription. Read it: a comment in “How to build a website without frameworks and tons of libraries”
- Oct 2022Wants a visual WYSIWYG editor for Bootstrap layouts. Read it: a post: “Ask HN: Why is there no good visual editor for bootstrap?”
- May 2020Wants Frontpage or Dreamweaver-like tools so anyone can build and publish a site with one click. Read it: a comment in “Rediscovering the Small Web”
- Aug 2015Wants a Word-like tool for creating HTML. Read it: a comment in ““Googles 'vertical center div css' for the 100th time. reads for 7 minutes””
- May 2008Wants a simple program that builds good-looking, valid HTML, CSS and JavaScript pages for non-designers. Read it: a post: “Ask HN: Program to build webpages?”
Building this?
Read ten of the asks above first, because they say what the existing launches miss. If you ship it, post it as a Show HN so the next run of this list finds it.
Ship it like Vercel, on a server you own
This site runs on ShipTiffin. A push to GitHub deploys it, the way it would on Vercel, but the server is a Hetzner box in your own account. Postgres, sign-in, email, jobs and analytics are already on it, every project gets a hard limit, and nothing is billed by usage.
$19 a month per box, plus about $10 for the server at Hetzner. Open source, so you can also run it yourself for free.