Muse Transition

I am one of the many users of Adobe Muse looking for a new home now that they are exiting the business. WebFlow looks like an alternative but I have already become confused by a couple of limitations. First it appears that the only browser supported for development is Chrome. Second, it also appears that if you host somewhere else there is a loss of functionality. Have I read this correctly?

Hi @HawkeEye and welcome to the community! :smiley:

I’m happy to help answer any and all questions to help you transition over to Webflow. First, if you haven’t seen this blog post and video yet, I strongly recommend you check it out.

https://webflow.com/blog/alternative-to-adobe-muse

Second, you can only design your sites in Webflow by using a webkit based browser which is Safari or Chrome. However, once you publish your site it will be viewable in any modern browser and device.

Lastly, you do have the option to either export your site’s static HTML, CSS, JS and images and host it elsewhere. But yes you’ll lose some functionality like the ability to use our CMS features.

However, some of the benefits hosting with us are:

  • sites are backed up on secure Amazon Web Servers
  • sites are served through the Fastly.com CDN (the same that The Guardian uses)
  • no need to use FTP to publish your site(s)
  • you can use the Client Billing feature (to bill your clients for hosting and make a profit)
  • you and your clients can use our CMS editor

Let me know if this helps or if you have any further questions.

Pardon my lack of understanding but I am just starting to investigate alternatives. I live in a very small town and travel around a bit where I might not always have web service. Is webflow only web based or is there some desktop component that allows you to work while disconnected? By policy we store nothing but finished work product on the web, so if webflow is only web based that might be a show stopper.

At this time, Webflow is an online-only. We are looking into ways to make it offline, but I don’t have a firm release on that.

https://wishlist.webflow.com/ideas/DESIGNER-I-13

The reason for Webflow being an online-only tool is so we can continually make backups for you, add new features with you having to download anything new, and fix any bugs in the tool faster.

Projects can also be de-indexed so there is zero chance of a negative impact on SEO, or any half-done work popping up on Google.

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After being bitten by Adobe this is a decision I will not make lightly. I appreciate the quick response but webflow might not fit me because of the Chrome and online limitations. But I will continue to read and learn and maybe I can make it fit. Thanks.

Totally understandable. I hope you find the right tool for your needs and if you have any further questions, our community will be here for you. :smiley:

hi is client billing have auto-pay functiopn (every month)
can i charge clients how match i want?

Yes. Client billing is a monthly auto-pay. Yes, you can charge any mount you want. More info can be found here:

Is there something we need to do to insure that unfinished work is de-indexed, or is this automatic?

Also, Webflow absolutely only works in Chrome for me. It does not work in Safari.

it has in seo settings by default its enable

If you have a custom domain - you would wait to connect it up until you are finished.

You can use the testing ‘webflow .io’ link to see how it looks published, and toggle this to disable indexing:

If you wanted to also add password protection to that link, you can add hosting to the project (you can add hosting, then at a later date connect the custom domain - doesn’t have to be at the same time).

Hope that helps

Thank you for your clear and helpful answer! Much appreciated.

It will be really interesting to hear the teams idea on how an offline app version of Webflow might work. Possibly no more dealing with extract packages as we could link to a FTP client (or maybe you build one in) that pushes directly to our configured servers.

Did you see the latest answer to that question in the Q&A with Vlad?