I’m looking for some feedback on site creation programs for our hosting customers. We narrowed our choices down to three; SiteGalore Plus, SohoLaunch and PSoft Site Studio.

SiteGalore Plus was our first pick, but when we requested a demo we were given one price, and then after the demo the price had more than doubled! So now I would like to hear about experiences with either SohoLaunch or PSoft Site Studio.

Thanks Everybody

MOD NOTE: Advertising removed. Only the marketplace section is for advertising. Suggesting your own product is considered advertising. Thank you. We rely on your future cooperation.

Not sure if you looked at SiteBuilder from Sw-Soft.com. Check it out, from the looks of it, our company soon might be setting things up with SohoLaunch or SiteBuilder (SW-Soft). As far as I know it hasn't been decided here.

But, anyways, but looking at the three choices of yours, I'd suggest going with SohoLaunch, many companies out there also use PSoft. After all the search, I guess its up to your taste and what you can support.

I have SohoLaunch with Fantastico, but I've never actually played around with it yet. I will someday. I have had a few requests for SiteBuilder as HostingPeople mentioned. I looked into it and it seems like very powerful software. I was a little "concerned" (for the lack of a better word) about the licensing for this software, but since I'm not familiar with this type of software in the hosting industry, this might be the way that it is done.

In the past we've offered SiteStudio, but not many wanted it so we dropped support for it. It was simple enough - they do have a demo on their site, and I'd give it a good rating.

Only complaint was you HAD to use THEIR designs and as far as I could tell no one else could create templates for it and submit them. Which, I guess, is fair enough since it's their software, but it would've been nice to see some sort of community base. Course, I could've been blind and overlooked that, but like I said - dropped support 'cause not many users asked for it.

How many people did ask for a site builder when you offered site studio?


MOD NOTE: Advertising removed. Please read and follow the rules. Thank you. We rely on your future cooperation.

Sorry MOD about that. Didn't read the message you've put earlier when posting for the second time. Just doing it now.

True that it might be seen as advertising if seen in a certain angle. Just wanted to say that we existed too, but didn't intend to break a rule in doing so. My sincere apologies.

Actually the first time I didn't realise you are a representative Pfork, but after a short investigation I had to remove both your messages.

I suggest you setup a signature and participate in the discussions (without mentioning your product). That way you'll be able to share your knowledge and get recognition in return.

swsoft makes a nice site builder as well. I haven't really tried very many but this one seemed pretty nice. See http://www.sw-soft.com/en/products/sitebuilder/demo/

Thank you Dan for your recommendations. I will do as you suggest.

I like Sw-soft site builder. I think that it cuts the fear you have to start a website by showing you clearly the first footsteps in building a website. However I doubt that you can retain clients who created a website with it. It remains a template that you have and 300 templates, if used by thousands of hosting customers, it will cause some turmoil for those who want something specific to them.

Another problem I think is that it is not possible to build an e-commerce or add PHP scripts to a website using this software. So in short I think it is too limited, you could only attract people very new to the web but probably not retain them. Besides what would be your competitve advantage on Yahoo or Tripod?


For this reason I would put Soholaunch to the top of your shortlist. You can build an e-commerce and do lots of nice things with it. In short it is closer to a web authoring tool allowing you to build more than a personal webpage, but build an e-commerce, a community, etc,... only issue the users can't use it on Firefox or on Mac.



I hope I respected the rules this time Dan. If not please tell me what I should do. I am pretty new to Forums (discovered it in mid december). Made plenty of stupid mistakes in my first times writing postings and still do some from time to time - as I did in this present thread.

But I start getting better at understanding the philosophy of Forums. I hope I did the right thing this time. My apologies otherwise.

Good work PFork!

Thank you for your guidance Dan !

I am looking at a few myself. Let me know which one you end up using. I am currently running Soholaunch, but I have found it too difficult for a novice user (who site builders are targeted to) to use. Heck I had a hard time figuring it out, and ran into some critical errors while using it.

Online site builders are still in their infancy. Most hosts see them as a tool for novices to get started with a web site. After all, serious sites are built with serious, industry leading, offline tools (Photo Shop, Dream Weaver ….) aren’t they? This may be true today but I don’t think it will be the case in the not so distant future. The only limiting factor in the sophistication of online site builders is the resources and creativity of the developers of these products. Stay tuned to this space over the next couple of years.

When selecting a site builder I believe it is important to consider how the tool will bring in new business and also how it will help retain customers. Getting new business is easier to fathom as it is all about the presentation of the site builder for prospects. The more difficult thing to evaluate is whether these customers will be happy with the product once they sign up.

If you can evaluate the site builder for free, try it out with a few of your customers and get some useful feedback. Be sure to include some novices and some higher-end users so you can get the full spectrum of opinions. Sometimes we “in the business” are not the best judges. I can certainly say that for myself.

The bottom line is that site builders are here to stay and that your first site builder may not be your last one.

I think you are absolutely right Sam.