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Appalbarry writes:

My first web page was back around 1994, hand coded, learning HTML by trial and error. In retrospect we had things easy.

That was followed by a number of years of Dreamweaver, a program that worked very, very well for me for some moderately big sites, then later several years of Wordpress based sites because it was fast and easy.

It's time again to upgrade our sites, and what I'm hoping to find is an open-source package that will do what Dreamweaver did, but bring that ease of use into an age of CMS and responsive design. My specific goals are below.

[More after the break.]

• Our sites tend to run to fifteen or twenty pages, don't require blogs, comments, or forums. They're informational and business oriented.
• We seem to do a big redesign every other year, with content more or less static. There's likely to be one big update each year, and minor changes off and on.
• Because we're not using the package on a daily or even weekly basis, anything complex or arcane tends to get forgotten, and has to be relearned next time that you need it.
• One of the great things about Dreamweaver was the ease of designing and using a page template. I really liked that.
• One of the reasons for moving away from Wordpress - aside from a recent upgrade borking one of our sites - is a feeling that there are about a million Wordpress sites out there, all of which look decidedly Wordpress.
• We're also mildly concerned about security. Because we're not monitoring the sites every day it's likely we will miss anything unpleasant that creeps in.
• I've spent a few hours with Drupal and Joomla a couple of years ago, but hit the wall pretty fast. They seem to be what I would like to use, but I just don't have the time these days to work through what seems to be fairly obscure and difficult learning curve. I just know that there's some underlying logic, but I've yet to find it. (That may have improved since then, and I'm up for looking at them again.)
• I've also looked at a couple of the on-line design package like Weebly and Webflow, but they're fairly limited from what I can see, or want me to cough up a monthly subscription for full features.
• Yes, I want the whole she-bang hosted on a server that I control. Yes I'm happy installing stuff, configuring stuff, and mucking about.
• An active user forum is a big plus for me.

Ultimately I guess what I'm looking for is the Holy Grail - a program or application that will let me get something professional up and running fairly fast, then leave lots of room for tweaking and improving any and all aspects of it.

Original Submission