Site Creator Program Feedback

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rjbutler

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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
 
Another option if you want to extend the list

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.
 
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rjbutler said:
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
Click to expand...
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.
 
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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. :)
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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SupremeServer said:
I suggest using Windows Notepad =)
Software generate codes for you which is great but you never learn anything that way.
Click to expand...
Not exactly a helpful post based on the thread starter's request. :disagree:

I would have to put Soholaunch on top of the list.

Sitestudio is reportedly a bit buggy (I don't have first hand experience), and has limited features. Sitebuilder is nice, but neither one of these site builders compare to the feature rich offering of SL. Shopping cart, blog, newsletter, photo album, calendar, plenty of great stuff. The only negative is that there is currently a bug with SL/Fantastico relating to the creation of the home page when using the Wizard (to be fixed soon). Other than that, very robust application. Decent pricing too.

Vito
 
Hi,
I have been looking at site building software for our clients as well, and lean away from site studio as it is pretty resource intense.

I looked at the others listed, and from one I found at another forum.. I am getting ready to look harder at this new one, dragdropsitecreator. I just saw their site yesterday, but got busy.

Has anyone had the time to try it out yet? Any reviews? It dose look pretty nice and the pricing is a lot better if your looking to offer something as a free service to try pulling in more novice (newbie) customers.

I have been getting a lot of requests for web site builers from customers, and trying to find a product that will be able to be added without hitting the bank to hard, but something that dose a good job too.
Anyone tried it yet?

Thanks,
Tim L
 
MaxHost said:
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.
Click to expand...

Soholaunch for us BUT they have recently made some improvements (fixed bugs) and it is really simple, we finally figured out it was simple but not intuitive. So we bought the video training demo, problem solved. (My best example is that when you want to "trash" something you bring the "trash can" to the object, not drag the object to the trash...just the opposite of what computer users are accustomed to. Perfect example of working fine but counter-intuitive and a potential problem if there are no detailed instructions)

We have a one client who really tricked out all the customizable stuff (page backgrounds, effects, etc) and built a site you would never know wasn't from a web designer in 2-3 days. (Of course she sells art stuff so I guess coordinating custom colors & textures was a breeze for her)
 
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