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Magix Website Maker 2.0
Price: £29.99

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: Andy Shaw

This review updated: 05/06/2008
Featured in magazine:
Issue 189
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: Magix
Web Address: www.magix.com/uk


Building a decent website has never been the easiest of tasks – there's an ever-increasing number of technological hurdles to get over before you can even think about getting your site online. Site-building software can make things easier but it often entails sacrificing certain key elements of the web-building process in order to work. This balancing act between ease of use and features is where the best software can make a difference. The previous version of Magix Website Maker won a Web User Gold Award – does the latest version still stand out from the pack?

Features
The first thing you'll notice about the software is that, although it comes in a box, the installation is minimal and most of the business of designing a website is done online (if you're using dial-up, just forget it). This has its benefits, though – changes and additions are uploaded as you work so there's no long wait to upload everything when you've finished. Sites are created from templates and there are a range to choose from, with each design offering a number of layouts and different page types. You get 5GB of storage space, so there's plenty of room to store photos, videos and anything else you fancy hosting on your site.

Performance
The service uses Flash, both for the site-building software and to create your site afterwards. This has its pros and cons.

On the positive side, your site will be dynamic – all the templates have animated effects that will leave your visitors dazzled. On the downside, a Flash-driven site is marginally slower to load (though we didn't notice too much of a difference over broadband), and search engines will find it difficult to understand the content of your site, so it probably won't perform particularly well in Google.

Ease of use
If you're looking to construct a snazzy site, though, this is an extremely easy way to do it. The interface is relatively straightforward, though certain advanced elements may take a bit of getting used to. It's a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment so you know that whatever you do in the design stage will be translated exactly to your website. For people whose design savvy outstrips their web wizardry, this is a massive advantage. It also helps when adding things like video – just upload a video file to your web space (a handy media manager is included in the package) and drag it onto your site. A player is created around the file automatically, saving you from having to host it elsewhere and embed code in your site.

Value for money
Considering how much you can get out of this package for a minimum of effort, it's well worth the money. The downside is that, because this is as much service as software, you'll need to pay a monthly fee after one year. However, for a similar level of service you're looking at just £1.99 per month (about £24 per year), so it's not exactly going to break the bank.

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