Website builder

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Website builders are tools that let you create a website without writing code. They grew from the first hand‑written site in 1991 to programs that make design easier. In the 1990s, FrontPage (1995) and Dreamweaver (1998) popularized site building with templates and drag‑and‑drop features. But their code could be heavy, and some versions didn’t fully follow evolving web standards. Over time, standards improved and many builders got better at producing cleaner code, though some developers still prefer hand‑coding for control and speed.

Open source tools and other standards‑minded options appeared to avoid browser quirks. In 1996, the W3C created Amaya to show many web technologies in one program; it began as an HTML and CSS editor and now supports XML, XHTML, MathML, and SVG. GeoCities, launched in 1994, was one of the first user‑friendly site builders. Yahoo! bought it in 1999 for about $3.6 billion, and it was shut down in April 2009.