DreamHost Website Builder, Remixer, is an fascinating service which goals to make it simpler to construct your personal web sites.

Remixer would not have the hidden catches you may usually see elsewhere. You are not pressured to make use of another person’s subdomain, as an example – DreamHost offers you a free area for a yr. There aren’t any limits on the utmost variety of pages you may have, your internet area or bandwidth.

Surprisingly, you need to use the service to create and handle a limiteless variety of web sites. That is an uncommon further which you do not usually get with even some high-end internet hosting packages.

DreamHost’s Normal plan has one vital restriction in that it would not assist e mail accounts (you may’t host yourdomain.com and arrange [email protected] e mail addresses.) However that will not matter to everybody, and the worth could be very affordable at simply $four.95 (£three.54) a month. The same Wix Combo plan limits you to 2GB bandwidth, 3GB storage and a single area, and is considerably dearer at £5.16 ($7.22).

If e mail is crucial, the DreamHost All Entry plan offers you limitless e mail accounts and mail forwarding assist for a nonetheless affordable $7.95 (£5.68) a month.

Getting began 

Most web site builder providers spend an excessive amount of time boasting about their talents, however only a few help you get a really feel for them earlier than you enroll, even on the most simple degree of displaying their templates.

DreamHost is refreshingly completely different. Level your browser at Remixer’s site and you are not solely in a position to have a look at its small number of templates (good designs, however solely twelve in complete), however you may also preview them at energetic web sites to see how they work.

If it is advisable to know extra, that is effective – DreamHost permits you to enroll and trial the service at no cost, no bank card particulars required.

We gave this a attempt, and it could not have been a lot simpler. Hand over your e mail, select a password, and also you’re immediately logged in to DreamHost’s account administration console.

The console was simply as simple. The physique of the web page had a thumbnail of the template we might simply chosen. A Settings field enabled assigning an present area to this web site, integrating Google Analytics and (as soon as you have upgraded) including e mail accounts. And clicking Edit opened our template in DreamHost’s editor, simply as we anticipated.

Alternatively, a separate Create wizard allows customizing the template along with your selection of format, pictures, colours and fonts. It is all very effectively offered and you may work your method by way of all the required steps in a only a few clicks.

The top result’s even complete internet design newbies may be logged into and looking DreamHost’s options in in all probability lower than a minute. That works for us, but it surely’s not nearly learners: if you happen to’re focused on web site builders normally, or maybe you have already signed up with another person, DreamHost makes it exceptionally straightforward to match their service along with your present product.

Editor

Remixer templates are single-page websites primarily based round easy content material sections (textual content blocks, pictures, maps, movies.) You’ll be able to navigate these sections from the left-hand sidebar, or simply scroll up and down within the editor to seek out no matter content material you want.

Not like most web site builders, you may’t add new content material by dragging and dropping objects onto the web page. As an alternative, you have to faucet a New icon so as to add content material above or beneath present sections, drastically proscribing your format choices.

You are solely in a position so as to add a small set of pre-designed content material blocks, similar to headers, footers, maps, pictures and picture grids, movies and varieties. There is no method so as to add a single aspect to a bit, similar to a button to carry out a specific activity, and there is no ‘Embed HTML’ or related choice to allow including customized providers to the location. Remixer additionally would not have a library of third-party extensions, not like prime opponents similar to Wix and Weebly.

Even Remixer’s restricted controls do not at all times work as you anticipate. Moderately than have a normal desk management the place you may instantly set the variety of rows and columns you want, Remixer has a desk for textual content content material and a grid for (largely) pictures. There is no apparent ‘Rows, Columns’ setup, and as a substitute you have to add cells individually, which did not make plenty of sense to us.

Remixer’s content material blocks may be personalized in a lot the identical method as different web site builders, although with few choices and settings. Click on a textual content block, as an example, and you may edit the contents as required and alter font, model, alignment and colours. However there aren’t any fancy extras like shadows, background pictures or animations, and you may’t resize the textual content block or drag and drop it to a brand new place within the content material block.

There’s one main annoyance within the lack of a Preview button, which might usually help you try any modifications to your web site earlier than you printed them. There’s a workaround – go to My Websites, click on Settings, discover the URL within the Preview field and paste it right into a browser tab – and you could possibly simplify the method by bookmarking that handle, however you should not have to do this a lot work to hold out such a primary perform.

None of this can matter very a lot if you happen to’re making quite simple modifications to a primary web site, perhaps modifying some textual content or changing a picture. However if you happen to’re planning something extra formidable, the dearth of energy and management of the location might rapidly turn into an issue.

Media 

Remixer supplies easy content material sections to deal with single and a number of picture, in addition to movies and SoundCloud audio.

There’s little low-level management over the format of those sections. Add a photograph, as an example, and you will get a picture aligned to the left, with a textual content heading to the fitting and a textual content paragraph beneath. You’ll be able to delete the heading, the textual content or each, however you may’t reposition these components or resize the textual content packing containers.

Clicking a picture shows a left-hand dialog field with a number of helpful choices. You are capable of rotate your image, flip it horizontally, change its opacity or scale and reposition the picture within the body.

Rivals similar to Duda and SiteBuilder.com embrace Adobe’s wonderful Aviary picture editor, however all you get here’s a set of Instagram-type filters. They is likely to be helpful to some, however we suspect most individuals would favor choices to sharpen an image or repair lighting points than ‘make the picture a bit extra orange.’

There’s higher information with Remixer’s free inventory pictures. The interface is clumsy – you may’t instantly search from the Inventory Pictures tab, as an example – but it surely solely takes a second to determine the way it works, and the photographs are sourced from the wonderful Pixabay library.

We tried out Remixer’s photograph grid and video controls and located that they had very related points. Formatting choices are extraordinarily restricted, so for instance you may’t even resize a video body, and the controls you get aren’t practically as simple as they need to be.

Remixer does rating one main media dealing with hit with its Content material Supervisor, a really complete device for importing and managing content material for reuse throughout your web sites. Should you’ve used different web site builders you may know they typically have one thing related, maybe the power to retailer commonly-used pictures within the cloud, however Remixer goes a lot, a lot additional.

The Content material Supervisor would not simply assist pictures, as an example. You need to use it to retailer audio and video information within the cloud, too.

You are not restricted to importing content material from your personal pc. Remixer can even import pictures from Fb, Flickr, Instagram and Twitter, in addition to customized URLs.

Import plenty of content material and this might make for a cluttered show, however a easy tag-based system allows organizing them in customized content material teams.

These capabilities do not at all times work fairly as we anticipated – attempting an import of TechSwitch returned simply 4 thumbnails, as an example – however general the Content material Supervisor delivers way over you may get anyplace else, and we’ve to applaud DreamHost’s ambition. 

Running a blog and e-commerce

Most web site builders have some degree of running a blog and e-commerce performance, generally even with very primary plans – Wix permits promoting as much as ten merchandise for £5 ($7) a month.

Remixer would not hassle with any of that, sadly. There is no native weblog or e-commerce platform, and with no third-party controls or an Embed HTML possibility, you may’t even add as a lot as a PayPal button.

Whereas it is a main weak spot, it could possibly be altering very quickly. DreamHost’s Remixer FAQ means that the power to arrange an e-commerce web site with an SSL certificates is ‘to be added in 2018.’

Assist

In case your web site is misbehaving and you may’t discover the issue, it is essential that your web site builder has a assist group prepared to assist.

DreamHost supplies a primary set of Remixer articles on its support site, however they’re largely easy ‘the way to’ guides and tutorials. They are not going that can assist you with troubleshooting or anything extra superior.

Remixer has its personal assist group, however the FAQ says that is strictly restricted: no phone quantity, no dwell chat, and though you may increase tickets or ship emails, you may solely get responses ‘throughout common staffing hours, 10AM to 6PM Pacific Time, Monday by way of Friday.’ DreamHost says its normal internet hosting assist is offered 24/7, although, so you need to not less than have the ability to get assist with main server or community points.

Ultimate verdict

Remixer would possibly work as a primary editor for easy private websites, perhaps one every for everybody within the household, but it surely’s too underpowered for severe skilled tasks.