The big drawback of WYSIWYG HTML editors like XWD is, that they don't offer content management functions, like the CMS or blog systems are doing. This is problematic, whenever you have a website with a lot of pages and would like to change your layout some months later. With a WYSIWYG editor, you have to start from the beginning in this case.

CMS and blog systems are more intelligent: They are separating the content and the layout, so that you can insert thousands of pages full of content, but you need just one click to change your layout for all this pages.

Most of the CMS and blog systems are also able to import your content from another CMS or blog system, so that you're able to migrate from one system to another. This is often not possible with WYSIWYG editors.

CMS systems offers also the possibility to let your customers edit their content by themself without the danger that they are destroying your well thought out design. In the case of Xara Web Designer another problem is, that the FTP publishing routine is transferring all pages again and again, whenever you change just a simple word in just one of your 100 pages.

Not so, with a CMS system. You'll find more a division of responsibilities with CMS systems:

  • The design of a CMS or blog system is created from a Webdesigner and often added with some JavaScript functions/widgets and/or Flash from the Webdesigner himself or a Webdeveloper.
    Using different designs for CMS or blog systems is very easy. For example, if you use Wordpress as a blog system (or a simple CMS), you can choose of thousands of available templates from a very big community and also commercial vendors. The same with most of the CMS systems.
    Creating your own template is also easy for a skilled Webdesigner. There are a lot of tutorials available, which are teaching you how to create a new template or customize a given template.
  • The endusers are creating new pages with new content (including different content types like text, tables, images, videos, ...). And such systems are offering integrated WYSIWYG editors, of course, so that the enduser is able to see what he get. The endusers are often called "editors" in such environments.
  • Often there is also an Administrator for the CMS or blog system.


I would recommend a WYSIWYG HTML editor for small websites (5-10 pages) and a CMS or blog system for medium to big websites.

Remi