Skip to main content
Topics

Free WYSIWYG HTML editors in 2026, and the Dreamweaver alternatives that still work

By Rahul Jha

Short answer

For a formatting box inside your own website, TinyMCE and CKEditor 5 are free, open source (GPL) and actively maintained. For a free app that builds pages visually, Silex and SeaMonkey Composer still get updates. Bluefish is free and active, but it's a code editor, not a visual one. Many tools on older lists, such as Amaya, KompoZer, Nvu, BlueGriffon, Expression Web and iWeb, are no longer maintained.

On this page

“WYSIWYG” (what you see is what you get) HTML editors let you format a page the way you would in a word processor, instead of typing code. They come in two kinds: editor boxes that you add to your own website, and apps you use to build pages visually. On 22 October 2026 we checked every editor from our older lists, plus four newer ones, to see which are still maintained, which are free, and which have quietly died.

Which one to pick

  • You need a formatting box inside your own website or app: TinyMCE or CKEditor 5.
  • You want to build simple pages visually, for free: Silex (in the browser) or SeaMonkey Composer (on your computer).
  • You want professional features and are happy to pay: Adobe Dreamweaver or Pinegrow.
  • You’re comfortable with code: a free code editor such as Bluefish.
  • Your site runs on WordPress: you already have a visual editor built in, the block editor.

Editor boxes for your own website

  • TinyMCE: version 8.10.0, released 14 October 2026. It’s free and open source (GPL 2.0 or later) when you host it yourself. The hosted cloud version has a free tier of 1,000 editor loads a month, and paid plans start at $79 a month, billed yearly.
  • CKEditor 5: version 49.0.0, released 8 October 2026. It’s free under the GPL 2.0 or later, or you can buy a commercial licence. The cloud version has a free plan of 1,000 loads a month, which shows a watermark. Paid plans start at $144 a month, billed yearly.
  • GrapesJS: version 0.23.8, released 15 October 2026. It’s a free, open-source (BSD) toolkit for building a whole drag-and-drop page builder, not just a text box.

GPL licences come with conditions if you ship the editor inside your own software. Read the licence, or buy the commercial one, before you build a product on it.

Apps for building pages visually

  • Silex: free and open source (AGPL-3.0). It runs in your browser, or on your own server. Version 3.9.0, released 26 July 2026.
  • SeaMonkey Composer: free. It’s the page editor inside the SeaMonkey internet suite, for Windows, macOS and Linux. Version 2.53.24, released 28 July 2026.
  • Dynamic HTML Editor: free for Windows, but not open source. Version 7.0 build 8 came out on 1 April 2026, after years without updates.
  • Adobe Dreamweaver: paid, from US$22.99 a month on a yearly plan, with a free trial. Version 21.8.1, July 2026, for Windows and macOS.
  • Pinegrow: paid, from US$99 a year or with a one-time licence, with a free trial. Version 10.1, released 13 October 2026, for Windows, macOS and Linux.

A free code editor, if you’d rather type the HTML

Bluefish is free and open source (GPL) for Linux, macOS, Windows and BSD. Version 2.4.2 came out on 17 July 2026. It’s often listed as a Dreamweaver alternative, but it’s a code editor, not a visual one.

Old favourites that have gone to seed

Older lists, including earlier versions of this page, still recommend these. None of them gets updates any more, so they can break on current systems and miss security fixes:

  • KompoZer: development stopped around 2011. It’s a 32-bit app, so it won’t run on macOS Catalina or later.
  • Nvu: stopped in 2006. Its website is gone.
  • BlueGriffon: last released in 2017, and its website is down.
  • Amaya: the W3C stopped development. The last release was in 2012.
  • Microsoft Expression Web: discontinued in December 2012, when Microsoft made it free.
  • Apple iWeb: discontinued in 2011.
  • Aptana Studio: last released in 2018. It was a code editor, not a visual one.
  • Quanta Plus: archived by KDE as unmaintained.
  • OpenBEXI: no real release since 2015.
  • NicEdit and the YUI Rich Text Editor: both abandoned editor boxes. Yahoo stopped maintaining YUI in 2014.
  • XStandard Lite and Trellian WebPage: closed, and their downloads are gone.
  • Salida: we couldn’t find any current product by this name.

How we checked

We checked each project’s official website, release page or code repository on 22 October 2026 for its latest version, licence and price. Where an official page no longer exists, we used other public records, such as Wikipedia. Prices are in US dollars and can change. We didn’t install every editor for this update.

Sources

Changelog

22 Oct 2026: merged our older “Dreamweaver alternative open source” post into this one. Checked every editor’s status, licence and price, moved discontinued editors into their own list, and added maintained ones (Silex, GrapesJS, Pinegrow). First published 7 May 2018.