Blocs

Great support and community makes this an essential tool for creating awesome looking websites. That said, it can sometimes be frustrating getting positions right. But ones you master this, it is just fantastic.

While it is true that Blocs has lots of ready made blocs and brics to work with, you don't have to. You actually have a lot of freedom in designing your website with blocs. Yes, you need to work within the boundaries of the Bootstrap 4 framework, but that's not generally a bad thing. And Blocs 4 will most likely add support for CSS grid and a lot of improvements for developers as well as designers. And true, while you can simply use the premade blocs to quickly assemble a website, it's not the way to go if you want your website to look different from what most Bootstrap built webpages look. Put a little effort into learning the ins and outs of Blocs and you'll be able to achieve very good looking websites. Learn some basic HTML and CSS to be able to apply custom CSS classes or edit those that come with Bootstrap, and you're golden to craft really good looking websites. Blocs is for beginners and pro web developers / designers alike that prefer a more visual approach to designing a website while still being able to customise the look and feel of the website by using custom CSS or inject custom JS and PHP. Combine Blocs with the VOLT CMS and Blogging solution, and you won't need much more. Anyone else saying blocs sucks because you can just use ready made blocs hasn't seriously tried the app. Just saying...

It might not be just as easy to use as Wix & co, but it's definitely still very easy! It requires no coding at all, and just gives you almost every freedom to design what you would like to, all while "guiding" you to a nice, fully & automatic responsive design. It's great in helping you to avoid those mistakes that make websites look unprofessional or outdated.
Another MAJOR advantage: You download & pay the software once, and you are free to use it for as many websites as you'd like to, no monthly fee, free forever. Almost no other modern website builder can compete with this offer, I've searched a lot before I found Blocs...

Blocs is not intuitive, its not "easy to use" its very limiting and very time consuming. I highly recommend putting the time to learning a software like dreamweaver and learning some code before diving into a front end like this that still needs A LOT of work. It looks nice, but working with it feels like trying to play golf with a bowling ball.

You only can use ready made blocks, cannot change it. Incompatible between versions.

If you have Blocs 2 or use some other app like Rapidweaver do yourself a favour and buy Blocs 3. This is a huge upgrade with regular updates and lots more development in the pipeline.

It offers amazing control with the new column adjustments that allow you to resize visually in a couple seconds at four different breakpoints. Then you can create freehand margin adjustments that automatically set custom classes; again individually configurable at each breakpoint in real time.

Two columns with unequal quantities of content? Just click the full column height alignment to make them equal and while you are there why not create a graduated background on uniquely shaped button to stand out from the crowd.

It includes the ability to create complex forms, plus a wide range of built in design configurations and practically anything you can think of yourself, leveraging the power of Bootstrap 4. It does all of this and much more straight out of the box without having to spend another cent on endless $$ plugins.

Are there things I would change or improve? Yes without a doubt, but with Blocs 3 you get the sense they are all coming pretty soon.

This is actually out of date at Macupdate, since Blocs has now progressed to version 3 and it's a huge update with great improvements. It's strange, but if you search on this site for Blocs you find nothing and have to add the version number before a suggestion appears.

I've been searching for a web builder to replace Adobe Muse now that they've stopped developing it and came across Blocs.

After trying out the week long demo (which really wasn't long enough to get used to the software) I've come to some conclusions:
As one of the reviewers below has mentioned, it's not really intuitive; there are many, many frustrating moments trying to move blocs to where you want them to be to no avail. You seem to have to create custom classes (like stylesheets) to get anything anywhere close. Surely having all these options readily available in the one panel should be better?

Adding images looks promising, giving an asset library to add to. However, if you're image is bigger than 3MB, it won't add it in. It just tells you that it's too big! Could Blocs not resize to suit like most other applications seem to be able to do?

There's possibly an ability to add webfonts or your own fonts, but I couldn't work this out.

One of the main things that appealed to me was the ability to use a CMS. My clients constantly ask me if they can be given the ability to add and change photos, update news, etc. However, this is not as easy or as user friendly as you would expect. I tried installing October CMS, a freemium CMS. I installed on the server and eventually got it set up. Once I logged in to the 'backend' I quickly realised this was no good! I was faced with an unusual, albeit friendly looking code window. You seem to have to enter the text in what looks like an HTML editor along with links and the relevant code for your images. Surely this isn't what the client wants? I realise October CMS is not developed by Blocs so not really their fault, but I am surprised and disappointed in this integration.

The lack of an FTP upload is strangely lacking. It surely shouldn't be difficult to add this feature to prevent the complete export and upload of the site each time a change is made.

Among the several quirks I found was the strange resizing of images among the responsive layout. There were sometimes gaps at the bottom of images and then they'd disappear.

Anyway, this is just my short experience of Blocs.
I like the drag and drop nature of the application and feel Blocs has a lot of potential. It just has a fair bit to go before I would feel comfortable using it for a client's site - the moment they came back to me and said "could you move that there, or could you add this...", I'd balk.

This app is close to being perfect BUT the editor is just so WEIRD! The developer obviously spends a lot of time adding good features, but the editor is not intuitive at all. The majority of new users will have a hard time learning the basic editing features.

Amazing what this software can do, its super easy to make your own, responsive, website. The possibilities are endless! Blocs staff listens super good to the feedback and requests and always gets updated to make it even better! 10/10 worth every penny.

I felt compelled to retract and change my review after learning a bit more HTML5/CSS3 and examining the Blocs codes more closely with a couple of other web developers.

I found the following statements to be untrue, and frankly, dishonest:

“Quality: Blocs generates good quality organized code with no clutter or inline styles.”

If you examine the Blocs.app official site, which claims it was built using Blocs.app, you will see inline styles, and it suffers from “divitis” as well as a truckload of non-semantic class names. General users and those who know just the basics of HTML couldn’t tell the difference, but real developers who know HTML/CSS would cringe at the code.

“No Coding: You don't need to understand or use any coding to build a website with Blocs.”

The irony of GUI web builder tools, in general, is that you can get the most out of it when you know things like how CSS box model works and how you write semantic HTML code. I find it true in this case as well.

“Easy to Use: Blocs is one of the easiest website building tools, anyone can build with Blocs.”

It is only half true. Sure, you can whip up a page, but you still need to know how to use FTP, and some other minor but definite details. You will need to know even more if you want to integrate a CMS or go beyond the most basic features. Online services such as Squarespace is a little more guided, it doesn’t require that users know how to do FTP, and things like that.

“Developer: Blocs generates good quality, clean code. This makes it the perfect springboard to get the basics in place, fast.”

It is just not true as explained above. Most developers who know how to code would cringe at the code and would most likely try reproducing the same layout from scratch using a more standard set of tools and frameworks.

There is also a question about whether you should allow people with no clue about design and basic coding skills to build a website in the first place. A developer with some level of knowledge could create a decent-looking website using Blocks.app, but people with no clue about design, proper content authoring and complete lack of knowledge of HTML/CSS will likely struggle despite Blocs.app’s claims. Tricking those users into believing that web design is as easy as writing something in Microsoft Word is dishonesty in disguise, much like how it was with Macaw editor.

Amazing website WYSIWYG builder. Creating truly amazing looking website is so easy. It can make your website standout from any thing else. Highly recommended to give it a try !

Modified rating: Five stars

This comment is my attempt to correct my previous rating below. Since MU doesn't give me the option to delete it, I am posting this so that people know the developer of Blocs doesn't deserve a rash, incorrect comment I made earlier.

After giving a lot more time experimenting with Blocs, I have to say that this is an impressive piece of software.

It allows you to build a modern, professionally-looking website in a matter of minutes without having to do fiddly hand-coding. "Professionally-looking" doesn't stop at aesthetics; the generated code also looks well-coded and well-formatted. You can even customize IDs and Classes right in its GUI panel, so the generated code will look just as if you coded by hand.

I believe it's great not just for non-coders but also for developers and designers who are building websites for clients. It's a great springboard tool for prototyping that they could develop into a production site. They might even be able to create a finished site if the design/feature requirements are minimal. Those who are familiar with Bootstrap should be able to get a ton out of this time-saving tool.

Overall, the developer of Blocs has done an admirable job. Blocs delivers.

Not a bad software, but it's too expensive for what it is. Bootstrap Studio is a better deal in my opinion. (https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/55596/bootstrap-studio)

It generates the code that is easily identifiable as a Blocs-generated site, so it is not for anyone who cares about clean and quality code. It's ok for those who want a "No code necessary" type website builder, but then I suspect they would be better off using a hosted solution such as Squarespace.

Design variation is also limited. It generates a typical landing page layout that's already overused all over the web.

HTML/CSS isn't that hard. You might want to try this website before shelling out $80 on this software:

http://jgthms.com/web-design-in-4-minutes/

Very cool app to create stunning sites. I don't like the dark GUI but it is intuitive and easy to access. Well worth to check it out when you want to great fancy looking sites. A bit too expensive imo.

Really Nice ;) but more flexibility with SEO would be amazing !!!!!!

Ok I have tried this some. Looks like a lot of work in progress. There are difficulties in styling text. Most text settings seems to be global for some reason, it is very hard to make local overrides. Hard to find a way to set heading level. Etc. Beautiful responsive output though.

Blocs2 is now the only to-go tool to build high professional looking and working websites. Great GUi that makes building sites without writing one single line of code. Many are using Rapdiweaver, which isn't bad etiher, but RW still requires some knowledge and most of all, you have to buy a lot of plugins before you can create a nice website. In the end Blocs2 delivers from day one. AWESOME WEBDESIGN TOOL !!

Surprisingly easy to use webs designer app. The sites you can create are truly eye catchers and very professional looking. Superb app and very highly recommended for everyone who wants to create a awesome website - both pro and novices.

There is ONE important reason that the folks at BLOCS APP deserve a "5" ... an easy to learn/use app that builds sophisticated and sleek responsive websites in MINUTES not hours, days or months.