EverWeb versus Sandvox
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Looking for a Sandvox Replacement? Key EverWeb Feature Comparison!

As most Sandvox users will already be aware of, it looks as if the product is no longer being developed or supported. There have been no updates to Sandvox since version 2.10.12, over 18 months ago. Fortunately, Sandvox is a 64 bit app and so can still on macOS Catalina. This gives Sandvox users time to consider which product to transition to in the future.

Here are some key features compares with EverWeb which should help Sandvox users find that the two products have quite a bit in common…

  1. Locally Installed Product
    Both Sandvox and EverWeb are locally installed on your hard disk, so there’s no worry about no Internet connection or reliance on a good connection speed to get your website developed.

  2. Hosting Is Your Choice
    EverWeb and Sandvox have their own hosting services available, or if you prefer, you can host with your own provider. In EverWeb, hosting has its advantages as the product itself incorporates features that you would usually have to access via a hosting provider’s control panel.

  3. Domain Name Purchasing
    Domain names can be purchased directly from either Sadvox’s own service, EverWeb’s own service or from your own domain name supplier. the choice is yours.

  4. What You Buy Is What You Keep
    Sandvox and EverWeb are both products that you keep when you buy them. They are not subscription based. So if you decide not to renew your update and support after a year, you still keep the product you have originally purchased.

  5. Website Building without using HTML
    As with Apple’s iWeb, Sandvox and EverWeb are great for building a website just by drag and drop. Text, Images, Photos, Video, Audio and other media are super easy to add to your site. There’s no coding required and you can easily build a 5 page website in less than 20 minutes in either product.

  6. One Click Publishing
    One of the great features of both Sandvox and EverWeb is that they both have one click publishing making it quick and easy to publish your website. EverWeb also offers parallel processing when publishing making use of multiple connections to the host server. You can tune this to speed up publishing!

  7. Built In Design Templates
  8. Sandvox offers about 60 built in designs, although they lack today’s design cues of big bold sleek designs. EverWeb offers over 150 free to use built in theme templates (that contain different page layouts) with regular additions with each product update.

  9. HTML Compliant Code
    If you ever used iWeb, one criticism was always present, that its code was never HTML compliant code. iWeb would bend or break coding convention which would have made development, support and maintenance more difficult. Sandvox and EverWeb don’t do this, as they comply with HTML standards.

  10. SEO Built In To The Product
    Another area where iWeb lacked was in Search Engine Optimization. Fortunately, both EverWeb and Sandvox bake SEO in to their respective products. EverWeb has taken SEO further building in responsive website design into the product and adding one-click HTTPS support for EverWeb+Hosting customers (free if you have a 10GB or higher plan).

  11. Photo Galleries
    One area that constantly delights Sandvox users is its photo gallery integration. Everweb also usually includes Photo and Video pages within most of its Theme Templates (which are similar to Sandvox’s page designs). You can also use EverWeb’s Image Gallery widget, Responsive Image Gallery widget, Image Gallery widget, Video widget, Vimeo widget and YouTube widgets in your page designs. Additional free and purchasable third party widgets are also available.

  12. Blogging
    You can create blogs in both Sandvox and EverWeb. If you have an iWeb background you’ll appreciate how EverWeb’s blogging environment is reminiscent of iWeb but vastly improved with responsive design, comment engine support, iWeb and WordPress blog post importing to name a few features.

  13. Social Media Support
    Although the last update to Sandvox was in 2018, it was only for macOS compatibility so important assets such as Social Media integration have been sadly left behind. Some of the options offered in the software don’t even exist today. EverWeb offers you integration with FaceBook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and RSS whilst being open to the integration of other social media services.

  14. Coding Options
  15. Sandvox has good options if you are familiar with coding. You can add your own ‘Raw HTML’ either within an existing page or as a page in its own right. If you use EverWeb you have the option to insert an HTML widget on to your page that you can add your HTML code into. EverWeb now also supports the use of CSS classes on the page.

  16. Product Updates and Support
    If you’re a regular Sandvox user, you’ll know by now that the product hasn’t seen any updates since 2018, and has lagged behind in the new feature department for a number of years now. The story is also the same with support which now relies on a few dedicated Sandvox users. If you transition to EverWeb you’ll find regular updates with new and improved features. The last update, version 3.1 arrived a couple of months and version 3.2 is in beta at the time of this blog. There’s also 7x24x365 support and a vibrant user community to interact with.

  17. Some EverWeb Features not Found in Sandvox
    You may also like to know that EverWeb allows you to easily build responsive websites with responsive web design built in, again no need to code, just drag and drop. There’s also Dark Mode, advanced contact form features and management, Master Pages allowing you to create your own editable design templates, animation effects, anchors, over 500,000 free stock photos to use in your website, full e-Commerce with PayPal and other payment vendors and much more!

Sandvox and EverWeb have much in common but there are obvious differences between the two. At the end of day, you will need to recreate your site from scratch no matter which product you eventually transition to. The good news for Sandvox users is that you will still get an easy to use drag and drop website builder that gets new features and regular updates keeping you in synch with the technology of today and tomorrow.

If you have a question or want to know more, please let us know in the comments section below. We’re happy to help.

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