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The Final Release of Adobe Muse

(and an exciting new era for our members and supporters!)

Adobe End of Life Muse 

It’s a sad day for the Muse community. Adobe has officially announced that the March 26, 2018 release of Adobe Muse will be the final version. Ongoing development of the software has ended, and there will be no new feature additions beyond critical OS level updates.

Business Catalyst as a whole is also being shut down, which will have an impact on temporary Muse sites and published sites hosted on BC.

Despite this news, we will continue to build and support products for Muse, and we are excited about the future of our business.

Quick Overview:

    • Adobe has announced the end of new development for Muse and the eventual winding down of support in March 26, 2020, although Muse could remain a very useful product for several years.
    • Just because Adobe is changing their business model doesn’t mean that your business needs have changed, so neither have ours: MuseThemes is going to continue to release and support Muse resources for as long as the product remains viable.
    • We are also expanding our service offerings by now supporting customers that have outgrown or transitioned away from Muse, and require more versatile code-free website functionality. Check out our new offering, Without Code (www.WOCode.com) for more details. View a Without Code sneak peek video.

There are some important steps that you should consider taking in the coming months, which are outlined below.

 



What does this mean for Adobe Muse users?

Don’t panic – Muse isn’t going anywhere, we just won’t see any further feature updates. Check out the official Adobe announcement here: muse.adobe.com/product-announcement-intl.html

We’ve confirmed with Adobe that the application will still function as normal, and you can continue to use it for your website creation needs. Considering we’ve seen very little in terms of updates over the last 18 months anyways, it’s pretty much business as usual. We know many designers who still work with Adobe Fireworks successfully, which ended development almost five years ago.

The official demise of Adobe Muse will likely come when browsers advance beyond the code Muse generates, which could be several years from now.

Will any features stop working immediately?

Adobe will remove Muse from the Creative Cloud installer, and do away with the ability to publish up temporary Business Catalyst sites. You will still be able to republish over existing BC temp sites, so we recommend you go ahead and publish up some extras prior to the BC / Muse shutdown. You can use those temp sites as previews for client sites, and republish over them as needed.

Once Muse is removed from the Creative Cloud application, the installer will only be available directly on the Adobe website. We also recommend you download the final release installer, and back it up somewhere just in case you need to reinstall Muse. The installer download will likely be available once Adobe removes Muse from the CC installer.

Adobe will stop critical fixes and product support for Muse completely in March 2020. All sites hosted on BC will need to move to another hosting server in order by March 26, 2021 in order to remain live. In preparation for the official termination of BC, you should begin exploring your hosting alternatives. Read more about what you should look for in a hosting solution, as well as the Without Code Worry Free Hosting details here.

 

How will this impact MuseThemes and my subscription?

MuseThemes is not going anywhere. Our team has an extensive Muse release calendar planned, and we intend to deliver on it. Considering the lack of other visual no-code website builders on the market, Muse will continue to be a useful tool for many web designers and business owners. MuseThemes will also continue to improve and grow our Muse product library as we always have.

Looking on the bright side, at least future updates of Muse won’t break our widgets any further. This gives us the freedom to potentially explore some experimental techniques knowing that the application isn’t changing.

We’ve also announced our new offering – Without Code (WOCode.com) – where we are going to provide an alternative to Adobe Muse that you can explore, in addition to other content management tools and training for different web design platforms. Click here to watch a sneak peek video of our new Without Code web design tools.

Your active subscription to MuseThemes can be transferred to Without Code, and you’ll have access to both Without Code and new / existing MuseThemes resources under one membership umbrella. Former and cancelled members of MuseThemes will also receive an incentive to explore Without Code at a discount.

How long have you known about the Muse end-of-life?

All of Adobe’s major vendors were only notified shortly before it was made public, but we were all under a legally binding Non-Disclosure Agreement restricting us from saying anything. However, our planning and development for Without Code started years ago, both in response to customer demands and as a natural progression of our business.

We’ve been seeing weakness in the Muse space for some time. Our member cancellation survey asks departing members why they were leaving MuseThemes, and the number one response was “no longer using Muse / switching to another product.”

There was a clear lack of support for Adobe Muse on the official Adobe pre-release forum, and we’ve seen very few feature updates since the responsive release. It was becoming obvious that Muse was no longer a priority for Adobe, and while the timing of this announcement was a shock, it wasn’t a complete surprise.

As of this writing, there is no Adobe product that offers a direct replacement for the functionality Muse offers.

 

Final Thoughts

I have mixed feelings about this news. While I’m extremely sad that Muse never reached its full potential, I will admit it’s been a challenging product for us to support for the last few years.

Responsive Muse introduced a level of complexity into the app that caused major headaches and long site build times. For widget makers like us, the lack of ongoing development in the Mucow widget creation system really tied our hands and limited us from pushing development into new areas. Major updates to Muse would frequently break third party widgets, and we’ve been investing too much time and resources into fixing Muse bugs and issues rather than building new products for our members.

With that said, I’m excited about the road ahead. When one door closes, another always opens.

Prior to creating MuseThemes, I worked as a freelance web designer creating client websites. I was always nervous when a client asked for functionality that I didn’t know how to deliver, especially before I knew any developers who could help me out (I was always a non-coder).

Our vision for Without Code is to build a community of users – designers, developers and business owners of all skill levels – who can support one another in their web design efforts and remove those limitations. We want to expose you to a variety of awesome platforms and creation tools, rather than restricting ourselves to a single product like Muse. Our diverse team of web pros has built almost every kind of website imaginable, and we can’t wait to share that experience with our members.

Thank you!

I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to all of the 110,000+ members and customers that have supported us going back all the way to 2011. It’s been an amazing ride, and we sincerely look forward to continuing on our web design journey together.

Thank you also to Adobe for building an awesome application that enabled us to build the websites we always wanted. You engineered a fantastic product, and my whole team and I will never forget how Muse changed our business and life in just a few short years. We look forward to watching and exploring the next generation of your web design tools.

We’ve learned many important lessons over the last seven years that we will carry forward into our next business. Adding value for our members is always our number one priority, and we hope that you’ll stick with us to see the exciting things we have in store for you in the future.

Thanks everyone!
~Steve Harris

Muse End-of-Life Tips:

  • Publish up some spare BC temporary sites to use for client previews. After March 2021, you won’t be able to publish new ones, however you can republish over old ones.
  • Download the final release installer, and back it up somewhere just in case you need to reinstall Muse. The installer download will likely be available once Adobe removes Muse from the CC application in March 2020. 
  • View the official Adobe announcement here: http://muse.adobe.com/product-announcement-intl.html

 

 

Steve Harris
Steve Harris / Calgary, Canada

Steve Harris started MuseThemes in 2011 and steadily grew the company, going from a full-time corporate employee to being his own boss. More than just MuseThemes, Steve is a conference speaker, Lynda.com author, and holds equally large collections of both business books and fine scotch.

Comments

Hendrik
Hendrik

Thanks Steve…
For the last 6 odd months I was seeing signs and asking Adobe, Adobe Muse where was Muse going and were they still in support of it but “crickets” was the answer! I know here in Australia our Adobe subscription just goes up and up in price and now a fantastic product is being discontinued with them saying use Spark, etc… instead. What a joke!
I think it is an apt time for a massive “Adobe backlash” and have Adobe know that their paying subscribers have had enough! I’m not impressed!!! :(

Uwe
Uwe

Thanks for keeping us strong.
Best Regards,
Uwe

John Folkmann
John Folkmann

That’s weakness of Adobe: you can’t trust them!

I want to express my gratitude to Steve and the team at Muse-themes.com. You have done a great job for Muse!!! For me Muse is now dead. WC might be the better alternative, but I need to see your progress and especially that WC becomes web server independent before any commitment. For the time being, WP is the only way forward.

I’ll keep in touch :)
John

Erik
Erik

Hi Steve,
I had also post a thought about new project into w/o project announcement.
I am so angry about Adobe’s decision to stopping support Muse! But as you say “when one door closes, another always opens”. But not Adobe’s door. I will be an ex-customer of them.

I’m looking forward for your new w/o project which I found it fantastic.
Is that possible to convert muse files to new system? I’m using Muse and I’m customer of your from early 2015 and I have a lot of projects (web sites) that I don’t want to throw them in the trash.

keep the good job!
Kind regards
Erik

Marc Verburg
Marc Verburg

I’ve always felt Muse Themes was more of a friend to me than Adobe Muse itself. So I’ll stick with you, the plans for W/O Code and the alternatieves you might suggest. Let’s see what that future brings!

Andrea
Andrea

Hi Steve,
it was a really shock for me :(( and i am totally confused. Did you know if Browseredting still works?
Andrea

Gary Millard
Gary Millard

Hi Steve,
I look forward to seeing what Without Code looks like. I am sure if you treat your customers with respect, you will be successfull.
Good luck.

Marco Preisig
Marco Preisig

Hey Muse THemes Team

Do you planning a takeover of of Muse?
Or a way to migrate a Muse-Site to your new product Without Code?

thx for your work!

Chuck Braman
Chuck Braman

It would be considerate to their third-party partners like Muse-Themes, QooQee, etc., and more importantly, to their own customer base, if Adobe would sell Muse to you or another third-party developer to fix and continue developing. It would also be in the interest of maintaining Adobe’s own reputation with both groups of people. But that’s not Adobe’s culture. They threw us under the bus. I won’t be running my business as a beta tester for new Adobe products like Muse and Business Catalyst ever again.

Thank you to Muse-Themes, you always offered excellent support and showed consideration of your members, as you continue doing now. I wish you the best of luck moving forward.

vlad
vlad

would it be possible to make integration with Dreamweaver, or any other platform for your widgets?

Jack
Jack

Absolute Disgrace!!!!! I’m appalled by Adobe and would like to say how p*ssed off i am! Thankyou Muse-Themes, you have helped me create many great websites and now Muse is over :(

Sign the petition to try and change Adobe’s mind!
https://www.change.org/p/adobe-systems-adobe-do-not-discontinue-muse

jack
jack

muse-themes can you somehow persuade Adobe?

https://www.change.org/p/adobe-systems-adobe-do-not-discontinue-muse

Jack
Jack

Why are you deleting my comments? I’m publishing a link to a petition I found that is asking for Adobe not to cancel and give up on Muse?

jack
jack

disgraceful!!!!!!!!!

Heather
Heather

Please Muse Theme, continue to be trustworthy with good customer service. You will maintain and gain good customers. People hate moving. Don’t want to rush, but can’t wait for WC (I wish you change the name though :) ). I love your customer service, waiting for the wonderful product.

DaveMez
DaveMez

Wow Adobe, thanks for leaving us out in the cold. Thanks Steve & team for everything you’ve done, great work!

Keith Draper
Keith Draper

This news is very disappointing. Seems as a pure designers I now will have no choice but to convert to WP. This reminds me of the Adobe Flash end, so many designers learned the difficult and necessary skills only to be cut off. Disappointing indeed. I will also check our your new business venture to see if it fits into my WP needs.

Richard Stellar
Richard Stellar

So, what now? Back to Dreamweaver? I hate that software. Muse was a great platform that enabled a graphic design sense. I’m just starting a new Muse project too.

Al Ortiz
Al Ortiz

As a graphic designer who relies heavily on Muse, BC and MuseThemes to kick off web design (not a coder AT ALL), I’m not happy about the trend of large companies phasing out software that people actually use. Do I go re-learn Dreamweaver? Or are they going to phase it out for some other flavor of the month? I’m venting a little, but my business model fits a certain niche of website purchasers, and I have no time to learn how to code. I cannot wait to see what you guys come up with. Your responsive website layouts have been a great starting point for me, and your modules have been an invaluable resource for the designer/web community. I’m sure commenters on here can agree. Keep up the good work, and your community will continue to support.

jdc
jdc

Ugh. How effing lame. Ive got dozens of sites in muse. Theres nothing as simple with all the capabilities.

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