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WebStarts

Website Creating and Hosting
Published 03/12/2012 and rated Ratingstars5 5 out of 5 stars by Shel Gatto
WebStarts screenshot
WebStarts screenshot
What can you use the app for?

WebStarts is a user friendly website design tool. The application utilizes a drag and drop interface that makes it as simple as possible. Users can drag and drop video clips, photos and other content directly on the page. The user sees the page as they build it so they never have to jump back and forth or refresh to view the most recent version. WebStarts offers hosting and a domain name. Users can also add a custom domain if they prefer. Custom email addresses are available with domain names. Users can add other content, such as a forum or web form and ecommerce tools. The application has also added member’s only pages that allow users to limit access to certain content.

What is the history and popularity of the app?

WebStarts was founded by Adam Barger in February of 2007. The concept behind the application was created when Barger noted the severe lack of user friendly “do it yourself” webpage builders. The application was intended to give users a convenient way to build a functional webpage without the cost of a professional designer. The application has received a positive response from users because of its simple design and limitless customization options.

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What are the differences to other apps?

The main draw to WebStarts is the combination of a user friendly interface and unlimited customization for each page. The user can build pages to their specifications simply by dragging and dropping elements right where they want them. The user can see the page as it develops without messing with any coding. WebStarts manages to provide a user friendly website builder that doesn’t limit creativity by corralling the user into a template or minimal features.

How does the web app look and feel to use?

WebStarts offers a smooth, user friendly design that lets even the most inexperienced user stay in control. Each website looks unique, in fact browsing the gallery provides the user with many examples of just how original each design can be. The drag and drop interface is the corner stone of the site’s appeal because it gives the user total freedom when customizing a web page. The user can add a wide range of elements directly to their page before publishing it live. .

How does the registration process work?

A new user can get started by clicking the yellow “Sign Up Now – It’s Free!” button in the lower, right hand corner of the WebStarts homepage. The next step asks the user to select a design. A note lets the user know that they can change designs later if they decide to do so. The user is taken to the registration form after selecting a design. The form asks for a first and last name, email address and password. Next, the user can choose their preferred subscription plan and must choose a subdomain name. The user is automatically logged in to their new account. Users can also click the blue button in the upper, right hand corner of the homepage to sign in with a Facebook account.

What does it cost to use the application?

WebStarts offers three subscription plans to its users. The first is a free plan which includes up to five pages, 10 MBs of storage space, 5 GBs of bandwidth per month, email support and the WebStarts footer on all pages. The Pro plan costs $4.89 per month and includes one free domain name, 15 pages, $125 in free advertising, five forms, five slideshows, 1,000 MBs of storage space, 25 GBs of monthly bandwidth and HTML access. The Pro Plus plan costs $7.16 per month and includes 10 email addresses, unlimited pages, $300 in free advertising, search engine submit, unlimited forms and slideshows, 5,000 MBs of storage, 100 GB of bandwidth per month, membership feature access, no WebStarts footers and phone and email support.

Who would you recommend the application to?

WebStarts is a valuable tool for anyone who wants to create a web page but has no experience or design knowledge. The application makes building attractive pages quick and hassle-free. Users can drop many elements onto pages, including functional items such as forms and slideshows. Three subscription plans offer access suitable for any purpose. Even the high end plan is economical for casual users and comes with many attractive features.

  • New users can register with a Facebook account
  • Member's only pages lets users control who can view content
  • Drag and drop interface makes it easy to organize web pages
  • Forms and slideshows can be added as well as images and videos
  • One free and two economical paid plans are available
  • Web pages can link to Twitter and Facebook profiles
  • Ecommerce tools allow users to sell merchandise online


WebStarts video


Post a comment

46 comments, showing 1 - 25 (newest first)
Laurien DyTremble
on 23 Apr 2012 at 18:31
This site is full of bugs and they are so busy trying to interrupt your work with upgrade pages they haven’t figured out how to keep you from losing your “SAVED” work. They blame you for not saving your work even though I have been doing this for 15 years. Then, instead of taking responsibility for 8 hours of my work being lost, they say fine, if you don’t like our site I can gladly remove you. I say absolutely remove me and then I get a message that I have to do it myself. Great business model with these morons. Not recommended!
bigsexy
on 22 Mar 2012 at 22:43
i loved working with webstarts until recently. i received an email from them asking for me to lock in my current pricing for 5 years. i asked what the price increase would be... they are going from $7.16/mo to $200 a month!!
Rony
on 03 Mar 2012 at 12:17
(Rated 2 out of 5 stars)


Webstarts has big, ongoing problems with their text editor among other things. Its funny reading some of these posts since I've had the exact same problems. Specifically that you try to report a bug and they claim to not be able to replicate the bug on their end. But then you'll notice a few days or weeks later that that particular bug has been "fixed" which invariably causes two or three more bugs that are at least as bad as the one you reported. The latest giant bug i have found is that when centering, bulleting, italicizing, or, trying to use more than one font and/or font size in the same text box, the font originally chosen gets stripped from all of the other text boxes on the page that use centering, bulleting, italicizing or more than one font/font size. The end result of this is that depending on your browser and your operating system, edits might look as you want them to on your computer, but can vary wildly on others. Some devices, Kindle as one example, will inherit the largest sized font used in any text box and apply this size to the entire text box even if you are using two or more sizes. This latest bug is a result of their latest tweak to the text editor and by all appearances is the result of how one added and edited text prior to the "fix". Therefore, there is all sorts of conflicting things going on since the Webstarts platform itself is written in JavaScript. Long story short, they do indeed continue to fix things but they have in my experience absolutley always denied that there was ever a problem, and, every time a fix is done you have to redo much of your site to conform to the fix to avoid massive rendering issues. Its frustrating dealing with Webstarts so I haven't bothered reporting this bug. Honestly, I don't understand how they can't know its there since it effects so many things. They do not take criticism well and tend to be extremely defensive. Their default reaction is to a.) deny the problem b.) tell you its not their website builder but what you are trying to do with it. When you try to explain that no other website builder has these problems the rationalizations just get to be way too much and the whole attempt to communicate turns into a thoroughly unpleasnat experience where you are often talked down to or talked over. The other canned answer is that its not their website builder but the code you are trying to add, which is false since adding code in HTML only mode works just fine. It is the website builder, and what THEY are trying to do with it. As to Bill's comment, using Webstarts in HTML mode only completely negates why anyone would want to use Webstarts, so that's a bit of a mystery lol :P Anyway those are my thoughts. I've only ever had one website with Webstarts and will soon be moving it elsewhere.
Bill
on 19 Feb 2012 at 20:05
I use Webstarts, but for HTML only mode because I do code...and it works perfect. I also rely on them.
Sammy
on 13 Dec 2011 at 09:52
One other thing I forgot to note: Webstarts didn't use their own website builder for the Webstarts website, and, it doesn't appear to be hosted on the same servers as their customer's sites. If this doesn't speak volumes about Webstarts then nothing does. ...oh, and as of this morning all of their customer's sites are down. Again.
Sammy
on 01 Dec 2011 at 20:50
(Rated 1 out of 5 stars)


Webstarts is absolute garbage. Have a Webstarts site? Go to browsershots.org and enter your URL then see how much you like your Webstarts website. Look at your site in 57 different computers and you'll see 57 different sites too. Knock yourself out and try to explain these things to Webstarts if you want, but what you'll get back is pretty much a lecture that you have no idea what you're talking about and that their website builder is flawless. Garbage product, garbage service.
Marco
on 31 Oct 2011 at 14:19
I have been using webstarts for two years now and have not had any problems whatsoever, would recommend it to anyone.
Ms Web
on 29 Oct 2011 at 17:31
I am a webstarts subscriber, after having been a long time (3+ years) HubPages and WordPress user.I am not at all impressed with webstarts for 2 reasons. 1) the interface is not user-friendly. It seems simple enough, but it is not intuitive. I've had to ask how to do things like change the web page name (from their theme name), which is an option that should have been offered to the user up front when the theme was selected. Also, I have pasted javascript code into a home page that works, but is now invisible to me, lost to any effort to edit it. Where did it go? The themee are not fully editable, one has to make things totally transparent and move them to the side or bottom to be rid of them, and menu bars aren't editable. What are they thinking? 2) they piece-meal the features for a la carte prices and are not very about what each package contains. For instance, their 'Pro' package doesn't include a shopping cart. You must add on the cart at an extra fee, but the Pro features list doesn't mention or suggest the cart. SEO is updated for free once a month (when - At the start? Mid-month? End?) for Google only, you pay extra for each Yahoo and Bing and another $39.99 for 'good' Google exposure. My overall impression of webstarts is that it's INTENTIONALLY not well organized in its presentation of features, so the user gets sucked into it's vortex of ever-increasing costs for features. I don't trust them to do what they say they do. When my year runs out, I will take my site elsewhere.
Persephone
on 08 Oct 2011 at 20:47
(Rated 4 out of 5 stars)


Yes Ning is the better option but I am here searching for other options for Ning just as a backup. They rarely go down, and as a platform goes nothing is easier. Yes they too have their problems, customer service can be slow, but overall nothing too bad. I have been on Ning for over 2 years now with a great buildup of members, you can share on your FaceBook, Twitter, etc. at no extra cost but be aware they may be selling to Google. If this is good or bad *shrugs* its a wait and see.
Phil
on 16 Aug 2011 at 18:53
Webstarts is a scam and a joke. I have had nothing but problems with this site in regards to compatibility and the way they back there stuff up. I had just received a call from someone wanting to build a web site for my business and I told them that I already had one and they said NO I Don't, So I checked and guess what I don't, I contacted Webstarts and told them my problem and they seem to be aware of the problem which they told me it's been going on for weeks. I was told it would be up and running with in a couple days and it was not and of matter of fact they lost my HOME page and my ABOUT page and now I have to pay to have it reconstructed and at the same time I'm still paying on the add word campaign. They will not do anything to comp me for any losses. I was pretty much told to bad can't help you....... I was also told a good web host would have notified me with the problem,which they did not.......... Stay away form WEBSTARTS, Godaddy is a good one as I was told..........
JIM
on 31 Jul 2011 at 00:33
I have been using WebSTARts for over a year now and have been pretty pleased with their service. The service technicians have been very helpful and have been able to answer most of my questions. I have lost 3 / 4 pages but I have talked to other hosting companies of websites and they tell me that that is possible, it just happens sometimes. But This Week has been a disaster almost half of my pages are scrambled and some do not show up. I talked to a technician and he assured me that they would get it fixed. {I hope so} Overall I have had a good experience with WS . I will try to give a update all my situation but you can also check it out for yourself at httr://online-grocery-stores(dot)net at this point I have/had 70 pages. I hope the problem is resolved soon but if my website don't exist or I have less than 70 pages Well" Houston We Have a Problem" Most of My Experience with Their Customer Service has been good but I have to say they need to get rid of some people. Try to get a hold of Tim he's very friendly and helpful and has always been able to answer my questions. Overall I been very happy with WS it's not the best but you do get what you pay for and the price is right.
Everett Huerta
on 16 Jul 2011 at 17:39
I wish I would know how bad it was before I payed $70 for the service, and right after I payed, I cancelled my membership and now a year later, I'm billed $70 again!!! Ugh I'm pissed
Angela White
on 09 Jul 2011 at 19:59
Awful service, no matter if you're on a free account or upgrade all the way. Can anyone suggest an alternative with the same features? As far as I know, there isn't one that can do what this one will, thus the reason we're all still using it, I assume.
AJ
on 24 Jun 2011 at 11:03
(Rated 3 out of 5 stars)


I have 3 sites with Webstarts. My primary complaints would be these: 1.) Cross-browser rendering (text positioning and rendering/positioning of images that are renderable in all browsers) is a definite problem, and is far more pronounced than in any other site builder I have ever used. That being said, any big differences can be overcome by essentially building your site in all major browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari). Specifically, build in one browser, but have all major browsers open to your site and refresh each as you make changes - adjust accordingly. A hassle, yes, but it will save you a lot of headaches. I should note that some browsers' inability to render certain images is not a Webstarts problem, but a browser problem, so it doesn't make sense to get mad at Webstarts about it. Internet Explorer, for example is notorious for doing things differently than every other browser because they have a lock on the browser market, and therefore can screw with everyone else. Internet Explorer sucks, by the way, for all you "what's a browser?" people. ;) 2.) Customer service is really all over the map: I've had some of the best, as well as the singular worst customer service experience of my entire life where I was talked at as if I were a hysterical woman, with Webstarts. Here's a tip: ask for Dayne. You will be 100% pleased 100% of the time (if you are a reasonable person). 3.) I have been in business, marketing and customer service for 20 years with the last 10 of those years almost exclusively on the Internet with e-commerce. I have never experienced, or know anyone who has experienced, server down-time for longer than a few hours at most, and those instances were when there was a complete server crash. The current server issues are the second time in 3 months (if I recall exactly) that Webstart's servers have been down for longer than 12 hours. If any of you are familiar with the IT industry, when there is a server issue of a magnitude significant enough to cause one's entire operation to fail, the people who fix them for a company simply do not go home until the problem is remedied. The Webstarts team, or who ever they contract server work to, appears to clock-out when its 'time to' regardless of such problems. Of course, in theory, there are problems of such a magnitude that would cause such lengthy disruptions; however, if that is the case, its not exactly a vote in favor of Webstarts. Perhaps what is worse, is that there is no pro-active communication to their customers when these issues happen, let alone details to put their customers at ease. It is overwhelmingly unlikely that what is currently happening has anything to do with maintenance. Servers have redundancy mechanisms that make it next to impossible for such down-time to occur; and, unless a physical server move is occurring, server drives are simply 'mirrored' making such transitions seamless. Sooo...who knows, really, what the current problem is. The bottom line for customers of Webstarts is that their sites are down, and its not an infrequent problem relative to the up-time of other hosts. I hope no one misunderstands what I'm saying: there are gobs of things that are great about the Webstarts platform, itself, especially if one is creative and builds one's site from scratch. I suppose the bottom line, for me, is this: if you just want a personal or informative website either to have a Web presence for a physically-located business, or to spread a message (etc), I would say that Webstarts is by far and away your first, best option. If I could go back in time knowing what I know now about Webstarts, would I use Webstarts to run one of my e-business with? This most recent down-time has cost me right around $350.00 (and counting); so no, probably not. All of this being said, Webstarts is more than worth the money. In fact, I'd say its one of the best deals out there. As with anything, you will get what you pay for. I believe those that really understand this most basic economic principle will be (or ought to be, I should say) pleased with Webstarts.
DJ HottRocks
on 24 Jun 2011 at 08:11
(Rated 5 out of 5 stars)


Well for the last day Webstarts has been down. Although that sux for my customers not being able to access some of my DJ service features that link to DJ Intelligence. I'm hoping that the site will be back online today. (Friday) I started out by using the free site making tool, then got hooked on the ease of use and ordered the upgrade. After using the site for just one year, I decided to pay for another 3 yrs of webstarts service. My clients find the "game" addons a blast that we can incorporate into our pages. When the site gets back online, feel free to checkout my site. www.MidnightMusicProductions.net By the way.. customer service is great! djhottrocks (at) midnightmusicproductions (dot) net
Wendell
on 24 Jun 2011 at 07:44
Hi, Is the webstarts website down? I'm unable to work on my project. Thanks. Wendell wenatop@hotmail.com
GJ
on 24 Jun 2011 at 04:11
I should explain that a little more.... I check my website almost everyday, but I have been unable to even pull it up today. I can't get anything with webstarts.com to open. UPDATE! Ha Ha! As far as complaints of their support via email, here's my experience:... I just had them respond to my email inquiry... it only took minutes! It turns out they are doing some maintenance! Thank goodness!!! I love this for my website. I had never before even tried to make a website and they make everything so easy! I will be upgrading soon and they have not pressured me to do so! It's my decision and I am VERY happy with the ease of use they have made it for those of us completely new to building a website! I recomend it to everyone interested or just kicking an idea around! FREE? Unheard of and when the time comes to upgrade, I haven't found anything better that is so inexpensive! It's awesome!
GJ
on 24 Jun 2011 at 03:45
As of 06-23-2011 I haven't been able to open anything on webstarts all day today???? What's up? ???
Jerry
on 10 Jun 2011 at 00:53
Overall I find it's not a bad platform to build a website especially if your not very experienced doing so. My only complaints would be the lack of customer service, they used to have a chat support feature which they scrapped and waiting for a response by email can take 3 or 4 days. You can call them but if you don't live in the U.S that gets expensive. The other complaint I have is that the text has a tenancy to overlap making it frustrating to do certain things with your template. It is fixable but not every computer or browser works well with Webstarts. That being said it's not bad and worth looking into.
Jake
on 06 Jun 2011 at 23:43
@ Jon. Email support@webstarts.com. for help.
Jake
on 06 Jun 2011 at 23:42
I have used webstarts for more than two years and I have worked with them on the couple of occasions where I was having trouble. I purchased their Pro Plus package which includes phone support for just times. Everyone that I have ever talked to was knowledgeable, friendly and patient. They took the time to explain the problem and offered me solutions. In a short time I had a very pleasing site,one I could not have made without the support from webstarts tools and staff. I have to say that I that I have read through these complaints and praises and I cannot believe that most of the people who have complaints here ever used their help center. (just in case you need it it support.webstarts.com.) I found 99% of my answers there and it was easy to follow the directions with their video tutorials. In short, anyone who is willing to take the time learn to use the tools (which took very little time) can build a professional looking site. If you are a beginner I cannot recommend a better place to start.
jon
on 02 Jun 2011 at 07:31
i am building a website free with webstarts i was vary happy whit my site un till i rechd my max i was fine with that but it removed all the pics i had on my site and onle lets me see the out line of them how ever i can still see the words i put on it and background color will some one plz tell me if i can fix this with out redoing the hole thing?
johanna
on 11 May 2011 at 20:26
Idiots shouldn't be allowed to leave their half-brain stupidity on this page. As far I am concerned, Webstarts is a great tool.
Randy
on 16 Apr 2011 at 15:59
I have used them several times over the past two years, from a business to my local civic league when I joined. They are a reasonable solution for anyone wanting to get a quick, easy web presence. I have played around with the biulder and am constantly finding new things I can do with the builder as my experience with it grows. Its very easy from the beginning but there are alot of features that you must experience first hand or watch there training videos. The additional email setup, domain registration and ease of use for the cost is great. As far as the billing and payment issue goes. try it for one year and then commit to a longer tern if you do not like it. for less than 80$ you cannot go wrong, it will let you know if a professional website is what you truely need or at least make you understand an appreciate what you are paying them for. as far a issues with service, programming, etc from above...90% of bad complaints are the result of the customer wanting someone else to fix their mistake. I think their a great company and concept. PS.. Only complaint...no spell check in the builder :)
Jane
on 08 Mar 2011 at 00:57
What a horrible business. The pop-ups you get about wanting to delete the navigation bar are unintelligible broken English which makes me think it's an off-shore setup or they hire people who have flunked out of high school. They are always pestering you to upgrade with pop-ups, spam, and they check boxes for upgrades you don't want or need by default before running your credit card. They give no refunds ever, even if there's a billing error. You have to go off-site to discuss billing (unless you want to give them more money on site), they refuse to help you on the phone or on the site.

WebStarts Alexa rank

6,817

WebStarts pricing

FREE - Permanently free version
Cheapest plan (per month) : $4.89
Most expensive plan (per month) : $7.16

Languages

English

English

WebStarts social media statistics

Twitter followers: 984

WebStarts on Twitter

WebStarts worldwide usage

Link to app information

Getsatisfaction Company blog

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