Adobe Dreamweaver for Windows

Adobe Dreamweaver CC 21.8.1 is a web design and development application for Windows from Adobe Inc., released on 1 July 2026. You download Dreamweaver when you want to build and edit websites with HTML, CSS and JavaScript while seeing a live visual preview, or maintain older sites that were created in it.

Specifications

Full details are on Adobe's system requirements page.

What Dreamweaver does

Dreamweaver started at Macromedia in 1997 as a visual HTML editor, at a time when most web pages were written by hand in plain text editors. Adobe acquired it along with Macromedia and turned it into part of Creative Cloud. Today it combines a capable code editor, with syntax highlighting, code hints and Emmet shortcuts, and a live view that shows the rendered page and lets you select elements visually. It includes starter templates and support for Bootstrap-based responsive layouts, so you can preview how a page looks on phones, tablets and desktops. Built-in FTP and SFTP publishing uploads your site to a server, and site management keeps local and remote files in sync. Dreamweaver also works with Git for version control and connects to other Adobe apps for images and assets. It remains popular with designers who prefer seeing a page while coding and with teams maintaining legacy sites.

How to install

1. Open the official Dreamweaver free trial page.
2. Sign in with an Adobe account; the Creative Cloud app installs first.
3. Install Dreamweaver from Creative Cloud.
4. Create a new site and set its local folder and server details.

Price

Dreamweaver is available only by subscription, alone or as part of Creative Cloud plans, with a free trial. Prices are on the official product page.

Who it suits

Dreamweaver fits designers who think visually and want to see the page while they write code, small agencies that maintain many simple sites, and anyone who inherited a project built with Dreamweaver templates. Developers working with modern frameworks usually prefer lighter code editors.

Security

Install only through Creative Cloud. Cracked Adobe software is a frequent carrier of malware, and a web editor stores server passwords, which makes that risk worse.

Pros and cons

• Pro: code and live visual preview side by side.
• Pro: built-in site publishing.
• Pro: works with other Adobe apps.
• Con: subscription only.
• Con: slower development than in the past.
• Con: free code editors cover most needs.

Alternatives

Free tools on our site include Notepad++ for editing code and XAMPP for running a local web server with PHP and MySQL.