Homesite 2018?

Browsing old CDs recently, I found the HomeSite HTML Editor v1.2 freeware version. It brought back fond memories of learning HTML. Still a hobbyist coder today, I installed it to give it a spin for old times' sake.

I enjoyed using this vintage software so much that I built this static website and hosted it on a free Netlify account. It serves as a homage to this great tool, originally created by Nick Bradbury back in 1996.

While the web and website creation software have moved on significantly since 1996, I surprisingly found that HomeSite is still very usable today.

A few of its shortcomings include the lack of HTML5 tag support, missing 'alt' attributes, and 'img' tag insertions that lack quotation marks around numeric values. However, HomeSite redeems itself with the Custom Toolbar. This feature allows users to assign custom tags, which helps accommodate HTML elements that did not exist back then. It is a pity, though, that you cannot assign keyboard shortcuts to this custom toolbar.

A welcome addition is the 'App' toolbar, which lets you launch your own selection of applications from within HomeSite. While it may lack the capabilities of its modern counterparts, it remains a perfect, lightweight tool for learning HTML and CSS. It would take some time before a beginner outgrows it..

HomeSite spawned many lookalikes, eventually becoming hugely popular and passing through several versions. Ultimately, Adobe acquired HomeSite in 2005 and ceased its development in 2009. Alas, HomeSite was no more, but you can still visit the Wayback Machine to travel back in time and see how it looked in 1996.

Update: May 2026 - HomeSite will no longer install directly on Windows 11. However, extracting the files from the installer allows it to run as a standalone program. I have done exactly this and included winhlp32.exe, which allows you to view the program's original help files.

Download (542Kb): hs12-standalone.zip