I started using RW in 2011 - having previously used Dreamweaver and before that NetObjects - and would have continued, had it not been for Dan and crew embarking upon a different direction*, not to my liking.
Over the years, I have spent a fortune on latch-on developers’ themes, extras for stacks, and so on, much expense wasted before I finally settled on something I liked and could stick with regardless. Looking around for an alternative platform, most of those I found are online website builders. To attract new customers, such are promoted as easy to build, but, in my experience, that is not so, at least not for me. Having been used to doing it myself, I didn’t want to have to discuss my business and what I wanted from my website with a stranger. And I certainly did not want my site to look like everyone else’s. So I continued using RW until I changed my 2015 iMac to a Mac Studio with OS Sonoma.
I upgraded my version of RW to its subscription version, only to find I couldn’t get RW to work. So I kept the iMac and previous RW version, despite the inconvenience. On my credit card statement, I found that RW had charged a renewal subscription. I checked my emails and found a request for renewal that required me to confirm renewal. I hadn’t confirmed, so complained, whereupon RW refunded the payment.
To cut the rest of this story, I contacted Will Woodgate, with whom I have a lengthy business relationship, and asked him to redo my existing site (approximately 500 pages) and create another on WordPress. In June 2025, my business will have been established for 50 years - and is still going strong - so I am intending to launch then my new website, which looks exactly like my old site, to continue receiving the praise from visitors for its navigation and content. I have also changed from a long-established UK-based ISP, with whom I have been a regular customer since getting an email, to Chillidog.
I doubt that neither Will nor Greg would have come into my life had it not been for Rapidweaver, so thank Dan and his colleagues for creating Rapidweaver on 19 November 2002 and over the years the forum help from many RW customers.
PS * - I can understand wanting to go in a different direction. With hindsight, the mistake from the outset was to allow/not realise that third-party developers would latch on to RW and capitalise on Realmac’s existence. Arguably, the add-on that has done the most damage is stacks, which by overlaying the basic structure enabled other third-party developers to sell galore. Starting over and bringing everything in-house makes sense.
At a guess, competition from on-line website builders has reduced demand generally, which is why doubling the price for new users from 1 June 2025 despite RW’s successor not ready yet is to improve cash-flow. Sharing the development of a new product with existing customers is a way to foster loyalty. The more time invested in participation, the more likely a buyer.
However, from a customer’s perspective, when the time comes, whether having to switch to the new RW is worth the effort in terms of time and cost has to be weighed up in the context of whatever else is available nowadays. I am not the only RW customer who is going elsewhere.