TheGarnet.net

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===== Leaving Mobirise Web Editor =====


I have been a paying user of Mobirise since 2020: https://forums.mobirise.com/profile/63083/thegarnet

Here is a post from April 2020, were I was very happy to discover Mobirise: https://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/24488/my-second-site-adding-a-modern-face-on-a-personal-wiki-site-thegarnet-net/p1

2026/02/14 - I have decided to transition away from using Mobirise. I will be going full wiki on all my sites with the insanely great dokuwiki software that I have used for many years.

Why am I giving up on Mobirise web editor?

This page sets out many of the reasons why.  I post this in the spirit of Martin Luther posting his 95 Thesis to the front door of the Catholic Church at Wittenberg when he had to break away from his beloved mother church.

==== subscription nonsense ====
I am tired of paying their $200+ a year subscription fee. They no longer offer a pay once and own it price.

==== holding me ransom ====
I am tired of many aspects of how mobirise works. 

I have a lot of domains that I was managing with their software, and although I believe they said I could still edit my prior sites after their software expires. But right now it is instead not correctly opening all my old sites. Many broken images and such when opening them for editing. 

So in essence, when I need to make some quick emergency updates, they are holding me hostage waiting for a payment of an annual random. 

I cant just continue using the old software without getting further updates.

==== Peppering my sites with links back to their own site ====

The other big issue is them peppering my sites with links back to their own site. I can understand this for a free software, but when I am paying, I dont expect to find involuntary links on my site back to their site.  

They promise this feature to not link to themselves if you pay, but they fail to keep the promise.

Example: I just discovered a very embarassing issue. On my site https://www.laughingchaplain.com, the icon at the upper left of all pages should be a "Home" icon, and take users back to the home page. It doesn't. It is hijacked to go to mobirise website.

Every time any element in their designs needs a link, they put their own URL. It is not always obvious where all these links are just looking at their designs, because they dont always have standard link outlines. Graphic images might be links when you dont realize it. And every one of them has a hidden link to their own website if you dont spot that.

I have been complaining about this for years.  And new users are regularly discovering this issue, for example:
* https://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/35612/panel-at-bottom-of-page-ai-website-creator



What could they do instead?

They could simply make all those things link to "/" if the user has paid, but they dont. I have asked for this feature for years.

Which brings me to the next reason.

Mobirise forum posts about this issue:
* December 2024 - https://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/comment/121432/ - Lots of other users commenting on how these links make problems for professional use of mobirise on client websites.



==== Widespread discontent with the development team ====

While trying to convince myself to pay for another year of mobirise, which I have not used in several months, I decided to survey their user forum at https://forums.mobirise.com/

Lots of people are still complaining about non-responsiveness to long time bugs.

I have included many examples here with links to issues I have reported for years.


==== FTP posting of your projects to the server still often fails mid-upload ====
* The mobirise editor offers to post your site with FTP to your server. A typical mobirise site of a few pages may have hundreds of files such as graphics, design elements, CSS, etc.  Not only does the publish to server over FTP often fail.

==== Even publishing your project to you local hard drive fails ====
even publish to local hard drive is said to fail,  For years people have tried to work around the FTP issues with solutions like Filezilla.  But if Mobirise cant even publish your project to your local drive....

* AI generated websites hanging - https://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/comment/120310/#Comment_120310




==== bugs in their UI with editing links ====

In the past I have seen persistent issues with editing links in my site using their UI where when I save the edit, the new link doesn't actually get saved. Yes, every edit to a website should be manually checked, but having to constantly make sure their software actually accepted the edit, unacceptible.

* Problems on my first Mobirise site https://sharp-now.com - https://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/comment/66060/#Comment_66060
** When I try to add links to the text blocks, or the menu items, using the popup URL option, I have to always do it twice. The first time I specify a menu item, and then click the insert link on the popup, they are not taking. I go back and check and the menu item URL is blank, or the text didn't actually get hyperlinked. I always have to do them a second time, and then it works.
** **Cedarcottageme** liked my cookie policy:  Hint: I eat them!


==== Bugs with edits to headers and footers not propogating to all pages ====

I have found the only way around this problem with editing in headers or footers not showing up, is to make sure I look at every page and make a minor edit.

Other people a regularly stumbling on this issue:

* https://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/35594/publish-only-new-is-not-complete



==== Their projects are unfriendly to storing changes in a repository like git ====

Every time you publish a mobirise project, the output directory includes a project.mobirise file which is supposed to completely represent your site. It is often around 4MB in size.  There is no way to diff two different project,mobirise files to quickly see what has changed.

Wiki's maintain an ongoing recent changes so you can follow the history of the site.

And dokuwiki stores every webpage in a separate file so you can easily check in changes to a .git repository and have a nice development history for your site if you desire.


==== It is not easy to move website editing of their projects to different computers ====

I use mac and windows computers. While I like that the Mobirise editor can run on different platforms, to edit a website on a different computer, I have to re-import that large project file.  

So I have to be sure I am importing the correct one. It is impossible for me to easily look at two machines and quickly determine which one has the latest version of my site, unless I consistently manually edit a version number onto at least one of my pages.

And since the project files dont have any easily inspectible version number, and they are large binary blobs for git to deal with, they really bloat your repository.


==== Can't edit mobirise websites from you iphone or android ====

A wiki can be edited from any and all of the devices I own.


==== Block based UI makes for cumbersome editing ====
Editing text in a block based UI is cumbersome. With wiki, just move around the wiki text and edit as many things as you want before looking at a preview.

==== Block based UI makes it more difficult to use with edits from Grok ====

Grok writes superior text. But its hard to deal with multiple individual cut and pastes from Grok into the various blocks.

With a wiki, just have grok generate dokuwiki formatted output for the page.

==== Problems with disappearing blocks ====

//This one is from 2020, and might be fixed by now, but it sure was aggravating when I encountered it//

Really getting angry with Mobirise editor........ Three times now, I have added a last content block to my page, just above the footer block, just want to put one line of text in it, to complete an open story earlier on the page, with a link (which I have to manually redo every single time because mobirise cut and paste of text doesnt preserve the formatting or the links within the block of text.

I publish, or go look at another page in the editor for the site, come back to this page, and that block is just gone.

I also spent a lot of time formatting the block with the horse picture. Then I wanted to add a caption to the picture, couldnt find an option, so I figured time to edit the HTML. So I clicked switch to HTML, was warned the block params would no longer work, then was shown empty HTML, not the HTML of what I had worked so hard on. Tried publish, and lost the block entirely, eventhough it was still showing in my editor. I quickly rescued my painstakingly crafted text with a clipboard copy, and created a new block, redid the formatting, added the horse again.

Extremely annoying.....

If it is helpful, here is a link to the published page I am having trouble with: https://www.thegarnet.net/funnel_fun.html If you see a P.S. above the copyright, it means I finally got this to work on the fourth try or later.....

Using Mobirise 5.2.0. Yeah, I know there is an upgrade available. Kinda busy trying to get the things done that I need to do, and being forced into an upgrade right now, and risking anything about dealing with my current sites, is not a risk I can afford right now.

Does anyone know if any bugs similar to what I mentioned above are fixed in the latest versions?


* https://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/27166/mobirise-repeatedly-losing-a-block-i-am-trying-to-add-to-my-page/p1


==== More reasons that might be fixed in the latest build ====

Here are some of the things I might cover further, but maybe these limitations have been fixed. These things were true in the build of about a year ago.

* Problems on my first Mobirise site https://sharp-now.com - https://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/comment/66060/#Comment_66060
* Themes forcing videos that I dont want in my site - https://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/comment/67921/#Comment_67921
* AI generated sites were only one long run on page, it couldnt generate multiple AI generated pages in the same site. 
* Also their AI was meh in what it generated
* it was easy to type too much in the prompt.

==== Issues and Questions I have had over the years about Mobirise ====

Here are many things I have posted: https://forums.mobirise.com/search?Search=thegarnet

* Are mobirise websites ADA complaint?   https://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/comment/121776 


===== To be continued... =====

There might be more reasons, but I am exhausted just recounting all these issues. 

Because this is a wiki, I can easily come back and add more reasons later.



==== Join the discussion ====
When Martin Luther left the Catholic church, he graciously wrote a letter of 95 thesis explaining why, and posted them on the door of the church.

In a similar spirit of helpfulness, I wrote up many reasons why I have decided, after being a paying user of Mobirise for many years, to not continue subscribing at this time:

https://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/35620/why-am-i-leaving-mobirise?new=1

Feel free to tell me why I am wrong and should come back to the mother website editor.