The options by which to create websites today are virtually endless. The choices are almost too many. WordPress, Drupal, Movable Type. Those are the names which come immediately to mind. The rest are a figurative blur. So is there room for another? One way to find out, I suppose. Enter, Markup Factory.
Created by a quartet over the course of what is described to be a seven-year development process, Markup Factory, based in Iowa, presents the prospective user a relatively simple and attractive setup. With emphasis on simple and attractive.
It boasts most all of the features basic website builders might opt to make use of, from blogs to podcast storage to calendar software to support for sales. But its bound to turn away quite a few interested users who would otherwise quickly become adopters. Why? Paid monthly subscriptions are required. $14.95 to start, and $149 for something “fully loaded.”
What’s more, even if one finds the tiered monthly fees acceptable, there are things that any minimalist site owner might want or need. For example, subscribers of the ‘Basic’ package, sans extras like podcast and storefront support, will have to make do with 50MB of storage, 2GB bandwidth allowance, and a limit of three pages. Suffice it to say ‘Basic’ is no bargain. Even at $50/month you’re still only given 500MB/10GB as standard.
Really, only at the $149 level is the user given a truly decent amount of access, with support for all functions. Limitless pages plus podcasts, calendar and storefront. Yet storage sits at 2GB. One would expect more, I imagine. (Markup Factory does note extra storage can be purchased upon request, for any choice of subscription.)
Value is presumably what many publishers have highest on their agendas when picking and choosing a platform on the Web. So given the free options currently available, Markup Factory will not convince many to sign up. Fully-customizable platforms like WordPress, Drupal certainly offer more options to the user, and established popular opinion carries weight. But if a new all-in-one service is what you’re aiming for, Markup Factory, with the exception of its unimpressive storage quotas, is something that, architecturally speaking, seems worth a try.
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