Sparkle 3 for Mac

It’s like Pages for websites

From $29.99 From River SRL, sparkleapp.com

Needs OS X 10.9 or later, 64–bit processor

Building websites is something many of us don’t do any more: we’ll use something template-based for business, blog on WordPress or Medium, and hire a designer for anything more complex. Sparkle would like to offer an alternative option: professional website creation that’s as simple as creating something in Pages or Keynote.

Version 3 introduces an improved, Big Sur–friendly interface. There’s a straightforward blog module, new built–in fonts, EXIF data extraction for images and galleries, buttons for key payment services such as PayPal and Stripe, and good audio and video embedding features.

With Sparkle it’s easy to produce impressive results, but it’s designed to make serious websites and offers ecommerce functions, visitor analysis, and advertising. Just make sure you get the right version. The core product is Sparkle Pro, which is $119.99 and has all the ecommerce features. The more basic Sparkle One ($49.99) has fewer tools and limits you to publishing a single site, while the cheapest Sparkle Basic ($29.99) limits you to one site and ten pages.

THE BOTTOM LINE. A good, easy–to–use option for people who wouldn’t normally make websites. CARRIE MARSHALL