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p/graphite-4Create live websites just like in a graphic editor
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Kevin William David

Graphite - Create live websites just like in a graphic editor

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Graphite Space is a free online website builder carefully crafted with web designers’ best interests in mind. Use familiar graphic editor tools to create professional grade web pages and publish them online without working with HTML, CSS or JavaScript code.

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Manuel
Very cool. What's the pricing?
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@mfrz The best pricing there is – it's absolutely free, no fees, no limits πŸ™‚ And we do not have any immediate plans to change that.
Manuel
@followsummer What's the catch?lol There ain't no such thing as a free lunch
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@mfrz There is no catch, and no strings attached! At this stage, there's no currency more valuable to us than our users' feedback, comments and suggestions. So if you look at it that way, it's not exactly a free lunch, more of a fair exchange – your time and feedback for unlimited access to our tool πŸ™‚ But you raise a valid concern – please rest assured, that even if we ever change our pricing model, we'll notify all users in good time and make sure nobody loses their previously created projects behind a suddenly appearing paywall.
Manuel
@followsummer Thanks for the feedback and transparency. I am normally an early adopter, beta tester and have been disappointed several times for softwares that start charging without enough time to make any change. In my view, in the long term your first users will end up acting like your ambassadors, so i think that when you want to start charging, look at you older heavier users, give them free access and referral codes and they will end up selling for you
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@mfrz Sure thing, Manuel – I appreciate your honesty and good advice. We're a small team genuinely trying to make a big difference, so transparency is paramount to us. Not like we have a lot to hide anyway πŸ˜„ Sorry to hear you've had some bad experiences in the past – trust me, I've been on the receiving end of aggressive paywall tactics way too many times myself πŸ™ And thank you for suggesting a loyalty program for the 'original' users. I think it's a great idea to find a way to repay the trust that long-term users have given us during the early days. If you have any more ideas on how we could do that (and perks you would enjoy personally) – please share, I'd love to hear it, and that would help us a lot!
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
Hello Product Hunters! πŸ‘‹ And a massive thanks to @kevin for introducing us to the community. My name is Victor, and I've been grinding my way through the marvelous plains of Web Design for over 12 years. Starting out small as a clueless padawan, I've worked my way to the position of an Art Director. So it's pretty safe to say I've seen most of what this line of work had to offer – and from various perspectives too. But 7 years 'in the field' and over 90 web sites and apps designed later, having worked with dozens of various editors, website builders and other tools, I could never really say, 'Yep, that's the one! The Web Page editor that I'm 100% happy with'. It just never happened to me, nor to any of my fellow designers out there. There are 'perfect' solutions for business owners, marketers and front-end developers. But somehow, not for designers. Hopefully, the product that I'll show you today will change that. Enter Graphite Space. Quite possibly the first and only web page building solution that puts designers and the visual aspect of creating web pages first. Essentially, Graphite allows virtually anyone to use familiar graphic editor tools and techniques to design a web page (like you would do in Photoshop, Figma or Sketch) without working with HTML, CSS or JavaScript code – whether it's a necessity or just a preference. Now that's hardly a new idea, is it? Well, Graphite adds a cool plot twist to it. Instead of a mockup or a .png file, you actually get a fully responsive pixel-perfect web page render of your design. No code, no outside 'help' from developers, no deviations from your original design. Sounds like something you'd enjoy? 😎 As for the more specific features, if I had to pick just one for the spotlight – that would be our Hybrid Grid technology. As the name suggests, this feature allows you to create a fully custom responsive grid that will combine auto-layout and absolute positioning in one workspace. And it works! How cool is that? πŸ™Œ But do you have to be a designer to enjoy Graphite? Not really! While we originally meant Graphite to be a web designer's best friend, it also turned out to work just great for various other audiences – like graphic designers looking for a smooth transition into web design, or inexperienced web enthusiasts feeling intimidated by code. Our ultimate goal is providing Web Designers with a robust and versatile toolkit that would cover all their professional needs in just one comfy solution. A place where you can come up with a cool idea, flesh it out on the canvas and get a ready-to-go web page – with no code, no developers and most importantly – no compromise to your comfort involved. We've poured our hearts and souls into Graphite, and are anxious to know what you think! The product is in early development, but we'd absolutely love to see you give it a try and please share your comments, ideas and suggestions with the team. Thank you for your time, and hope you have a blast with Graphite! Every comment means the world to us πŸ™
N J
@followsummer this is somewhat much better or is the best. I just found it more easy to work with, the interface is intuitive. Thanks for thinking out of the box.
Ken Moo
I read your intro and it seems like this was created with Graphic designers or designers in general in mind. I'm none of those and in fact quite poor with it. Is it easy to use, like Wix or perhaps even simpler? What about templates for different industry, do you focus on that? Congrats on the launch!
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@ken_moo Hi Ken, and thank you so much! At this point, we're focused on making our product work best for designers primarily. But in the long run, we would love to make Graphite a lot more accessible to other audiences as well. Speaking of Wix, it would be more accurate to compare us to their EditorX product. I'm willing to say say that Graphite is reasonably easier πŸ™‚ As for the templates – that's definitely something we're pouring a lot of effort in right now. Like I mentioned before, it's a huge part of our goal to open Graphite to various audiences without any design background that might feel intimidated by other code-heavy editors. We're currently expanding our library of templates and pre-made blocks and preparing a steady supply of tutorials.
Damien Bradshaw
@ken_moo @followsummer I personally think Editor X was wrong in their approach. I want to see if this fixes where they went wrong.
Duncan Hall
Nice work @followsummer ! Can you give more info on the 'publish' part? Do you export HTML/CSS/JS etc or is there an option to have designs hosted?
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@_duncanhall Thanks Duncan! I really appreciate it. As for your question, there are two ways to publish your projects created in Graphite: – we can host your web site on Netlify and add a custom domain to it. It's free and only takes one click – or you can export your web site as HTML/CSS files and publish it using any other online hosting platform of your choice
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
Thanks a lot, Peter!
Oleg Pavlov
Maker
😎
Julia Gnedin
Great progress from jan 2021!
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@julia_gnedina Thank you for your support! πŸ™
Oleg Pavlov
Maker
@julia_gnedina work hard! Many thanks!))
Eric Fettner
Looks amazing and feels very intuitive, congrats to the team! Quick question - do you have plans to include e-commerce integrations?
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@ericfettner Thank you for your kind words, Eric, I'm happy you liked our product! Indeed, we do have plans to gradually open up Graphite to various audiences, and not just designers. E-commerce is definitely one of the prospects that we're looking at. To put some details in – first off, we're committed to covering all the basic needs by introducing headless cms integration. And from there, we'll move on introducing e-commerce specific features.
Damien Bradshaw
Honestly, I'm gonna try this. I think that if Webflow and Figma had a baby, it would be Graphite. Looks even easier to use and export a fully designed website.
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@damien_bradshaw Thank you for showing interest in giving Graphite a try, looking forward to hearing your feedback! πŸ™Œ Can't help but appreciate you nailing the essential concept of our product – your definition of Graphite has made the team's day. We're already ordering t-shirts with that line on them πŸ˜„
Damien Bradshaw
@followsummer I'm already making a difference in a startup's life. You better send me one. I'd proudly wear that lol
Olya Zabalkanska
Seems to be useful. It's always hard to keep project consistent, especially when several designers work on the same project.
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@olya_zabalkanskaya Thank you for pointing this out! πŸ™ Our design system tools, like theme variables, text styles, and element variants, are there to help you maintain visual consistency of your project. We also have plans on adding a fully-functional collaboration toolkit that would allow sharing web sites, components and design systems between different projects and designers.
Ruben Wolff
Great product, it looks quite easy to use, which is pretty cool when you're intimidated by code. I'm just wondering how it will fight against competitors like Wix
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@rubenwolff Hey Ruben! Thank you so much for your comment, I'm glad you like our product. As for 'fighting against competitors' – we actually appreciate the competition and diversity this market has to offer. Wix, for one, has done a lot of good for the industry, so it would be a shame to 'fight' them πŸ˜„ That is a valid concern, however, and I put my faith in the fact that, compared to the competition, Graphite emphasizes visual editing, comfort and design consistency. So if you're a designer, chances are you'll like Graphite better than any other tool out there. At least that's what we're counting on πŸ™‚
Justin Hunter
Great app! Love the landing page. And if you know about my history, then you’ll know I love the name Graphite :)
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@jehunter5811 Hi Justin! Nice to see you here, and a massive thank you for your kind words! But of course, we know your history. I just hope you don't mind us sharing the love for the word 'Graphite', it's just too good to resist it, right? πŸ˜„
Justin Hunter
@followsummer Of course not! Graphite is a fantastic name and I think it fits well for you. Graphite design and website = Graphite.
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@jehunter5811 Thank you for the kind words, Justin! They mean a lot to us coming from you. It will be tough to keep up with the high standard you've set for the 'Graphite' name, but we promise to do our best!
Carlo Thissen
It looks incredibly slick and I'm already in love with the look & feel πŸ”₯ On a more practical side - what's the biggest difference to tools like Webflow?
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@carlo_thissen Thank you for your support. As a designer, I am very happy to hear that! πŸ™Œ At first, we really admire Webflow. This great tool helps to solve many problems and cure designer's pains. What really distinguishes Graphite is that our product emphasizes visual editing and creativity, whereas Webflow is more on the code-heavy side (in my humble opinion, at least): – Graphite does not have a steep learning curve, allowing you to create web sites with little to no knowledge of HTML and CSS. – Settings for element size, margins, padding etc., as well as the means to create a basic grid structure in Graphite are made as visual tools available for use right on the canvas. – Graphite can boast a much more concise, intuitive and user-friendly interface: we have fewer settings, toggles, buttons and levers than Webflow, while allowing you to create web pages of equal complexity. – Graphite offers a much more familiar approach to the design system and visualizing your ideas in general, and it lets you implement previously familiar tools and techniques that you'd normally use in your favorite graphic editor. Basically, if you're a designer and you prefer visual editing over working with code, we're pretty sure you'll have a lot of β€˜oh yasss’ moments while exploring Graphite. At least that's what we’re hoping for!
Carlo Thissen
@followsummer thanks for the in-depths answer! Can definitely sign the learning curve issue with Webflow. Looking forward to dive deeper into Graphite and some other visual builders on the weekend. The first impression is great!
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@carlo_thissen Thanks a million! Can't wait to hear what you think πŸ™‚
Ray Chew
just registered an account and play around with your web builder, one word to you - cool ^^ your builder is similar to Wix but easier to use than Wix a lot, for a non-tech like me who hate coding, your builder is easy to get started, choose template I like > click > change > adjust > done, no need to study any tutorial or waste time to figure it out how to do this and do that. if I want to build a website from scratch, base on what the client wants ( fully custom ) I will choose WordPress > Elementor if I want to create a nice landing page or static page within one or a few hours to be done, definitely will choose Wix or your builder Graphite ( when hand over the website to the client, they also very accessible to the builder to change what they want ) Conclusions ( base on my opinions ) : Wix - now is No.1 ( easy to use builder ) Webflow - too complex for non-tech guy or beginner Swipe pages - similar to WordPress Elementor also need to take some times to figure it out WordPress Elementor - need time to study WordPress and its builder Graphite - if you can combine with shuffle.dev ideas future sure No.1 builder in the market
Oleg Pavlov
Maker
@raygorgor Thank you, Ray, for your opinion!)
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@raygorgor Thank you for such a detailed comment, as well as for paying attention to other awesome products in the industry! We appreciate your feedback and suggestions, and the team is definitely inspired by your forecast – makes us look good, even if it’s in the future :)
Oleg Pavlov
Maker
Here we go guys! Let's do this like absolute rockstars! ⭐
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@olepav Forward to the stars! πŸš€
Samanta Smit
Good job, team! Very cool! Congrat
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@samanta_smit Thanks a lot, Samanta πŸ™Œ
Vivek
wow this is a nice product for creating beautiful websites
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@vivekweb2013 Thank you! Appreciate the support! πŸ™‚
Oleg Pavlov
Maker
@vivekweb2013 Many thanks!!)
Merlin Laffitte
Really interesting product! Looking forward to trying it out. Congrats on the launch!
Oleg Pavlov
Maker
@merlin_laffitte Thanks for your support!!)
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@merlin_laffitte Thank you and can't wait to hear what you think! πŸ™Œ
Farabe Ahamed
Wow, Looks amazing
Oleg Pavlov
Maker
@farabe_ahamed90 Thank you)
Ricardo Cruz
Congrats for the launch Viktor! πŸ‘πŸ»
Oleg Pavlov
Maker
@ricardocruz Many thanks from all Team!)
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@ricardocruz Thanks a million! πŸ₯³
richard stout
Hey Viktor, Your hearts and souls = awesome opportunities for users. Thanks so much for this builder, it's intuitive, familiar and instantly employable. Looking forward to getting started on my first project with Graphite Space! Thanks to you and your team - Congratulations ...and it's free!!!
Viktor Kadnikov
Maker
@richard_stout A ton of thanks for you for such a warm-hearted comment! We're thrilled to supply our users with new design and creativity tool and provide you guys with quality experience! Anxious to know more details about your journey with Graphite.