Adobe Dreamweaver is a web development tool, created by Macromedia (now Adobe Systems), which is currently in version 8. Initial versions of the application served as simple WYSIWYG HTML editors but more recent versions have incorporated notable support for many other web technologies such as CSS, JavaScript, and various server-side scripting frameworks. Dreamweaver has had widespread market success since the late 1990s and in 2001 had more than 70% of the HTML editor market.[1] The software is available for both the Mac and Windows platforms, but can also be run on Unix-like platforms through the use of emulation software such as Wine.

As a WYSIWYG editor, Dreamweaver can hide the details of pages' HTML code from the user, making it possible for non-coders to create web pages and sites. A professional criticism of this approach is that it produces HTML pages that are much larger than they should be, which can cause web browsers to perform poorly. This can be particularly true because the application makes it very easy to create table-based layouts. In addition, some web site developers have criticized Dreamweaver in the past for producing code that often does not comply with W3C standards though this has improved considerably in recent versions. The most recent version of Dreamweaver (8) performs poorly on the Acid2 Test, developed by the Web Standards Project. However, Macromedia has increased the support for CSS and other ways to layout a page without tables in later versions of the application, with the ability to convert tables to layers and vice versa.

Dreamweaver allows users to preview websites in many browsers, provided that they are installed on their computer. It also has some site management tools, such as the ability to find and replace lines of text or code by whatever parameters specified across the entire site, and a templatization feature for creating multiple pages with similar structures. The behaviors panel also enables use of basic JavaScript without any coding knowledge.

With the advent of version MX, Macromedia incorporated dynamic content creation tools into Dreamweaver. In the spirit of HTML WYSIWYG tools, it allows users to connect to databases (such as MySQL and Microsoft Access) to filter and display content using scripting technologies such as Active Server Pages (ASP), ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JavaServer Pages (JSP), PHP, and more without any previous programming experience. Alternative solutions for web database application development are Alpha Five and FileMaker.

Dreamweaver can use "Extensions" - small programs, which any web developer can write (usually in HTML and Javascript). Extensions provide added functionality to the software for whoever wants to download and install them. Dreamweaver is supported by a large community of extension developers who make extensions available (both commercial and free) for most web development tasks from simple rollover effects to full-featured shopping carts