Now's about the time of year when people start making resolutions and thinking about self-improvement for the new year. I kind of realized I'm already doing all that in a Cosmic Frontier context, and have been for a few months now. I want to gain new skills that will help me make plug-ins for Cosmic Frontier: Override and the Kestrel Engine. I imagine a bunch of you are thinking along the same lines, but maybe not all of you are quite sure where to start. So I'm making this thread as a way of outlining what I see as a comprehensive plan for becoming a great Cosmic Frontier modder when the game is released.
What makes me such an expert? I'm not, really. I have worked on some big plug-ins, I've closely observed some others under development for literal decades now, I used to moderate the old Ambrosia forum EV Developer's Corner, and I'm currently working on a very large plug-in for EV Nova which will be ported over to Cosmic Frontier: Override. I'm also planning other plug-ins in the future. But I'm still just a regular guy who's learning as he goes, and there's always more to learn. These are just the five action items I feel are good things to do, as best I can think of, along with some helpful links for anyone wanting to get started on improving in these areas themselves.
So here is
mrxak's Five Point Plan for Cosmic Frontier Modding Preparations in 2021:
- Learn Nova's Resources
- Learn Lua
- Learn Digital Art
- Learn KDL
- Read a Book
Point #1: Learn Nova's Resources Cosmic Frontier: Override will be featuring backwards compatibility with EV Nova's plug-ins. There's never been a better time to learn how those plug-ins were made. Start familiarizing yourself with the
EV Nova Bible. Try out a
program to look at the resources that built the EV Nova scenario, and make a simple plug-in for EV Nova adding to or modifying the EV Nova resources. Learn what you can and can't do with resource-based plug-ins.
It's likely that CFO will expand somewhat on the EV Nova engine functionality, but you'll be able to make plug-ins for the new game with the same knowledge you gain making plug-ins for EV Nova today. The first plug-ins officially released for Cosmic Frontier will almost certainly be ports from EV Nova. You could, if you really wanted to, start development on a Cosmic Frontier plug-in right now, and changes, if any, to account for the Kestrel engine's differences would be minor at best. So, why wait? Learn how Nova's resources work and get started on developing the CFO plug-in or TC of your dreams.
Point #2: Learn Lua Great news! Plug-ins for Cosmic Frontier will be able to run Lua scripts. While we don't yet know the full extent of engine functionality exposed to Lua, learning the programming language itself, particularly syntax and the basic computer science concepts it utilizes will always be applicable to whatever the game's Lua API ends up looking like. If you've never learned a computer language before, this may seem like a daunting task. I don't think Lua is a great first language to learn programming in, if I'm being honest. That said, nothing worth doing is easy, so let's dive in together!
Lua.org is your source of all things Lua as you get started. There's a lot of
documentation there that will probably be very helpful. In particular, there's a
free e-book for Lua 5.0 that will probably be a great method of learning the language in depth in a sensible way. Before you spend any money on a more up-to-date book, it's definitely worth considering free,
possibly dated materials instead, as differences from version-to-version of Lua probably aren't going to be that significant, and I don't think we know yet which version of Lua is being embedded into Cosmic Frontier: Override, anyway. The site also includes an
up-to-date reference manual for looking things up, and even
a web-based Lua interpreter that lets you run Lua code without having to install anything on your computer (try it right now by typing
print("Hello world!") and clicking the run button).
http://lua-users.org/wiki/LearningLua is another URL that you should probably bookmark, and the same website has a
directory of additional resources for learning and getting help with any problems that might come up.
Do you need to become a serious programmer to write a few simple Lua scripts in a plug-in for Cosmic Frontier? Heck no. Go as deep as you want to. Personally, I have a great interest in all things computers, and I probably will learn Lua inside-and-out eventually, but that's just me. Programming may be something you discover you really love when you start learning it, and you may go crazy with it too, but don't feel like you have to. Focus on learning the syntax and basic data types and control structures of the language. Things like expressions and operators, variables and their scopes, loops, and if-then-else statements. My guess is that's all you'll really need to know until Tom Hancocks releases documentation on Cosmic Frontier: Override's Lua API. I expect when Cosmic Frontier comes out, there will be a lot of us sharing scripts with each other that you can learn from, too.
If anyone has a link to any good (free) Lua tutorials that they've used, or are using, I hope they'll comment below.
Point #3: Learn Digital Art You can make perfectly fine plug-ins for Cosmic Frontier without ever going beyond Point #1, but if you want to start getting into total conversions (TCs), you're going to need to replace just about everything in the existing game scenario, including graphics. You'll also need a lot of new graphics if you do something like expand the existing galaxy with new factions, ships, and outfits. Sure, you can team up with a talented 3D artist in the community, but expect them to be in
very high demand, as was the case in the old Escape Velocity modding community. They also probably have their own projects they want to work on. So, with that in mind, maybe you should become a talented 3D artist yourself.
Luckily, there has never been an easier (and cheaper) time learning how to model your own 3D graphics, and create your own 2D art as well.
Blender is completely free, cross-platform, and is good enough to create graphics and special effects in even some Hollywood productions and Triple-A games. It's already used by some very talented 3D artists in the Escape Velocity community, and will surely be used in the Cosmic Frontier community for many years to come. I know a few of us would really recommend
Blender Guru's free YouTube tutorials. I've also been using
a WikiBook and some other channels for reference and help with specific problems. By all means, dig in and find lots of resources for yourself as well. Blender is very popular with tutorial-makers because it's free and lots of students and amateurs use it as their 3D software. Pay close attention to methods. When learning any new art, there's often many different ways of accomplishing the same results. You can often brute force your way into a result that makes your life harder. Experienced 3D artists understand how to do things the easy, efficient ways that save them time and prevent headaches. Professional artists also work as non-destructively as they can, so they can make changes later on without having to start over.
Don't neglect learning 2D art either. Maybe you want to do a plug-in that's got a retro 8-bit look. Maybe you want to create new button graphics, or design a new sidebar interface. Maybe you want to add a fancy government logo on a 3D spaceship, or create a new texture image to apply to a 3D surface.
GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is free, cross-platform, and is very much like Adobe Photoshop and other paid image programs. You may want to invest in some special hardware like a drawing tablet if you really get into 2D art, but if you have an Apple iPad and an Apple Pencil, I highly recommend a program for iOS called
Procreate. It's a one-time payment of $9.99, an absolute steal, especially compared to Adobe's expensive subscription model. As it happens, one of the developers is Dafydd "pipeline" Williams of ATMOS fame, a fact I learned after I already fell in love with the app. Procreate is very popular with 2D digital artists and there's no shortage of online tutorials. Pretty much every digital painting artist I've ever seen with a YouTube channel is using Procreate at least some of the time.
Point #4: Learn KDL Kestrel Development Language is the shiny new way of making plug-ins in the Kestrel Game Engine, which Cosmic Frontier is based on. If you happen to know C++ and can assist with the github project, great, but I'm really just linking to this so you're aware of its existence, and so you can see the
documentation and
tutorials. Everything is probably still subject to change, but it's not too early to start making yourself aware of KDL.
One really big area that you might be able to make your mark on Cosmic Frontier's modding community is new developer tools. Maybe you want to make the next plug-in editor that everybody uses. Rather than having to deal with the underlying 1s and 0s of resource forks, it will be possible to create tools that generate KDL, which will be much easier to work with, and then let the KDL assembler convert nice happy text files into those resource forks.
I also foresee a type of Cosmic Frontier mod in the future that procedurally generates KDL code, runs it through the assembler, and then creates a fresh new gameplay experience for players each time, whether new mission strings in the same old galaxy, or combined with some kind of
fully generated galaxy too.
Some plug-in makers, perhaps you, will find it easier to create your plug-ins with KDL rather than a GUI tool, or automate certain boring plug-in development tasks with a custom script that generates KDL for you, then use a GUI plug-in editor for other stuff. People might share some of these scripts online, and you may want to adapt some for your own particular needs; it'll be helpful to know KDL if you do. If you end up creating Lua scripts in your plug-ins to create new resource types, KDL will be helpful to create the resources of those types, when existing tools don't know what your types even are (although perhaps they'll have a method of importing new definitions).
Everything about this is kind of speculative at this point, but early adopters will have a leg up when Cosmic Frontier: Override is released, and there's a lot of potential in KDL and how future plug-ins will be made.
Point #5: Read a Book No major plug-in or TC is going to be worth playing if the writing stinks. Are you a good writer? Do you know what good writing is? Maybe, but maybe not. You may be able to simply outsource that work, just like you might be able to outsource the artwork for your plug-in, but chances are the talented writers are going to be busy already, just like the talented artists.
Maybe you can find some education online that'll tell you how to write better, but just as it's helpful to artists to look at good art, it's helpful to writers to read good stories. It's also worth remembering the old adage: good artists copy, great artists steal. There's no new stories, and no new art. Everything's been done before, but you shouldn't just make a cheap copy. Take it, make it yours, and then own it. Be compelling, create surprise through unique (or at least heavily obscured) blending of ancient tropes. Put your own flavor on it.
The more you expose yourself to other people's stories, the better a storyteller you can be yourself, so get out there and read some stories. To be clear, I'm advising you to
read, not watch a bunch of scifi movies. Visual storytelling media, like movies, television, or plays, require a different sort of writing. Those stories are told as much through sound, light, and movement that you're just not going to get in a plug-in for a game like Cosmic Frontier. Cosmic Frontier is a bit like an interactive novel, so go and read yourself some novels. It's okay to draw inspiration from television and movies, but learn how to tell those stories through prose, preserving the same sense of tension or excitement in the written word. If you've got a favorite movie that you think would be great to adapt (not by copying, but by stealing) to a plug-in, see if there's a novelization of it you can read. At the very least,
track down a copy of the actual script, and read all the description text that the production crew used to design all their sets and lighting and such, and the actors used to get into character.
If you really want to be a great story thief, go off-genre for your inspiration. Cosmic Frontier: Override is obviously a scifi game, set in a scifi universe. That doesn't mean plug-in ideas should be taken solely from the science fiction canon. You can find inspiration from anywhere. A book about pirates or mutineers on the high seas could surely be adapted in a fun way to a science fiction universe, but why not a historical drama set in Elizabethan England, or Revolutionary France? How about an ancient Greek myth or a Japanese folktale? It's Christmas as I'm typing this, so how about taking a story from the Bible? You don't need to write a messiah story (been there, Ory'hara that), but how about Noah and the Flood, or the Tower of Babel? Just read something and get inspired by it. It can be history, it can be fiction, it can be an autobiography. Just read something, learn something, and then use it along with other things to create a story you can own.
Like with watching artists to learn their techniques, think carefully about how the writer is telling their story. How do they emphasize what's important, and what do they leave out that isn't important? How do they describe characters or a scene? Do they tell you, or show you? How does the writer make you feel when they want you to feel something? Is it their word choice, the pattern of their sentences? What is it that makes you excited, or anxious, or relieved? How is the narrative structured? Somebody with talent (hopefully, if you're enjoying it) made a lot of conscious decisions. Unfortunately you can't be over their shoulder as they wrote it all, hearing them explain those decisions sentence-by-sentence, but you have the results in front of you. Try to figure it out.
So that's
mrxak's Five Point Plan for Cosmic Frontier Modding Preparations in 2021. I hope it's useful, and yes I'm doing all of it myself over the next year, even for the points I'm already quite comfortable with. We can all, always, learn more and get better. I hope at least some of these points make their way into some awesome future Cosmic Frontier plug-ins, or help you complete them. For sure, it'll all be contributing to my own EVN and CFO projects.
Bonus 6th Point: Make Friends Hey, you made it all the way to the end of this long post. Congrats. As your very special reward, here is a 6th point for you, dear Cosmic Frontier plug-in developer. Even in the earliest days of Escape Velocity plug-in making, people were seeking each other out online to talk about it, share information, and increase the knowledge base of the community. Knowledge was scarce, documentation was poor, and people really had to figure stuff out on their own. But when they did, they told others, and the collective body of knowledge increased. Guides were written, dedicated forums were created. It was this that enabled all the great EV/O/N plug-ins you've heard about. It's really the reason why, indirectly, Cosmic Frontier: Override is even getting made. Without a community, we're all poorer for it, so please, if you are interested in plug-in development for Cosmic Frontier, make friends.
A great place to find a community of EV/O/N and CFO plug-in developers is on Discord.
The EVN Discord has a bunch of grizzled developers and community members, some of whom date back to the original game like myself. Several plug-ins are under development for EVN and CFO right now, and people talk there about them in channels set aside for that. There's a great art channel, too, for showing off 3D renders, 2D drawings, and discussing some of the software. A couple of us are learning Blender right now, and we talk about it and share tips on that Discord.
Kestrel has its own Discord. Maybe not a great place for discussing plug-ins for Cosmic Frontier, just yet, but there are channels for KDL, the Lua API, and discussion of the Kestrel engine itself. This server is used by the developers of Kestrel and Cosmic Frontier: Override, but please for their sake and ours do a search before you ask them a question. They're busy actually making the game. A lot of your questions have almost certainly been answered, and a lot of the answers are "don't know yet". As more information becomes available, you'll probably see it there first, however. Reading through old discussions in the relevant channels will give you some idea of the potential of these new technologies. There's also a little-used channel specifically for CFO art and another for discussing the base CFO scenario which you may or may not want to expand on with your own plug-ins.
It remains to be seen where the Cosmic Frontier plug-in developer community gathers in force to have specialized and technical discussion of developing plug-ins when the game is released. It may end up here on this subreddit. It may end up on Discord. It may end up on some dedicated website. Right now all I can say for sure is that you're certain to hear about it on at least one of the Discord servers linked above, once people settle down post-release and the community evolves. It'll be good to know those people for getting questions answered, and for collaborative works.
Good luck with all your new year's resolutions!
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The developer ecosystem is currently small, so there are no third-party add-ons that you can install on your website to add new features that are not offered by Constant Contact.
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Pricing:
Constant Contact offers a powerful free website builder that lets you create a website, blog, and even an online store. You can add unlimited web pages at no additional cost.
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Gator is a popular online website builder created by HostGator, one of the largest web hosting providers in the world. The Gator builder is an all-in-one website building & hosting solution which makes it a perfect website builder for small businesses.
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All paid plans include a free custom domain name for your website. The eCommerce plan also comes with the ability to setup an online store and sell your products online.
Since Gator is a paid product, they don’t sell your data or show any ads on your website.
Cons
Unlike some of the other options in the list, Gator doesn’t have a free plan. They also do not offer a free trial.
Like other proprietary website builders in the list, you cannot hire a developer to help you significantly modify your website design or add new features to your website.
Pricing
Gator paid plans start from $3.84 per month, $5.99 per month for premium, and $9.22 for eCommerce plan. It is definitely one of the cheapest website builders in the list.
Gator can be used to build a small business website, a store with limited items, or a photo gallery. However, it is no match for the power of the most popular website builder, WordPress.
- Domain.com Website Builder
Domain.com offers easy website builder that lets you create a small business website, blog, and even an eCommerce website with just a few clicks.
Pros
Domain.com offers an easy drag and drop website builder to create your website. You can start with one of their hundreds of professionally designed templates and customize it using a simple drag and drop interface to match your brand.
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It comes with all the powerful features that you expect from a well-known website builder including: website analytics, eCommerce functionality, ability to add a blog to any website, and a free SSL certificate with all plans.
With their eCommerce plan, you also get inventory management, tax management, coupons & discounting, and many other powerful features.
They also offer live chat and telephone customer support for technical assistance, so you can easily get started.
Cons
Unlike other popular website builders,
Domain.com website builder does not have a free website builder option. They also do not offer a free trial. However they do offer a money back guarantee in case you aren’t happy with the product.
Their extension ecosystem is small, and you won’t be able to hire a developer to build advanced features like WordPress because its not open source.
Since it’s a proprietary platform, migrating your website away from
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Lastly, their starter plan restricts you to only 6 page website. For unlimited pages, you need at least their business plan.
Pricing
Domain.com Website Builder plans start from $1.99 per month for Starter, $6.99 per month for Business, and $12.99 per month for eCommerce plan.
All plans come with a free SSL certificate, unlimited storage, blog features, and phone support.
If you’re looking for a professional website builder, then
Domain.com website builder is an excellent option. However if you want advanced features and more control over your content, then nothing will beat self-hosted WordPress (#1 option in our list).
- BigCommerce
BigCommerce is the best eCommerce website builder in the market. If you’re looking to create an online store that scales, then BigCommerce is the platform for you. It comes with all the essential features built-in, so you can keep your overhead low and margins high.
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BigCommerce is a fully hosted eCommerce solution, so you don’t have to worry about website speed, security, or updates. They handle the server and technical side for you, so you can focus on growing your business.
Unlike other hosted eCommerce solutions, BigCommerce has a native integration with WordPress which allows you to leverage the flexibility of WordPress while taking advantage of the headless eCommerce power of BigCommerce. In simple terms, your website will be fast and secure no matter how much traffic you get.
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You can start with one of their many pre-made website templates and customize it to match your needs using their easy drag & drop website builder.
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Cons
If you are just starting out, then you will find BigCommerce pricing a bit higher than other website builders in the list.
Since it’s a proprietary platform, migrating away from BigCommerce will be difficult.
Pricing
BigCommerce comes with a 15-day free trial for all plans. Their basic plans at $29.95 per month which comes with all the essential features that you will need. You can upgrade to the plus plan which costs $79.95 per month for additional conversion optimization features. Their pro plan costs $249.95 per month which has all the advanced features you may need.
The best part about BigCommerce when compared to Shopify and other third-party eCommerce platforms is that they have a seamless integration with WordPress which can be a huge plus if you want to combine the flexibility of WordPress with the power of BigCommerce.
This is one of the reasons why we have BigCommerce listed as high in our best website builder list.
- Shopify
Shopify is another popular eCommerce website builder designed specifically for online stores and ecommerce websites. It powers more than half a million businesses with 1 million active users. Over 40 Billion dollars worth of products have been sold on Shopify’s platform.
Pros
Shopify is an all-in-one fully hosted solution, this means you don’t have to worry about managing software, installing updates, or keeping backups. Shopify does all that for you.
It offers integrated payment solution called Shopify Payments which lets you accept credit cards. You can also add third-party payment gateways to accept payments.
As an ecommerce website builder, Shopify comes with full inventory management, unlimited products, powerful stats, easy marketing solutions, all neatly wrapped under one roof. They have hunereds of designs to choose from, and you will never need to add code.
With its intuitive drag and drop interface, Shopify makes it super-easy to create a full-fledged ecommerce store. They also offer in-store POS, which allows you to sell products at your location, while accepting all credit cards and taking advantage of Shopify’s inventory, shipping, marketing, and stats management tools.
You can even integrate Shopify into WordPress, allowing you to use both great solutions at the same time.
Cons
If you are just starting out, then you may find Shopify’s pricing a bit higher than some other website builders in this list.
If you ever want to move your website away from Shopify, you will find it quite difficult to do so.
Pricing
Shopify’s basic plan will cost you $29 per month. You can upgrade it to Shopify for $79 per month or Advanced Shopify for $299 per month. Shopify also offers a Shopify Lite plan for $9 per month, which basically allows you to add a buy button on any website.
If you want a hassle free ecommerce website builder, then Shopify may be the perfect option for you.
- WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a blogging and website hosting service run by Automattic. It is created by Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress open source software, hence the name
WordPress.com. To learn more, see our article on how are
WordPress.com and
WordPress.org related.
However,
WordPress.com is not the same as self-hosted
WordPress.org. Please see our comparison of
WordPress.com vs
WordPress.org for more details.
Pros
WordPress.com is a website hosting service built on top of the same WordPress software but with a totally custom user experience. You don’t have to worry about the software and backups as
WordPress.com takes care of it.
Their free and paid plans have different set of features. All plans allow users to choose from hundreds of free and paid WordPress themes. You can then use the built-in customizer to add your site title, use widgets, add navigation menus, and so on.
It doesn’t offer the same drag and drop functionality of other website builders. However, you can easily customize designs to a certain extent.
It does comes with powerful editing tools that bloggers find really helpful.
Cons
You cannot install custom plugins or themes unless you upgrade to their business plan.
Premium and lower plans do not have eCommerce features or third-party ad network support. With the business plan, you can use WooCommerce and third-party ad networks. However, you will still have to follow
WordPress.com’s terms and conditions.
Pricing
The basic free plan is extremely limited. Their personal plan starts with $4 per month billed annually and includes a custom domain. Premium plan costs $8.25 per month billed annually and it gives you the ability to monetize your site and advanced design customization. Business plan costs $24.92 per month billed annually, and it gives you the ability to have Ecommerce and custom plugins.
- Weebly
Weebly is an easy website builder software with tons of great designs and functionality. It includes a beautifully crafted page builder which allows you to edit your website without learning any coding skills.
Pros
Weebly is a fully hosted platform, so you don’t need to install and manage any software. They take care of hosting your website and managing all the software that runs in the backend.
It comes with dozens of website designs to use as an starting point for your website. These gorgeous designs are fully editable using Weebly’s live page editor.
Weebly also comes with built-in support for ecommerce. This allows you to easily create an online store and start selling.
Each Weebly site comes with built in features for contact forms, photo galleries, sliders, and more. This allows you to easily add features to your website without any complicated setup process.
Given the ease of use and great features, Weebly is consistently rated among the best DIY website builders for beginners.
Cons
Weebly.com offers a fully hosted platform, so you are locked to the features they offer. You cannot hire a developer or designer to add new functionality or feature to your website.
Weebly charges 3% transaction fees on every purchase made through your ecommerce store. You’ll need to upgrade to their business plan to avoid these additional fees.
Pricing
Weebly comes with a very basic free plan. Their paid plans start from $8 per month billed annually. The pro plan costs $12 per month, and their business plan costs $25 per month.
If you are wondering how it stacks up against WordPress, then check out our comparison of Weebly vs WordPress.
- Squarespace
Squarespace is a popular professional website builder known for its great designs and ease of use.
Pros
Squarespace comes with enterprise-grade infrastructure for hosting your website. This secure and robust platform allows you to focus on growing your business without worrying about hosting.
Squarespace includes tons of website designs to get started. All of these designs are completely ready for all types of content. They are fully editable, and Squarespace even allows you to use multiple templates for the same website at once.
Adding content to your website is very easy on Squarespace. Just point anywhere on your website and start typing. You can easily drag and drop items on pages to create your own layouts in minutes.
Squarespace also has an ecommerce plan which allow you to add an online store to your website. It offers a nice interface to manage your products, inventory, orders, coupon discounts, and more.
Cons
Squarespace offers limited integrations with third-party service which can be a hurdle in growing your business.
Their ecommerce plans only allow Stripe, Apple Pay, and PayPal for payment processing. You cannot add additional payment gateways.
Pricing
Squarespace websites start from $12 per month and $18 per month. Their online stores start from $26 and $40 per month.
Squarespace is a beautifully designed platform that offers very easy to use features. It can be perfect if you just want to quickly build a website.
If you are wondering how it stacks up against WordPress, then take a look at our comparison of Squarespace vs WordPress.
- Wix
Wix.com is another popular cloud based website builder software. It offers ease of use combined with a powerful set of features to easily build your website.
Pros
Wix website creator is a fully hosted platform, so you will not have to pay for hosting. You get access to hundreds of templates to choose for your website’s design. Each template is fully editable with their intuitive drag and drop site builder.
It also comes with dozens of free and paid apps that you can install on your website. These apps allow you to add new features and functionality to your website. Some of them are created by Wix, and others are created by third-party developers.
Wix offers a free plan with limited bandwidth and storage. However, you can use this plan to test drive their drag and drop website builder. It does not include a domain name, so if you decide to keep your website, then you may want to upgrade to a premium plan.
You also get a free SSL with all Wix plans, but you will need to turn it on for your website.
Cons
Free and Connect Domain plans will show Wix branded ads on your website. You’ll need to upgrade to their Combo or Unlimited plan to remove those ads.
If you ever decide to move your website away from Wix, then you will find it quite complicated to do so.
Their Connect Domain plan which costs $9.16 per month only lets you connect a custom domain name, so you’ll still have to buy a domain name separately.
Pricing
Wix offers a limited free plan with a Wix branded sub domain. You can connect a domain for $9.16 per month. Their combo plan starts at $14.95/month and will get you a free domain name. The ecommerce plan costs $26.25 per month.
If you are interested in how it stacks up against WordPress, then see our comparison of Wix vs WordPress.
- Dreamhost Website Builder
DreamHost website builder is a new website builder software that is built on top of WordPress. It is available as part of all DreamHost hosting plans which starts as low as $2.59 / month with a free domain making it the cheapest website builder in our list.
Pros
DreamHost WP website builder is built on top of WordPress, and it is powered by BoldGrid, so you get full advantage of WordPress with a customized user experience. DreamHost’s website builder allows you to choose a professional design from their gallery of themes.
After that, you can customize those designs with a drag and drop customizer. You can point and click on any item in the preview section to edit its properties. You can change colors, fonts, layouts, navigation menus, and widgets with ease.
Need a staging website? DreamHost’s BoldGrid builder creates one for you with a single click. This allows you to test out your new designs, layouts, plugins, and themes before making it live for everyone to see.
It also comes with a full WYSIWYG page editor. No more guess work when editing your pages in WordPress. You’ll get exactly what you see on your page editor window. You can also use GridBlocks to simply drag and drop elements to your page and build your own layouts from scratch.
DreamHost WP site builder can be used to create to any type of website with a custom domain name. Since it’s built on WordPress, it’s easy to add blogging functionality, powerful SEO and social media features, eCommerce features, and more.
All DreamHost website builder themes are ready for WooCommerce. This allows you to easily create a storefront using their drag and drop website builder (see our list of best WooCommerce hosting companies).
Cons
DreamHost WP website builder runs on top of WordPress, so you will still need a self-hosted
WordPress.org website to use it.
But the good part is that WordPress comes pre-installed with all DreamHost plans. You also get other powerful features included with DreamHost as well.
DreamHost does not come with a free plan, but they do offer a 97 day money back guarantee.
Pricing
DreamHost WP website builder is available as part of all DreamHost plans starting as low as $2.59 per month for 1 website.
WPBeginner readers also get a free domain, free SSL certificate, and free domain privacy with the Starter DreamHost plan which also comes with a 97 day money-back guarantee.
This makes DreamHost one of the most affordable website builder in the market.
- GoDaddy Website Builder
GoDaddy is one of the largest domain name and hosting service providers in the world. They offer a simple online website builder with hosting included.
Pros
GoDaddy Website Builder is a simple and easy tool to create professional looking websites. It comes pre-loaded with several ready to use blocks that you can drag and drop to build different layouts.
It also has integrated photo library with professional images from Getty Photography that you can use on your website. You can also upload your own photos and create image galleries.
GoDaddy website builder works on smaller screens too. This allows you to work on your website on the go using your mobile phone or tablet.
Cons
It is not as feature rich and flexible as most other website builders on this list. It offers limited set of features with fewer design options.
It is quite difficult to move your website from GoDaddy Website Builder to WordPress.
Pricing
Personal plan costs $5.99/month, business plan for $9.99/month, and business plus plan for $14.99/month. All plans are billed annually.
GoDaddy Website Builder can be used for a basic website with a few pages. However, it is not a good choice to build content rich websites.
Our Pick for The Best Website Builder
After carefully evaluating all the popular online website builders, we believe that
WordPress.org outperforms all website builders in overall performance, ease of use, price, and flexibility.
WordPress is an excellent choice for beginners as well as business websites. Some of the world’s top brands are using WordPress on their websites. See all the reasons to choose WordPress as your website builder.
If you want to build your website with the best website builder, then get started with WordPress by using Bluehost. It is definitely our #1 choice.
You can read our step by step guide on how to make a website for detailed instructions.
Looking for business name ideas? Try our A.I powered business name generator tool to find creative brand name ideas.
If you’re looking to build an online store (eCommerce website), then we recommend BigCommerce as the best eCommerce website builder because it offers all the features that you will need at the best price.
If you want a WordPress alternative, then we recommend using either Constant Contact Builder or Gator.
Constant Contact Website Builder is the best free website builder. It offers an intelligent A.I powered website builder for small businesses that helps you build a custom website within minutes. You can get started for free to build a blog, business, website, and even an online store.
Gator is a premium website builder platform offered by the popular web hosting company, HostGator. It has a lot of powerful features that you’d need to get started.
We hope that our website builder reviews helped you choose the best website builder for your project. You may also want to see out list of tools to help you grow your website.
Website Builder FAQs
Having helped over 200,000+ users start their website, we have answered quite a lot of questions. Below are some of the answers to the most frequently asked questions about website builders.
Are website builders worth it?
Yes, overall website builders are an extremely cost efficient way to build a website. Instead of paying thousands of dollars to hire a web developer, you can use the easy to use drag-and-drop interface that website builders offer to build your own website for a low monthly fee.
Which website builder software do professional web designers use?
These days even professional web designers use a website builder like WordPress to build their client websites because they can build any type of website using WordPress plugins and themes.
The drag and drop WordPress page builders make it easy for professional web designers to create custom websites for clients while saving time which allows them to serve more clients and make more money each month.
Is it better code your own website than use a website builder?
In the old days, knowing how to code a website from scratch was worth it, but these days almost all professional developers and designers use a website builder platform or open source CMS software to build websites.
Website builder platforms have gotten really good, and they simply let you do more in less time.
Can I switch my website builder software later?
No, with the exception of WordPress, most website builders make it really hard to switch away from them. This is why it’s extremely important to choose the right website builder that you can grow with.
There are third-party services, tools, and tutorials that can help you switch website builder software with varying degrees of success.
For example, you can use our Weebly to WordPress migrator to switch from Weebly to WordPress.
We also have detailed tutorials on:
- How to switch from
WordPress.com to
WordPress.org - How to switch from Blogger to WordPress
- How to switch from Wix to WordPress
- How to move from Squarespace to WordPress
- How to move from GoDaddy website builder to WordPress
- How to move from Joomla to WordPress
- How to move from Medium to WordPress
Is WordPress really free? What’s the catch?
Yes,
WordPress.org is an open source software that’s 100% free for everyone to use. It’s built by a community of developers under the guidance of the non-profit WordPress foundation.
WordPress is licensed under GPL which means anyone can use it, modify it, and redistribute it. It gives you full freedom and ownership over your website content.
The only catch is that to use WordPress, you need to have a domain name and web hosting which is true for all websites.
You can learn more about why is WordPress free and what are the costs.
How do other free website builders make money if I use it for free?
Most free website builders make money by selling ads on your website. For example, if you use the free Wix plan, then they will show ads on every page of your website. This does not look professional.
Outside of that, most website builder software offer limited freemium versions to get customers to try their platform, and they make money when you upgrade to their paid plans.
Only
WordPress.org offers the full-featured website builder for free, and since it’s an open source project, they do not show any ads on your site.
How can I create my own website for free?
If you want to start a website for free, then you can use Constant Contact website builder. You can signup for a free account (no credit card needed).
You can use their guided ADI (artificial design intelligence) wizard to create a completely custom web design with personalized image and content suggestions.
When you’re ready to take it live with a custom domain name, then you’ll be required to purchase a paid plan.
How can I get a free domain name?
The best way to get a free domain name is to choose a website builder platform that offers a free domain as part of their paid plan.
Here are the best website builder platforms that offer a free custom domain:
- WordPress hosted on Bluehost
- DreamHost Website Builder
- Gator by HostGator
For more details, see our guide on how to register a domain name for free.
Do I need a custom domain to build a website?
No, you do not need a custom domain to build a website, but having one does help boost your credibility.
Often free website builders will give you a branded subdomain like
yoursite.wix.com, but this does not look professional.
This is why we recommend everyone to get a custom domain name, especially if you’re serious about your online presence.
Do I need to buy web hosting to build a website?
Yes, all websites need web hosting because that’s where your website files are stored. When you purchase a website builder subscription, you’re technically buying web hosting from them.
As your website grows and get higher traffic, most website builder platforms will ask you to upgrade your subscription to a higher plan.
See our comparison of the best WordPress hosting companies for more details.
Are there any hidden costs to building a website?
The hidden costs of building any website are addon services such as email marketing services, business phone services, professional business email address, SEO tools, and other third-party extensions / apps that you may need (varies based on the type of site).
We have written a detailed guide on how much does it cost to build a WordPress site (with tips on how to keep it low budget).
Other typical hidden costs in website builders are: storage space, bandwidth, domain renewal costs after first year, higher renewal pricing on some platforms, and aggressive upsell from sales team.
Which is the best website builder for SEO?
We believe that WordPress is the best website builder for SEO. We use it to build all our websites, and we’re not alone.
Every SEO expert agrees that WordPress is the most SEO friendly website builder, and this is why over 38% of all websites use WordPress.
Learn how to make a WordPress website (step by step).
Which is the best website builder for eCommerce?
Just about every website builder claims to have eCommerce features, but we believe that WooCommerce (WordPress), BigCommerce, and Shopify are the best website builder for eCommerce.
Which is the best website builder for A/B testing?
You can do A/B testing on just about every website builder. To do this, you’d need third-party tools like OptinMonster, Google Optimize, etc.
Some website builders like WordPress, Shopify, and BigCommerce make it easy to setup A/B testing compared to others.
Are there any website builder in this list that you would personally avoid?
We typically do not like closed website builder platforms because they lock you in and make it harder to switch. If we had to pick one to avoid, then we’d say avoid Wix because it’s the hardest platform to switch away from. They aggressively try to upsell on every step of the way.
Have a nice website :)
submitted by Passed the SAA-C01 exam! As soon as I finished, I thought of this tribe - you all. Thank you!! You all are awesome. [Edit - just found out I got 926]
For starter, you guys (and gals) led me to Stephane Maarek's (
stephanemaarek) course and practice tests from Jon Bonso (
jon-bonso) on UDemy. I stuck to them and they got me through.
I tried a few others resources, but I say these two are the gold standard for SAA-C01 certification. They are like a shot of whisky, others are like a crateful of beer. I like my beer, but nothing like the punch of whisky.
THIS IS A LONG POST, SO READ THIS IF NOTHING ELSE Although "Solution Architecture" sounds very big and important and like something you would master after years of experience, it's the first certification to get started with AWS. It's more like "Introduction to AWS." Take a deep breath. You can do it, without losing too much money, your sanity, friends, pets, spouse or hair as has been rumored. IF YOU PREPARE THE RIGHT WAY. Only a small number of the 140+ AWS services are covered, of them even a smaller number tend to be the focus, and for each exam writers clearly love some specific concepts.
That's where Stephane's course and Jon's sample exams come in. They strike a good balance between teaching the platform enough and preparing you for the exam.
There are some resources I used early on that I need not have. Forgive me because I hadn't found this group then. Now that I feel like an insider in the AWS kingdom, I can use them to deepen my understanding and to do real work.
I wrote tributes to Stephane and Jon...got pushed way down because I wrote too much.
EXAM CONTENT Others' posts about the exam content are spot on.
https://www.reddit.com/AWSCertifications/comments/fv2sbn/passed_the_saaco1_this_morning/ https://www.reddit.com/AWSCertifications/comments/fojp8q/passed_the_solutions_architect_associate_saac01/ Questions have a short paragraph explaining the situation. Then a separate paragraph with direct, short one sentence question. Not overly tricky, but do watch out for negative in the question and important keywords that change the answer.
Negatives:
Pay attention when the question says things like "NOT correct", and "LEAST likely". As I started pondering the answers, a few times I found out that I almost forgot the negative in the question. To be safe, after deciding on an answer(s), I went back to re-read the question.
Keywords:
Look for keywords that change the answer such as "the cheapest option", or the "fastest solution".
Somebody wrote earlier that you need to know the basics of the AWS components, as well as how to put them together or configure them to ACHIEVE A CERTAIN OUTCOME (cheapest, or more reliable, or fastest speed of deploying the solution, least amount of maintenance required etc.). Very true. And it's not as hard to do as it sounds. When you know basics of two solutions, you can tell which one gives your more or less of what.
They are testing you on the five pillars mentioned in the Well Architected Framework.
https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/well-architected/ . You don't have to memorize the details, but be familiar with the concepts. I read the white paper once. Useful for real world architecture too.
For example, there was a question in which they wanted "ease of deployment and management". Because it said "deployment" I had to include CloudFormation in the answer, because it helps to deploy, so I couldn't only choose the solution that merely made it easy to manage, after it's deployed. Some questions clearly tell you to choose the cheapest option, and include some language about how the tradeoff is acceptable (such as using spot instances, and it's ok to rerun the job if interrupted).
This is what I remember: EC2 types (reserved, spot etc; user data), EBS types (cost, throughput, IO, RAID, snapshots-cross region, choose right type - for best IO, best throughput, serial read of large data, cheapest etc.), instance store (when preserved, when suitable as local/temporary cache; this is the fastest storage you can get, but not permanent), S3 & Glacier (a lot of questions, retrieval options, cost, speed, access), lots of RDS (multi AZ, read replicas, synchronous vs not, high availability, disaster recovery, RTO, RPO, read heavy vs write heavy, horizontal scalability vs vertical; RDS vs DynamoDB vs Aurora vs Redshift), DynamoDb (schema changes, latency, read consistency, DAX, can't store large files ), Security Groups, NACL, VPC, ElastiCache, ELB , AMI (cross region), Launch Configuration, ASG (cooldown etc.), Route 53 routing policies (many), EFS (one or two; they can attached to many EC2s), Encryption at rest and in transit (customer wants total control vs AWs managed), access to content only to paying customers (CF or S3 signed URL, signed cookies), active-active active-passive etc. HA/DR setup with EC2 & RDS, SQS duplicate messages, API Gateway and Lambda combination (small memory serverless job, protecting backend resources from overload), lambda@edge, web hosting using S3, object based vs file storage, VPC endpoint, PrivateLink, Egress Only Gateway, Nat Gateway, Elastic Beanstalk (one), Fargate (one), AWS resources suited for Data warehousing/OLAP/OLTP/Business Intelligence/clickstream data/BigData.
I don't think there was anything Stephane doesn't cover.
FREEBIES These are freebies others have mentioned, just look for keywords:
Redis - to do authentication use REDIS auth
MQ - proprietary messaging queue (vs. AWS's own, SQS)
CloudWatch EC2 metrics- memory usage not part of it, need custom metrics.
CloudFormation - can help enforce best practices.
Elastic Beanstalk- A developer wants to quickly deploy code without having to setup the infrastructure, then use this. Don't confuse with Lambda. With Lambda there is really no infrastructure for you to worry about and it's for short running code that runs many times on a trigger . Beanstalk actually creates pre configured environment for you; it's not serverless.
PREPARATION Like others have suggested, I recommend going through Stephane's course once, doing his sample test, doing one or two of Jon's tests, noting your weak areas and going back to Stephane's course and the presentation. Then do Jon's tests. In between you can look at some FAQs (EC2, S3), read the Well Architected Framework, and use Jon's tutorialdojo for short tests.
That's not what I did. I took a winded route to certification (explained later).
I created AWS account in Dec 2019, but really started learning in mid January. In mid Febraury, I decided to go for the certification, scheduled the exam for Mar 22. I went through a rollercoaster of two test centers closures thanks to the virus, and SAA-C01 coming close to expiring (Mar 22), so stopped preparing.
Then AWS extended the exam's end date and opened up home testing! By beginning of April I guesstimate around 60 hours total of preparation. Without all the distractions and false starts I had , if you have IT background, you can probably do it with much less preparation.
What really mattered was Stephane's course and Jon's sample tests. I had spent 15-20 hours with other material before February when I got to this group.
Then I spent 25-30 hours with Stephane's course, 4-5 hours with Jon's tests and tutorialdojo (did them the last two weeks). Went to sources recommended by you all like a few AWS FAQs (EC2, S3), but not all the way through, and quickly read Well Architected Framework white paper- for a grand total of may be 3-4 hours.
I often listened to Stephane's videos while commuting so some of it was already in my head when I sat down with the course at home. Did may be two thirds of the labs with him using free AWS account. I took notes in a google doc, a method that works really well for me. Anytime Stephane said "popular exam question" I noted with a "++".
I often went back to previous videos and watched them in anywhere from x1.25 to x2.0 speed. Found out that x2.0 was way over my brain's learning speed, LOL but I used it when I wanted to skip through a portion, but wasn't sure if I would miss something I had forgotten. Once in a while I would go through some of his PDF slides, a fantastic summary of the course.
I did Stephane's sample test two weeks before the test. Jon's two tests and some tutorialdojo quizzes a week before (lousy, 72 and 70). The day of the exam, I did the third Jon's test , got 87%. I should have done Jon's exams earlier.
MY BACKGROUND Before I started looking into AWS in Dec of last year, I had solid IT fundamentals - meaning TCP/IP, RAID, programing languages, SQL, disk I/O, throughput, RPO, RTO, load balancing, basics of virtualization, HA/DR architecture etc. were not new to me, although I did not remember all details.
I've been in IT for 2 decades. First decade I spent being very technical deploying applications like BMC Remedy at large companies. A lot of travel to marquee US companies, a lot of on-premise architecture, installation, configuration, deployment, integration experience with enterprise apps, web servers, compute, storage, networks (load balancing, firewalls), programming (in Remedy's language, Perl, C, PL SQL, shell scripts,...), network/system management tools etc.
The second decade I joined one of the big 4 US consulting companies and I have been less hands on, focusing on IT Service Management best practices, Data Analytics and have project/program/product manager roles etc., but I frequently work with application and infrastructure architects, or lead process automation in tools, and occasionally write code too. Managed one highly available private cloud deployment across three data centers where I learned a lot of High Availability and Disaster Recovery. I have been a swiss army knife - whatever the client needed me for to achieve a goal.
WHY AWS? Ok, what's below is not why you came to this group, but you get it for free any way. If you have job interview coming up at AWS, do read.
Late last year, I was considering a second act for my career. ITSM and project/program management etc.- been there, done that, don't find too much joy in them any more, so I first started learning Machine Learning/Data Science (Andrew Ng is a great educator), learned Python at DataCamp.com. Loved it all, still love it.
In December I looked into public cloud, created AWS account, played around for a few hours. On a whim I applied to a few jobs at AWS.
They called me in January for a Sr. Solution Architect job, and I said holy cow, is this happening or what, somebody pinch me, get out of here! That's when it got real.
The recruiter said I could learn AWS and get certified after I join. They just needed the right person with the right background. Sounded cool and I knew I could totally do cloud architecture and I would love doing it.
I had a technical phone screening that went well. I answered all questions, which were not very deep but wide, covering compute, storage, networking, programming etc. None on AWS. There are tons of questions from other candidates on the web, plus I am pretty strong on IT fundamentals (I do things like code in 8088 Assembly language - once - just for fun, setup a RAID at home).
Within an hour they sent email saying they wanted to do full day on-site interview (BTW, their recruiters are awesome. For the most part). Sweeet. I was on cloud 9.
AWS has a peculiar hiring process. They have "leadership principles" that they want you to learn about and describe instances from your career when you exhibited them. Might sound corny, but I think not. They make a lot of sense and explain why AWS and Amazon have been runaway successes. I had heard of some phone screening or on site interviews focusing solely or mostly on these behavioral questions.
They also sent me a simple scenario of a customer wanting to take a LAMP stack from on premise to AWS, and asked me to architect and present a solution.
To prepare, I learned about the leadership principles, wrote down examples from my career. To get ready for technical stuff and to architect the customer solution, I bought SYBEX AWS SAA Study Guide by (Ben Piper and David Clinton). Good but may be a little out of date, and not necessary for the exam. I spent may be 5-6 hours total reading a few chapters, doing some labs.
I tried Cloud Academy free for a week then paid for it. They have a SAA-C01 course, very very good but also very very long - 60 hours. I watched this interesting video on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t0AP1kO0do. It sounds like Kindergarten now.
I thought of pushing out the interview by a week, cramming and getting SAA-C01 done in two weeks, so I could show up for the on site interview with the certification on hand to prove how much of my awesomeness I would bring to AWS, but the recruiter said that wouldn't necessarily change anything. Sounded like they just needed a person with "The Right Stuff" if you know what I mean.
The first week of Feb, I had 6 back to back one hour interviews and one hour of solution presentation on site. I haven't had so much fun in a while! My kind of people and my kind of subject. I just love the idea of putting cloud resources together like pieces of a puzzle to achieve technical/business goals, and then seeing the solution come alive auto-magically! You imagine and it comes alive in minutes. Your Alladin in the cloud.
Most of the questions were behavioral though (leadership principles), very light (<5%) on technical questions. The most technical I remember is having to describe how I would troubleshoot an application that's reported to be slow. I know how to troubleshoot through the layers and conversation led to reviewing processes running on the app server.
He asked how and I said start with ps such as "ps -ef" or with other switches (this one is just etched in my memory). I had no issues with the few technical questions, mostly not about such obscure details, but just about high level understanding of application stacks.
I had some cues that a number of interviewers thought the interview had gone well, and the presentation as well. I had taken some advice from a colleague who is into communication, and thought the behavioral part went fine. I thought I had a pretty good shot.
I read wrong. Totally. They said no. Wouldn't tell me why, which I hear is standard practice for them. The recruiter said something like I was highly qualified (in some manner of unclear things or other), but at this time they decided not to go forward with my candidacy for this role but that she would be happy to send my resume to other recruiters for other AWS jobs.
In a way sounded not to bad. My skills and past roles run the gamut, so I can fit many roles, but they were not forthcoming about which kinds they thought I was fit for, after both they and I had invested so much time doing this song and dance. I could have been directly referred to other roles, but that didn't happen, which made me think the behavioral parts of the interviews might not have gone well.
I had talked to several HR type people during the process. I called them and one of them was nice and finally told me that the note on my record said that they concluded that I was more like a program or engagement manager.
That's some of what I do now, granted. But cloud solution architecture is what excites me, dang it! I have the background. I have deep and wide understanding of all things IT. I have coded in 8088 Assembly language (said that already right), in C... I have installed/configured all sorts of OS, database, architected solutions with load balancing, fault tolerance, written integration scripts. Some of it is from a while ago, but fundamentals are the same. And I have been handling customers well, all my career.
I asked if I fell short on the "leadership principles", which I assume would make one unfit in their eyes for any role like you don't belong there at all, but she said I did fine by them.
In hindsight, I believe they got the sense that I was not technical enough to be a SA. I disagree, but I didn't do a good job of establishing otherwise.
All technical questions throughout the process, I answered well. The only reason I can think of for them to doubt my technical ability is my resume, which was heavy on process/service improvement etc., especially for recent years. Even for the first decade of my career, to shorten the resume I had taken out many technical details, and I didn't adapt it before applying to AWS.
Another highsight - like many of us do, I chose to focus on positive signals from the on site interview and conveniently neglected negative ones. I didn't seem to click well with one of the interviewers. He might have been the one they call the "bar raiser." From the beginning, he seemed to act/talk differently than others. Still can't figure him out.
The yearning to pursue cloud architecture and/or Machine Learning/Data Science role is still there. Both fascinate me. I will make it happen.
Going back to the saga of certification - AWS the company didn't work out for me for now, but I like AWS the platform any way. I have the AWS bug, so mid February, I signed up for the SAA-C01 test in March. You heard the rest.
I recently hired a professional resume writer and have redone my resume to bring out the technical roles/experiences (and other good updates). Worth the cost.
That's a lot of me. Let's talk about the real heroes in this story.
TRIBUTE TO STEPHANE AND JON Stephane, you can teach man, you're an awesome educator. My dad and father in law happen to be renowned teachers in their fields, so when I see a good one, I know. Like them your delivery brings a vibe that makes people want to learn.
I can tell that you put a lot of thought into designing the course. AWS has put the best of last 70 years of IT in the cloud. In 14 hours (I skipped videos labeled SAA-C02) you manage to teach the platform and get people ready for the exam.
The downloadable presentation is a great reference too. As I said earlier, your course is a shot of whisky, others I tried were like a crate full of beer. Thank you, you're an awesome guru and I am a grateful shishya (disciple)! [emoji with two hands together in gratitude]
And Jon, the sample exams were terrific (please do consider matching the wordiness of the real test questions, on the short side). They let me know how much I sucked and why I sucked. I failed once, passed once with the least score possible, 72, becoming the butt of my kids' jokes.
I tried the third one on the morning of the exam and I passed with 87%, which is around what I am expecting for my exam result [edit - I got 926]. I tried Cloud Academy test the day before and got 50%, nowhere near my actual performance in the exam.
And thanks for giving me access to tutorialdojo. I can see that you are super active in the AWS certification community, and always quick to jump in and help people. And turns out in the LinkedIn group too. That's some dedication and thank you for being generous with your time with the community and for putting together great resources.
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