LiveJournal
Shares rank 10 of 12 blogging platforms by recommenders
People recommend it for fine-grained post privacy and a feed without algorithmic optimization. Critics say it was sold to Russian owners and turned into spam.
People recommend it for fine-grained post privacy and a feed without algorithmic optimization. Critics say it was sold to Russian owners and turned into spam.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 70%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Nostalgia for the early social web
“the wonderfully chaotic mess that was Myspace, livejournal, geocities”
Comment from 5 May 2026 in “The best is over: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet” “remember Friendster, MySpace, LiveJournal, AO3, etc.?”
Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “Early 2000s were peak of humanity” “That's why we went from MySpace to LiveJournal.”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “FR#150 – On ICE, Verification, and Presence as Harm”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Sold to Russian interests, spam
“It's too bad it got turned into some kind of Russian spam site.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Google is dead. Where do we go now?” “And Livejournal got sold to Russian interests too.”
Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp”
Other blogging platforms people recommend
The four most recommended other blogging platforms, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Substack | 87 | 161 | 35% | 12 | 3 yrs5 owners | — |
| Leaflet (leaflet.pub) | 22 | 1 | 96% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Ghost CMS | 21 | 4 | 84% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Bear Blog | 18 | 4 | 82% | 9 | — | Approved |
| LiveJournalThis page | 7 | 3 | 70% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
9 of the 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“remember Friendster, MySpace, LiveJournal, AO3, etc.?”
“I think it was LiveJournal that enshittified.”
“the wonderfully chaotic mess that was Myspace, livejournal, geocities”
“more importantly without algorithmic optimization”
“That's why we went from MySpace to LiveJournal.”
“And Livejournal got sold to Russian interests too.”
“provided a decent approximation of what people wanted to do, for free”
“It's too bad it got turned into some kind of Russian spam site.”
“Deciding who is able to see what I posted on an individual level was great.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.