Neocities
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 6 web hosts
Free personal sites with custom domains and full HTML, valued for its creative community. Caveat: hard to justify if you already pay for hosting elsewhere.
Free personal sites with custom domains and full HTML, valued for its creative community. Caveat: hard to justify if you already pay for hosting elsewhere.
42 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 34
- criticize it
- 8
- approval share
- 81%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 34 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 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
Easy for beginners to start
“All I did was tell him about Neocities (and allow him to sign up) and he figured out the rest.”
Comment from 12 Jul 2026 in “Neocities: Create your own free website” “the best way for a non-tech person would be to just dump the files on Neocities”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “How to Make a Damn Website” “It’s a small fun site to practice with”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Have a Fucking Website” Healthy creative community to browse
“It's a genuine treat to see what people are building over there.”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Why MySpace fans want it back as relaunch hinted” “it's the healthiest online creative community I've come across”
Comment from 12 Jul 2026 in “Neocities: Create your own free website” Custom domains and decent bandwidth
“They allow custom domains, offer decent bandwidth and put a lot of effort into open source”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Codeberg bans vibe coded projects” “It's fairly straightforward and gives you the full power of HTML and a free subdomain.”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Why Gopher in 2026?” Fast loading, open source
“They allow custom domains, offer decent bandwidth and put a lot of effort into open source”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Codeberg bans vibe coded projects” “God damn those featured pages load so fast.”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Have a Fucking Website”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Feels like nostalgia roleplay
“from a brief glance Neocities looks to be a place for Mastodon techies to roleplay an internet they never participated in”
Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?” “Attempts to force it like neocities have a hyperreal quality to them.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Kagi Small Web” “Neocities unfortunately does not really capture that old spirit.”
Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?”
Other web hosts people recommend
The four most recommended other web hosts, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NeocitiesThis page | 34 | 8 | 81% | 12 | — | Approved |
| NearlyFreeSpeech.net | 29 | 0 | 100% | 9 | 15 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| DreamHost web hosting | 16 | 11 | 59% | 7 | 20 yrs10 owners | — |
| Mythic Beasts hosting | 8 | 2 | 80% | 3 | — | — |
| WP Engine | 6 | 12 | 33% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 50 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It's fairly straightforward and gives you the full power of HTML and a free subdomain.”
“it's just kind of meme-y, not really that interesting to scroll through”
“Code something yourself on neocities.”
“I sometimes even surf Neocities.”
“That's the accessible, affordable option you're looking for.”
“even there it can be difficult to find much of value”
“That spirit is alive and well there”
“It's a genuine treat to see what people are building over there.”
“Their AUP isn't unreasonable”
“They allow custom domains, offer decent bandwidth and put a lot of effort into open source”
“Especially when designing KISS principle websites.”
“AFAICT, neither their privacy policy nor their terms of service have been changed in more than a decade.”
“I absolutely love neocities, I use it to host my goatse mirror”
“Neocities is cool, but the medium is the message and we've generally moved on from this (treasured!) past.”
“it's the healthiest online creative community I've come across”
“All I did was tell him about Neocities (and allow him to sign up) and he figured out the rest.”
“Lots of people don't want to pay, so they use this for their hobby.”
“No name, no clear legal status, but collecting money and personal data of users.”
“it's hard to justify today when I'm already paying for web hosting elsewhere”
“this feature got broken (for years) and finally got removed”
“Their free terms are kind of bad. They use CORS security feature to block you from loading content from other sites.”
“Neocities exists and you are welcome to it”
“Now direct the teens here instead of TikTok.”
“is exactly what you are asking for!”
“a lot of personal sites on there are not targeting 90s-2000s nostalgia”
“That, or know that https://neocities.org/ exists.”
“the spirit of the internet is still alive if you know where to look”
“Hey Kyle! Neocities is great”
“God damn those featured pages load so fast.”
“Neocities is picking up the slack”
“It’s a small fun site to practice with”
“Attempts to force it like neocities have a hyperreal quality to them.”
“everything ever posted on the web should be mirrored somewhere, like Neocities”
“the best way for a non-tech person would be to just dump the files on Neocities”
“Neocities is an excellent project btw”
“neocities works well with static site generators”
“from a brief glance Neocities looks to be a place for Mastodon techies to roleplay an internet they never participated in”
“Neocities unfortunately does not really capture that old spirit.”
“I use it as my low-effort gaming website.”
“time for me to rewrite my website on neocities”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.