# Plain Vanilla Web

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Plain Vanilla Web and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free online guide to building simple websites with plain HTML instead of heavy tooling, and it has convinced readers to drop their CMS.

## Why people recommend it

- Praised as fantastic and worth reading (1 comments): "Thanks for creating and sharing that resource! I'm reading through it now, and it looks fantastic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47475700))
- Inspired switching to plain HTML (1 comments): "inspired me to ditch my own CMS and use plain html on my website" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46606874))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [CSS-Tricks](https://hackerapproved.com/p/css-tricks.md): 23 recommend
- [Learn OpenGL](https://hackerapproved.com/p/learn-opengl.md): 15 recommend
- [Patterns.dev](https://hackerapproved.com/p/patterns-dev.md): 12 recommend
- [Fintech Engineering Handbook](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fintech-engineering-handbook.md): 12 recommend
- [vimtutor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vimtutor.md): 8 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Plain Vanilla Web", https://hackerapproved.com/p/plainvanillaweb-com/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).