# Wander small web explorer

31 Hacker News commenters recommended Wander small web explorer and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 0.1 years (3 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** A tiny, decentralised tool that sends you to random personal websites of the small web, so you can find interesting pages quickly. Critics mostly report errors and page-reload loops in some browsers.

## Why people recommend it

- Finds interesting personal sites quickly (4 comments): "made the network richer with plenty of good web page recommendations from the small web of personal websites" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47973374)) "This is delightful! I found a bunch of interesting sites in just a few minutes." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47438609)) "Already found so many interesting things." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47436100))
- Self-hosted, no server code or database (2 comments): "Wander is a small, decentralised, self-hosted web console that lets visitors explore interesting personal websites" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47910835)) "There is no server-side code, no database, nothing to install." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47422863))
- Fun and refreshing to browse (4 comments): "The experience and resulting websites are very refreshing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434684)) "I played a bit with it and it _felt_ special" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47437153)) "it is fun within its niche" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49824874))
- Easy to add to your site (4 comments): "This is excellent. Thank you! I've now added it to my website" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47443294)) "Really neat. Immediately added to my own small blog" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47433413)) "Seems like a perfect addition to any links page." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47430585))

## What people warn about

- Errors and reload loops in some browsers (4 comments): "I love the idea. One small thing - Ran into a problem almost immediately" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434133)) "I get an infinite loop of checking my connection and the page reloading, making it difficult to navigate back." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434332)) ""SyntaxError: Missing ; before statement" on line 136" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47448605))
- Pages block embedding in frames (2 comments): "Love this, but I need it to allow me to break the frame." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47427911)) "It would be nice if it wasn’t so framed in." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47436388))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Kagi Small Web](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kagi-small-web.md): 46 recommend
- [Ooh.directory](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ooh-directory.md): 26 recommend
- [Personal blog frontpage](https://hackerapproved.com/p/personal-blog-frontpage.md): 21 recommend
- [Bubbles.town](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bubbles.md): 16 recommend
- [RSS.Social](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rss-social.md): 14 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Wander small web explorer", https://hackerapproved.com/p/wander/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).