Nekoweb - A Neocities "Competitor" Just Launched

[SolidStateSurvivor]

Nekoweb is essentially a sister site of Neocities, same basic principle of easy/free website hosting and development. It's currently in beta and still being worked on, but you can start a site and begin coding.

Nekoweb is a free static website hosting service, created in 2022 2023 2024 by a group of coders, programmers and artists, passionate for the old web and personal websites.
Social media is too limiting. We believe that everyone should be able to freely express themselves in their own little corner of the web, without having to worry about things like algorithms, tracking, or advertisements.
Nekoweb is free of any advertisements, and is run completely by donations from its users.

The coding interface is a lot better than Neocities, has autofill suggestions for items and formatting. Unlike Neocities it doesn't appear to have the "social media" aspects like the ability to follow other websites and leave comments on their pages. It's supposedly a little more flexible with the file types you can upload but I haven't had a chance to really test for myself. Not sure how much I'll use this since I'm already pretty entrenched in Neocities but I'm just happy I was able to snag the "YouTube" username on Nekoweb lul.

 

[nsequeira119]

Well, good luck to it, I suppose. I've never been a big fan of Neocities' seeming dominance on hosting- I think the best markets are competitive, and you only get real innovation when there are multiple options available, all trying to create something new. I don't know if I like the idea of autofill, though. part of the fun of basic HTML is how you learn it gradually, building up until you have something viable. An autofill feature where everything is suggested to you might lead to even more bland, generic websites with less character.

I can't say I even really care about it not having the ability to follow sites or whatever- most Neocities operators, from what I understand, don't use that feature regularly. Guestbooks and chats and stuff on the sites themselves are more effective.

 

[Dark Agent]

It needs HTTP for true compatibility with older machines

 

[Chuffed]

Thanks for the tip. Pages are glacial this morning though, they'll have to upgrade their Raspberry Pi if they want traffic.

 

[turntableToothache]

So far it just seems like furry central. To be expected from a site called "neko web"

ULTRAKILL LOL! ULTRAKILL LOL! ULTRAKILL LOL!

s1nez.nekoweb.org

There are some good pages tho.

soggy cat

A picture of a wet cat inside a bathtub.

soggy.cat

(This site is just an image of a soggy cat that moves)

Cirno's Frozen Wonderland

csprea.nekoweb.org

(A page all about Cirno the Ice Fairy)

Burger.

burger.nekoweb.org

(A site all about burgers!)


Best site by far.
I think, and hope, this is going places. At the very least it's fun.

 

[赤い男]

Ha a la persona que me gusta le gustaría ese sitio.

To be honest i really wanted to go back to coding my website, i should move from neo to neko, just because i'm not a programmer, and neko seems friendlier for newbies.

 

[LostintheCycle]

What are the other similar services out there? Neocities, Nekoweb, Bear Blog.. what else?

 

[xandra]

What are the other similar services out there? Neocities, Nekoweb, Bear Blog.. what else?

here's a list of free webhosts aimed at beginners or folks in the personal web if you're interested.

 

[Vitnira]

Love the Cirno madlad that has the fake anime theme in Welcome to the NHK playing. Funny choice considering Cirno has a theme.

So how do you guys use these Neo Web sites? Do you just click through them to find funny stuff? Do you follow people you like?

I haven't looked much at these sites because I haven't found anything that's really interested me. A StumbleUpon-like tool for crawling the neo web (not Marginalia's rando search) would be good for me, but maybe I'm not seeing the point.

 

[Chuffed]

... Do you just click through them to find funny stuff? ....Do you follow people you like?... but maybe I'm not seeing the point.

I drop in once a month and sort by last updated or by interest (say gardening), it weeds out the placeholder websites, the highschool class project sites and dead sites a little better. I also bookmark any gems I stumble on. Otherwise you are correct, most of the 'non corporate experience' can be felt elsewhere without all of the jank.

 

[PurpleHello98]

This is really interesting! I'm fairly comfortable on NeoCities so I doubt I'll transfer over, but I like seeing diversity amongst hosts. It speaks to me that the old Web is growing, for one, and I hope that if there's competition, Kyle Drake might become a bit more of an active developer.

 

[containercore]

Does it address the actual *problem* with neocities though? (the problem being that once people have finished coding their Lainpilled Y2K aesthetick web1.0 vibes-site, they don't have a single thing whatsoever to put on it and immediately abandon it)

 

[Digital Cheese]

Does it address the actual *problem* with neocities though? (the problem being that once people have finished coding their Lainpilled Y2K aesthetick web1.0 vibes-site, they don't have a single thing whatsoever to put on it and immediately abandon it)

I doubt they will (or even can). Tech-wizard Normalfags are too worthless to make good sites but too smart to be incapable of making sites.

 

[Obake]

I made a site, but it's just re-hosting of my Neocities site. I think it's great that there is an alternative to Neocities, but I don't see any reasons not to use Neocities. Regardless, I claimed my space: https://itapun.nekoweb.org

 

[SolidStateSurvivor]

Kyle Drake might become a bit more of an active developer

I hope so too, obviously there's no real competition between the two and it's nice Neocities is 100% free, but there's features and bug fixes I've been longing for on Neocities.

Nekoweb is still adding features, here's some:

• Main page displays real-time cursors of other users and can be used as a simple chat space
• They have an API
• GIT support
• Can claim subdomains
• You can invite others to edit your site

The last one I'm really excited about. As of now they have +2,000 users, quite a strong launch

 

[Some_porcupine]

doesnt their HTML editor crash like the one on NC?
i am on bearblog now

 

[Dolfin]

Does it address the actual *problem* with neocities though? (the problem being that once people have finished coding their Lainpilled Y2K aesthetick web1.0 vibes-site, they don't have a single thing whatsoever to put on it and immediately abandon it)

That's a free hosting "problem": the barrier to entry is low enough that anyone can try their hand at making a site, decide it's not for them or otherwise lose interest, and abandon it. So it goes with any free web service, except abandoned personal sites are more viscerally disappointing than blank social accounts. The Neocities-specific problem is that these abandoned sites are still in the site directory and clog up search results unless you're browsing by Last Updated date, and those ".neocities.org" domains will forever be claimed.

So how do you guys use these Neo Web sites? Do you just click through them to find funny stuff? Do you follow people you like?

I haven't looked much at these sites because I haven't found anything that's really interested me. A StumbleUpon-like tool for crawling the neo web (not Marginalia's rando search) would be good for me, but maybe I'm not seeing the point.

You pretty much just start from one and surf your way to others using their webrings and hyperlinks (if they're linking to other personal sites like cool duders). Part of the experience for me has been aimlessly wandering the small internet and keeping tabs on sites that pique my interest.
Things like the Districts project on Neocities have attempted to curate quality if not necessarily popular sites and make them easier to discover in an oldweb kind of way as opposed to driven more directly by hit counts and recommendation algorithms. Three problems with Districts: it was a lot of manual work, it magnetized drama, and it was run by furries (see previous).

 

[explorAR]

I have been on the nekoweb discord to follow the updates and new features being added, and I have to say the admin Dimden (who hosts the tsuki project mirror) is actually putting a lot of passion into it and adding features that neocities would never have dared to. It is really showing how little the neocities admins care about the site anymore. I think they just keep it around to keep the cash flows coming.

As of today they added a full linux virtual machine that has node and NPM making it so that you can easily create static sites using tools like svelte and react.

 

[Some_porcupine]

I have been on the nekoweb discord to follow the updates and new features being added, and I have to say the admin Dimden (who hosts the tsuki project mirror) is actually putting a lot of passion into it and adding features that neocities would never have dared to. It is really showing how little the neocities admins care about the site anymore. I think they just keep it around to keep the cash flows coming.

As of today they added a full linux virtual machine that has node and NPM making it so that you can easily create static sites using tools like svelte and react.

hm dimden
very famous....
idk what to think
NC has fallen...

 

[Noxy]

I haven't looked much at these sites because I haven't found anything that's really interested me. A StumbleUpon-like tool for crawling the neo web (not Marginalia's rando search) would be good for me, but maybe I'm not seeing the point.

I made a browser running over wiby to find neocities sites, using it is an interesting experience, but right now it runs only in firefox (I been working on fixing this issue but I'm slow).

Searching through neocities by hand is a pain for me, I just want to type words and get weird sites.