I feel like this post is probably going to make some people upset.
I really don't hate Neocities as a pure concept. I think it's amazing that young users have a chance to make a website completely for free. I wouldn't have a website if it never existed. I hosted my site on Neocities from 2022-2025 before I migrated over to leprd.space. My needs outgrew the platform, but before I needed PHP, it was a perfect host for me. Functionally, it's fine, and I'm glad it exists. Same with Nekoweb. The free alternative platforms to paid hosts are a good resource for young webmasters to learn and perfect their craft.
My hatred of Neocities more so comes from the community of users. The culture. This ties into my complaints about "indie-web culture" anyways, but I feel like Neocities is where a lot of my problems with it stem from. I think some of it does stem from the fact that the Neocities userbase is...well, young. Many users are teenagers (I was a teenager when I used it).
Number 1 on my Neocities grievance list is the fact that for a bunch of people that claim to hate social media, they sure do treat Neocities like a social media platform. There is a update status box on each user profile, and when I used it, it would be to talk about website updates. Maybe the occasional birthday message when it was my birthday. Many users use it like twitter. I shouldn't have to see political takes or calling out people for something on the Neocities website update feed. I remember when the federiefederi drama >> happened in 2024, and my Neocities dashboard was filled with basically nothing but that, since many sites I followed were added to their site.
The following feature on the site messed with my head and kind of reduced my enjoyment of working on my site towards the end of my time on the platform. If I didn't update my site for a while, people would unfollow or stop engaging with the updates. Yes, that doesn't matter. Try explaining that to 18 year old Nikki. I've only been able to detach myself from the online numbers mindset in the past year. Follow 4 follow was (and likely still is) a big problem on Neocities.
Number 2...site designs. I don't like the idea that people shouldn't design their site a certain way, especially if its an art project. I use Photoshop CS2 to make my layouts, and the way I design my site would probably be considered old and should be modernized... but I still make an effort to make my site easy to navigate. This has especially been a thorn in my side with managing fanlistings, since I can't find the god damn code on some sites of the users who join. I'm starting to enforce a rule where if I can't find a link back code on your site in the first 3 minutes, I am not going to list your URL. Link reciprocity. For people who want to engage in "old web culture", they sure don't respect that aspect of it.
Some users have such obnoxious site designs. Flashing lights, boxes upon boxes, and sometimes they don't even make the text readable at all. Any time I see a new Neocities link, there's always a thought in my mind that it's going to be one of the most painful websites of the day I'll be looking at. Nekoweb, you aren't safe from my criticisms either. Creativity is great but it gets to a point...
To finish off this overly-critical blog post, I want to be positive now and highlight some of my favorite Neocities sites. As much as a shock as it may be, I do have some favorites.
I love the sites of jeith >>, humanfinny >>, marbled >>, velvet-blue >>, shishka >>, and twelvemen >>. Everything is so creative and I love the site layouts so much. I used to be mutuals with some of them when I was on Neocities, and I still go and check their sites every so often.
I never want to make another grievance post on Neocities again. I just needed to write SOMETHING. I've been thinking all of my thoughts for months now, but I've always been kind of scared to post something that's critical about Neocities. If you are a Neocities user and want to give me your thoughts on this post, my inbox is always open >>.
~Nikki