Neocities
Neocities is a free static website hosting platform that allows users to create and publish personal web pages using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript without advertisements, data tracking, or content restrictions.[1] Launched on June 28, 2013, it provides up to 1 GB of storage, an in-browser code editor, file upload tools, and community features such as site following and tagging.[2][3] Founded by developer Kyle Drake in response to the homogenization of the web under corporate platforms, Neocities seeks to revive the creative independence and aesthetic diversity of early internet sites like GeoCities by emphasizing user control and open expression.[4][1] The service operates on a non-profit model funded by optional supporter donations, maintaining open-source infrastructure and APIs for integration.[3] As of recent counts, it hosts over 1.3 million sites, fostering a niche community of hobbyists, artists, and retro web enthusiasts who value unmediated personal publishing.[3]History
Founding and Early Development
Neocities was founded in 2013 by Kyle Drake, a software developer based in Portland, Oregon, with the aim of reviving the creative and independent spirit of early web hosting services like GeoCities, which had shut down in 2009.[4] Drake launched the platform amid growing frustration with the modern web's centralization and compartmentalization of user expression into algorithm-driven social networks, seeking instead to empower individuals to build personalized, static websites without ads or restrictive templates.[4][1] In its initial phase, Neocities provided free hosting for static sites, including an in-browser HTML editor and a command-line interface for uploads, starting with limited storage to ensure sustainability through community support.[4] The service was bootstrapped via donations from users on Hacker News, which funded the first year's operations after an early announcement on the forum.[5] This grassroots approach reflected Drake's vision of a decentralized web alternative, emphasizing open-source tools and user autonomy over corporate control.[4] Early growth was driven by nostalgia for pre-social media web aesthetics and a backlash against platform dependency, attracting hobbyists, artists, and developers to recreate handcrafted sites.[6] By mid-decade, Neocities had amassed over 100,000 users, demonstrating viability for ad-free, creator-focused hosting despite competition from content management systems.[4] The platform's open-source backend further supported community contributions, laying groundwork for expansions while maintaining a focus on simplicity and accessibility.[1]Growth and Key Milestones
Neocities launched on May 24, 2013, founded by Kyle Drake as a free static website hosting service inspired by the defunct GeoCities platform, aiming to revive early web creativity and independence.[7][8] In its early years, the platform experienced rapid adoption among users seeking alternatives to centralized social media, with approximately 26,000 sites hosted by mid-2013 as reported in contemporary coverage.[9] By 2015, this number had grown to nearly 50,000 websites, reflecting "enormous growth" driven by its ad-free model and emphasis on personal expression.[9] A notable early milestone occurred in 2014 when Neocities participated in a net neutrality protest by throttling Federal Communications Commission (FCC) connections to 28.8 kbps modem speeds, highlighting its commitment to internet freedom and drawing media attention to the platform's activist potential.[9] The service also supported the Web 1.0 Conference in Portland, Oregon, further positioning it as a hub for retro web enthusiasts.[9] In 2016, founders Kyle Drake and Victoria Wang launched a Kickstarter campaign for "Neocities 3.0," an interactive HTML/CSS course, which raised funds to enhance user education and tools, underscoring the platform's focus on accessibility.[10] User growth continued steadily, surpassing 100,000 users by the mid-2010s and exceeding 600,000 hosted websites by July 2023, fueled by its open-source backend released on GitHub and lack of data monetization.[4][11][9] This expansion occurred without external funding or major partnerships, relying instead on donations and premium supporter plans to sustain operations, maintaining its independence amid broader web centralization trends.[12][1] By 2025, Neocities had established itself as a resilient niche player, with ongoing traffic to its domain indicating sustained interest in decentralized hosting.[13]Recent Developments
In 2023 and 2024, Neocities experienced steady growth in its user base, expanding from approximately 1.2 million hosted sites to over 1.3 million by mid-2025, driven by interest in ad-free, static personal websites as an alternative to centralized social platforms.[3] This expansion aligns with broader trends toward decentralized web expression, with the platform emphasizing no ads, no data selling for AI training, and supporter-funded operations to preserve creator control.[3] By October 2025, neocities.org recorded 11.08 million monthly visits and a U.S. ranking of #2291, reflecting increased visibility amid discussions of web authenticity and retro aesthetics.[13] Cumulative metrics include over 43 billion page views and 12 billion unique visitors since inception, highlighting enduring community engagement through features like site following, activity feeds, and RSS support.[3] Platform enhancements remained incremental, focusing on reliability rather than major overhauls; for instance, in August 2024, adjustments to the "last updated" browse sorting prioritized higher-view sites, sparking user discussions on discovery algorithms without altering core hosting capabilities.[14] Neocities continued to offer tools such as an in-browser HTML editor, CLI uploads, and APIs, supporting hobbyist developers while limiting dynamic content to maintain performance on free tiers up to 1 GB storage.[3]Technical Specifications
Hosting Model and Infrastructure
Neocities operates a static website hosting model, serving user-uploaded files directly without server-side processing or dynamic scripting languages such as PHP or server-rendered content.[3] This approach emphasizes simplicity, enabling users to upload HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, and other static assets via web interface, command-line tool, or API, with files delivered as-is to visitors.[3] The platform restricts uploads to predefined file types suitable for static sites, excluding executables or dynamic backend files to maintain performance and security.[15] Free accounts receive 1 GB of storage and 200 GB monthly bandwidth, increased from an initial 100 MB storage limit in March 2017 to accommodate growing user needs while preserving efficiency.[16] Paid supporter accounts, at $5 per month, expand to 50 GB storage and 3000 GB bandwidth, with no advertisements on either tier.[17] Bandwidth is calculated per site, resetting monthly, and exceeding limits results in temporary site suspension until the next cycle.[17] The backend infrastructure is open-source, implemented primarily in Ruby using the Rack web server framework to handle user authentication, file uploads, and API requests.[18] Site serving leverages a caching anycast content delivery network (CDN) distributed across over a dozen global datacenters, supporting HTTP/2 and strong SSL encryption to ensure low-latency access and high uptime.[3] This static-focused architecture allows Neocities to achieve superior reliability and speed compared to dynamic cloud hosting services, as confirmed by the platform's performance claims and design for scalability up to millions of sites.[3] Additionally, since September 2015, all hosted sites have been integrated with the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), enabling decentralized mirroring, archiving, and access by any IPFS node worldwide to enhance availability beyond centralized servers.[19]Storage, Bandwidth, and Performance
Neocities allocates 1 GB of storage to free accounts and 50 GB to paid supporter accounts, accommodating static files such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, and Markdown.[17] This free tier limit was expanded tenfold in March 2017, from a prior cap of 100 MB, to support larger personal sites without immediate need for upgrades.[16] Monthly bandwidth quotas stand at 200 GB for free users and 3000 GB (3 TB) for supporters, measured by data transferred to visitors.[17] Exceeding these limits may result in temporary throttling or suspension to maintain service stability across the platform. Neocities enforces policies against hotlinking files to non-Neocities sites, as such practices deplete shared bandwidth resources intended for hosted content.[20] As a static hosting provider, Neocities delivers files directly without server-side scripting or dynamic generation, yielding inherently low latency and high reliability for lightweight sites.[3] Supporter plans incorporate a global anycast content delivery network (CDN) to distribute traffic efficiently, reducing load times and mitigating geographic delays compared to the free tier's standard infrastructure.[17] This model suits personal web publishing but constrains scalability for high-traffic or computationally intensive applications, prioritizing simplicity over advanced performance optimizations.Supported Technologies and Limitations
Neocities supports static website hosting, enabling users to upload and serve files such as HTML documents (.html, .htm), CSS stylesheets (.css), client-side JavaScript (.js, .mjs, .cjs), and various image formats including JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg), PNG (.png), GIF (.gif), SVG (.svg), ICO (.ico), and WebP (.webp).[15] Additional file types compatible with static web development include Markdown (.md, .markdown), JSON (.json), XML (.xml), web fonts (.woff, .woff2, .ttf, .eot), and text-based formats like CSV (.csv), TSV (.tsv), TXT (.txt), and YAML (.yaml, .yml).[15] The platform processes Markdown files into HTML on upload and permits client-side scripting via JavaScript, including modern modules and libraries loaded externally, but enforces a content security policy that restricts certain inline scripts and external resources on free accounts to mitigate security risks.[15] Supporters gain relaxed policies, such as cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) support and less stringent content security, facilitating advanced client-side applications.[17]
The service does not support server-side scripting languages like PHP, Python, or Ruby, nor does it provide databases, backend processing, or dynamic content generation, limiting sites to pre-built static assets served via HTTP/HTTPS.[21] This design prioritizes simplicity and low overhead, aligning with the platform's emphasis on personal, non-commercial web publishing without runtime execution on the server.[3] Users can integrate external services for dynamic needs, such as embedding third-party APIs or forms that post to external endpoints, but native server-side logic remains unavailable across all plans.[22]
Storage and bandwidth are capped at 1 GB and 200 GB per month, respectively, for free accounts, with supporters receiving 50 GB storage and 3000 GB bandwidth to accommodate larger sites.[17] Free users face restrictions on certain file types to prevent abuse, such as prohibiting executables (.exe) and limiting high-bandwidth media like MP3 or MP4 files, which are discouraged in favor of external hosts like YouTube or SoundCloud.[15] Individual file uploads are constrained by CDN limitations, typically disallowing very large files regardless of plan, and hotlinking from external sites is blocked to conserve resources.[23] Supporters bypass file type restrictions but must still adhere to content policies against illegal or copyrighted material.[17] These constraints encourage lightweight, efficient site design but may necessitate external hosting for media-heavy or computationally intensive projects.[15]
Features
Editing and Development Tools
Neocities offers an in-browser HTML editor integrated into its dashboard, allowing users to directly modify files such asindex.html and preview changes without requiring external software.[3] This tool supports basic syntax highlighting and editing modes, facilitating quick iterations for beginners and hobbyists building static sites.[3]
The platform's dashboard serves as the central hub for file management, where users can upload files via drag-and-drop, delete or rename assets, and organize directories visually.[3] For more advanced workflows, Neocities provides a command-line interface (CLI) tool, released as open-source software, which enables programmatic site management including commands for uploading, listing, and deleting files, as well as HTTP persistence for repeated operations.[24] The CLI is particularly useful for developers integrating site builds with local environments, such as scripting uploads after local testing.[24]
Neocities does not support FTP uploads, citing security vulnerabilities and declining usage as reasons to prioritize other methods.[23] Instead, integration with Git-based version control is achievable through the CLI or third-party automation, such as GitHub Actions workflows that deploy changed files via Neocities' API after commits.[25] The API itself allows for authenticated HTTP requests to handle uploads, info retrieval, and deletions, supporting scripted or app-based development pipelines.[22]
Users often pair Neocities with external code editors like Brackets or Visual Studio Code for enhanced features such as live previews and extensions, then sync changes via the web uploader, CLI, or API.[3] This hybrid approach accommodates both novice drag-and-drop editing and professional static site generation tools, though limitations like the absence of server-side processing require all logic to remain client-side.[3]