June 03, 2025 - One Year on Nekoweb
Two days ago (06/01), I hit my one-year anniversary on Nekoweb, and I wanted to reflect on my time here in the indie web, along with everything else going on in my life.
Also, I’m currently working on yet another site layout, so stay tuned for that!
My Time on the Indie Web
I’ve been part of the indie web space for roughly two years now. I first discovered it out of boredom at work when I noticed a friend-of-a-friend had a website linked in their Discord bio. Naturally, I was curious and clicked it. Their site was a personal page, and while exploring, I stumbled upon (lol) their Yesterweb webring.
My first thought was: "Yesterweb? The web of yesterday? What the hell is this?"
I clicked it and ended up wasting the rest of my day diving into indie websites. A wave of nostalgia hit me, reminding me of the mid-2000s when everyone and their mother had a personal website, niche forums thrived, and YouTube was just 480p video. It felt like I’d rediscovered a missing part of myself (holy dramatic, Batman!).
As soon as I got home that day, I rushed to my computer and made my first Neocities account.
My Time on Nekoweb
Skipping over most of my Neocities era, I remember seeing dimden post about Nekoweb in an indie web Discord server (NeoNet, I think). I joined the Nekoweb server long before making an account; partly because, at the time, Nekoweb was invite-only.
Fast-forward to June 1st, 2024, my frustration with Neocities had peaked, and I finally jumped ship. At first, I just ported my site over and left it untouched for months, buried under real-life busyness. (I’m still busy now, just not as buried.)
Now that the background’s out of the way, let’s talk about my thoughts on Nekoweb as a whole. The platform, the community, comparisons, everything.
The Website
Honestly, the website could use some stylistic improvements. I miss the theme changer and community-made themes. The default one can be blinding at times. I know userstyles exist (and I use them), but it was nice when the community could natively contribute their own designs.
That said, I love siteboxes. It’s such a unique feature, letting everyone style theirs to reflect their site or personality.
Setting up an account is straightforward, and using a custom domain is simple too, though it does require payment ($3/month is a steal).
The in-browser code editor is solid, especially compared to competitors. Heck, I still use it to update my site, even though I know FTP and deploy2nekoweb exist.
The Community
I won’t lie, my experiences with the community have been a mixed bag.
From what I recall, the Nekoweb Discord was pretty chill in its early days. But then, a flood of users migrated from Neocities after a "controversial" take from Kyle (Neocities’ owner), and, at least to me, the community’s vibe took a nosedive.
Layercake put it perfectly in that it started feeling like babysitting. And as a moderator, I definitely felt that.
Thankfully, updates to the community rules and more mods joining the team helped a lot. The introduction of Clubs was another win, giving specific topics dedicated spaces and letting Club Presidents handle moderation themselves.
Overall, the community has had its ups and downs, but I’d say it’s in a pretty good place now.
One year into Nekoweb, I’m excited to see what’s next, both for the platform and for my own life, personal projects, and website. I hear that the Nekoweb team is working on an imageboard site too. Looking forward to that. I don't have much to say at the end here so bye.