After deleting my corporate social media accounts, I've discovered five interesting indie platforms and online communities you might not have heard of: Special Fish, Ctrl + Shift + 3, web1.0 Hosting, Pillowfort, and Blue Dwarf. A look at what makes each unique, from brutalist design to old-device accessibility, and a call to support the independent web financially.
Stacktracer's Dev Shrine
Surfing the IndieWeb is fun! Like many people my age (old millenial here, to be specific), I miss the Internet of the 90's and early 2000's. Until a couple of years age I thought it was gone for good. Luckily, I was wrong. The small web is all about non-corporate homepages and websites made by individuals. I won't go into details on why this is cool. For now, let me just point you in the right direction so you can see for yourself.
Weird netizens — Open Indie
It's been a year since I wrote about Weird web pages as a prospective catalyst for the reclamation of my digital identity. There's been s...
Indiegraf: The Operating System Built for Independent Newsrooms
Manage, publish, monetize and grow with Indiegraf—supporting 180+ independent media outlets and covering all your publishing needs in one place.
anitwek/alternatives-to-us
A curated list of non-U.S.-based alternatives to popular services, focusing on privacy and global accessibility.
Web Platform: What are we working on?
Web Platform What are we working on? Simone Onofri WebEngineHackFest 2025
Web of the People — Open Indie
Whether you think of web3 as the advent of peer-to-peer protocols, coin-operated blockchains or autocomplete-AI synthesizers, change is c...
A more social IndieWeb | Dominik Hofer
My entry for the IndieWeb Carnival of December 2025 about the IndieWeb in 2030.
Welcome to the Post-Naive Internet Era
The grand idealism of the free and open internet might be over for now, but in its place falls a more practical mindset. Just like Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs are entering their “Hard Tech” era, the people building web alternatives are also entering their Post-Naive Era. Here are the names to know.
The IndieWeb Is Punk Manifesto
Three chords and a domain name. A manifesto for the DIY web.
DimensionDev/Flare
Browse Mastodon, Bluesky, X, Misskey, Nostr, Pixiv, Fanbox and RSS all in one app. One timeline, all your accounts, cross-post everywhere.
syxanash/awesome-web-desktops
Websites, web apps, portfolios that look like desktop operating systems
Indie social sign-in could go mainstream — Open Indie
Back in June I wrote about an exciting confluence of digital auth tech: ### Social sign-in for indies The focal point of Weird Net...
Cozy Community Software — Open Indie
As Commune edges closer to an early-access release, I've been musing on the concept of the cozy web vibes that we intend to cultivate in ...
