rina's space

april 22, 2025 @ 07:30 pm | est. reading time: 3 - 4 mins | word count 576

i don’t like neocities, actually

ah yes, probably my hottest take on this website, in a while. neocities, and similar services, are one of those places that’s either adored to the point of worship, or quietly avoided like the plague. but, here’s the thing: i’m not sold. to put it bluntly: it’s limiting as fuck. they promise you freedom to create whatever you want, free from corporate eyes and algorithmic chains. but they do it very sloppily, and you actually do not have that much freedom. there are ridiculous amount of file formats you can’t even use. your website pretty much has to be static html/css with no functionality, or you need to iframe 3rd party scripts to do things you probably could’ve coded yourself, if they wouldn’t lock it down.

and don’t let me started with their overpriced paid plan! $5/mo for what? “fuzzy and warm feelings” you helped a small company? what the hell? they call their premium plan “supporter”, how cute. what they provide in their premium plan for five bucks is a terrible bang for your buck. for that same $5 you could get a decent shared hosting, one that will provide you with much more functionality. think php, python and sometimes even nodejs. that way, you truly can shape your website into something you actually want. or if you’re feeling brave, for that same five bucks you could get a whole slice of a computer, you can configure it down to the operating system you want. yes, vpses are that cheap now. hell, you could get a better free plan value than neocities’ free plan, if you just look elsewhere. for example, if you’re careful not to accidentally select anything that’ll charge you, you can grab a free vps on oracle oci. or, if you have a spare computer in your home, laying down and doing nothing, you could just use cloudflare's tunneling services in order to host it from your very bedroom!

okay, i get it: the retro web aesthetic is cool. i mean, look at my website lol. but neocities is a platform that’s supposed to let you build things. the problem is, that freedom they promise is more of a mirage than reality. you’re limited to what you can do, with things like html, css, and maybe some js. want to use another tech? tough fucking luck. neocities feel like you’re building a website on training wheels, which is completely fine. the problem is, that even their paid plans feels very restrictive in what you can do. why can’t we have the both? at least let people who pay you to do some more advanced stuff. like, if you want to code a dynamic element, you end up having to iframe it from someone else’s service instead of just being able to plug in your own code. and isn’t the whole point of a personal sites, being... you know, personal... without needing to rely too heavily on external services for almost anything?

neocities has its charm, i won’t lie. it’s great for simple, static sites or smaller projects, it’s also great if you want to build a community, due to their discovery pages. but for anything else, i personally believe there are better alternatives. neocities might be fun for some, but if you want a little more functionality, a little more freedom, it’s hard to ignore the limitations the have set in place, or maybe i just expect too much, i am not sure.

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