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100 independent systems and interesting corners of the small web

100-independent-systems-small-web.md

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100 independent systems and interesting corners of the small web

A curated list for people who enjoy places like The Midnight Pub, ichi.city, Owl Report, and lipu Wikipesija: small, personal, federated, community-driven, old-web, low-tech spaces for writing, reading, hosting, wikis, feeds, and less addictive social systems.

Brutally honest criterion: this is not a list of “Twitter alternatives.” It is a list of places, protocols, and tools where the internet still feels handmade by actual people. Some are hosted platforms, some are self-hostable software, some are communities, directories, or alternative protocols.

1. Places close to what you already like

  1. The Midnight Pub — a virtual pub for writing posts, creating pages, and having textual conversations; it feels like a hidden literary bar on the web.
  2. ichi.city — a friendly community for creating a personal homepage, with a tiny digital-town spirit.
  3. Owl Report — an independent RSS/Atom feed reader, with source code available for people who want to contribute or host their own.
  4. lipu Wikipesija / Toki Pona Wikipedia — a wiki/Wikipedia in Toki Pona; linguistic minimalism pushed to the limit.
  5. sona pona — a wiki and knowledge base about Toki Pona.
  6. lipu tenpo — a magazine/zine written in Toki Pona.
  7. lili.nimi.li — a dictionary and visual resource hub for Toki Pona.
  8. ma pona pi toki pona — a community hub for Toki Pona speakers and learners.
  9. Linku / Toki Pona Dictionary — a modern community dictionary for Toki Pona.
  10. Tatoeba — a collaborative sentence database for many languages, including constructed languages.

2. Personal hosting / “make your homepage”

  1. Neocities — the spiritual successor to GeoCities; free/paid static hosting for personal websites.
  2. Nekoweb — free hosting for personal sites with an old-web/indie-web aesthetic.
  3. omg.lol — personal page, email, statuslog, fediverse identity, and small human-scale web tools.
  4. mmm.page — a visual personal-page builder; chaotic in the good way.
  5. Carrd — simple one-page websites; more mainstream, but useful for a minimal personal presence.
  6. Pika — simple blogging/publishing with a focus on independent writing.
  7. Bear Blog — a minimal blog platform: lightweight, text-first, and tracker-free.
  8. Mataroa — a minimal blogging platform with no ads and no tracking.
  9. Blot — turns a Dropbox or Git folder into a clean, simple blog.
  10. Zonelets — a simple static-blog generator with a handmade feel.

3. Writing, blogging, and independent publishing

  1. Write.as — minimalist publishing focused on writing, with a federated option through WriteFreely.
  2. WriteFreely — free software for federated, minimalist blogs.
  3. Micro.blog — blogging, microblogging, custom domains, photos, and a calmer community layer.
  4. Listed — publishing connected to Standard Notes.
  5. Scribbles — a simple personal-blogging platform.
  6. Ghost — professional independent publishing, newsletters, memberships, and ongoing ActivityPub work.
  7. Plume — federated blogging software using ActivityPub.
  8. Bear Blog Discovery — a directory of Bear blogs; great for finding people writing online.
  9. ooh.directory — a curated directory of independent blogs.
  10. blogroll.org — a blogroll/directory for discovering personal blogs.

4. Tilde communities / pubnix / social shell spaces

  1. Tildeverse — a network of tilde communities: social Unix servers, IRC, personal pages, and calm hacker culture.
  2. tilde.town — one of the best-known tilde communities; social Unix and text art.
  3. tilde.team — a shared server for learning, experimenting, and publishing.
  4. tilde.institute — an OpenBSD pubnix for learning and community use.
  5. tilde.club — a classic revival of ~user homepages.
  6. rawtext.club — a community centered on plain text, shell access, and simple web publishing.
  7. ctrl-c.club — a public Unix community with personal pages and community services.
  8. envs.net — a pubnix with shell, web, Gopher, Gemini, and other community services.
  9. SDF Public Access UNIX System — a legendary public Unix system, active since the early internet era.
  10. Cosmic Voyage — a tilde-style community built around collaborative science-fiction writing.

5. Fediverse and federated social networks

  1. Mastodon — federated microblogging via ActivityPub.
  2. GoToSocial — a lightweight ActivityPub server, good for small instances.
  3. Akkoma — federated social software derived from Pleroma.
  4. Pleroma — lightweight, self-hostable federated microblogging.
  5. Misskey — a Japanese federated network with a visual, feature-rich interface.
  6. Sharkey — a modern Misskey fork with extra features.
  7. Pixelfed — a federated alternative to Instagram.
  8. PeerTube — federated, self-hostable video hosting.
  9. Owncast — self-hosted livestreaming.
  10. Lemmy — federated link aggregation and communities, broadly Reddit-like.

6. More fediverse: forums, events, reading, and niche tools

  1. PieFed — a federated Reddit/Lemmy alternative focused on communities.
  2. Friendica — a federated social network with broad interoperability.
  3. Hubzilla — a federated platform with nomadic identity, channels, and advanced permissions.
  4. Streams — a federated social network descended from the Hubzilla/Zot ecosystem.
  5. Mobilizon — federated events and groups.
  6. BookWyrm — a federated social network for books and reading.
  7. Funkwhale — federated audio and music hosting.
  8. Castopod — podcast hosting with fediverse features.
  9. Bonfire — a modular toolkit for federated social networks.
  10. Fediverse.party — a guide for exploring federated platforms.

7. Forums, communities, and less algorithmic aggregators

  1. Tildes — a discussion forum/link aggregator without the usual large-platform chaos.
  2. Lobsters — a small, invite-based technical aggregator focused on computing.
  3. Hacker News — not small, but still a simple, text-heavy aggregator.
  4. SaidIt — an alternative Reddit-style aggregator.
  5. Raddle — an independent forum/aggregator with anarchist and anti-corporate culture.
  6. Mbin — federated microblogging and link aggregation software from the Kbin/Mbin lineage.
  7. Discourse — modern forum software used by many independent communities.
  8. Flarum — lightweight, elegant, self-hostable forum software.
  9. NodeBB — modern self-hostable forum software.
  10. 32-Bit Cafe — a community and resource hub for the personal web / indie web.

8. Small-web discovery, directories, and webrings

  1. Marginalia Search — an independent search engine focused on non-commercial and text-heavy sites.
  2. Wiby — a search engine for the “classic web,” excellent for strange and personal sites.
  3. Kagi Small Web — discovery for human-scale posts and small-web blogs.
  4. The Forest — a way to browse personal websites as if wandering through a forest.
  5. IndieWeb — a wiki/movement about owning your domain, your content, and your connections.
  6. IndieWeb Webring — a webring of IndieWeb sites.
  7. The Wayward Webring — a directory of independent webrings.
  8. Hotline Webring — a webring for personal and artistic sites.
  9. Retronaut Webring — a webring for personal sites with a retro/old-web flavor.
  10. Curlie — a human-edited web directory, the spiritual heir of DMOZ.

9. RSS, readers, personal digests, and anti-algorithm tools

  1. FreshRSS — a self-hostable RSS reader.
  2. Miniflux — a fast, minimalist RSS reader.
  3. Tiny Tiny RSS — a veteran self-hosted RSS reader.
  4. Feedbin — a clean and robust paid RSS reader.
  5. Inoreader — a more feature-heavy commercial RSS reader.
  6. Fraidycat — a low-anxiety tool for following people and sites.
  7. RSS-Bridge — generates RSS feeds for sites that do not offer proper RSS.
  8. RSSHub — generates RSS feeds for hundreds of sources.
  9. Feedle — a feed-based search engine for blogs and podcasts.
  10. Mailbrew — personal email digests built from feeds and chosen sources.

10. Alternative protocols, wikis, and tools for building your own corner

  1. Project Gemini — an alternative protocol to the web, simpler and more text-focused.
  2. Gemini Quickstart — a classic entry point for getting started with Gemini.
  3. Flounder — simple Gemini and web page hosting.
  4. The Gopher Project — a portal into the old Gopher protocol, still alive.
  5. TiddlyWiki — a personal wiki contained in a single HTML file.
  6. Federated Wiki — an experimental and fascinating federated wiki.
  7. DokuWiki — a self-hostable wiki with no database requirement.
  8. PmWiki — a simple, mature, flexible wiki engine.
  9. HedgeDoc — collaborative Markdown notes, self-hostable.
  10. Memos — self-hostable personal notes and microblogging.

Research notes and source trail

Recommended filters for later

To turn this into a genuinely useful map, I would split it like this:

  • to create a personal page right now: ichi.city, Neocities, Nekoweb, Bear Blog, omg.lol;
  • for daily reading: Owl Report, FreshRSS, Miniflux, Feedle, ooh.directory;
  • for community: tilde.town, tilde.team, 32-Bit Cafe, Tildes, Mastodon/GoToSocial;
  • for weird/poetic exploration: Midnight Pub, Gemini, Gopher, TiddlyWiki, Federated Wiki;
  • for self-hosting: WriteFreely, FreshRSS, Memos, HedgeDoc, DokuWiki, GoToSocial.

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100 independent systems and interesting corners of the small web · Murad Library