The Indie Web Map
The indie web is not a single thing. It's a loose collection of technologies, principles, communities, and platforms oriented around the same general idea: that people should own their own content, control their own presence online, and not depend on platforms that can disappear or change their terms at any time. Here's how the pieces fit together.
Protocols and Standards
The technical layer that makes indie web sites interoperate. These are open standards, not platforms — anyone can implement them.
Webmentions
A W3C standard for cross-site commenting and notification. When you write a post that links to someone else's post, you can send them a webmention — a notification that you've linked to them. They can display it on their site as a form of comment or engagement, without either party needing to be on the same platform. The indie web equivalent of a Twitter reply. Requires implementation on both sides but multiple plugins exist for WordPress, Hugo, Jekyll, and other common setups.
W3C standard · Widely implementedActivityPub
The W3C protocol underlying the Fediverse — Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, and dozens of other platforms. ActivityPub defines how servers talk to each other: how posts are published, how follows work, how notifications are sent. The key property is federation: a Mastodon user can follow a Pixelfed user without leaving Mastodon, because both platforms speak ActivityPub. Any platform implementing ActivityPub becomes interoperable with the entire Fediverse.
W3C standard · Fediverse backboneRSS and Atom
The original decentralized social network. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and Atom are XML formats that let any website publish a feed of updates that any reader can subscribe to. No algorithm, no platform, no engagement optimization — just posts in chronological order. RSS never died; it mostly retreated to power users and developers. The current RSS revival is real: feed reader usage has been growing since 2022, driven partly by Twitter's deterioration and partly by a general interest in algorithm-free reading.
Standard · 1999–presentMicroformats2
A way of adding machine-readable semantic structure to ordinary HTML. Instead of a separate API, microformats let you annotate your existing content so that other sites and tools can parse it. A blog post marked up with h-entry and p-name can be consumed by feed readers, webmention parsers, and other indie web tools without any additional infrastructure. The invisible plumbing of the indie web.
HTML extension · Semantic markupHosting and Platforms
Where indie web sites actually live. These range from full-service platforms with community features to raw static hosting.
Neocities
Free static site hosting with a social layer: you can follow other Neocities sites, which appear in your dashboard as they update. The community is active, skews young, and has developed its own aesthetic that mixes retro web references with technically competent contemporary design. Founded in 2013 as an explicit response to GeoCities' deletion. Hosts around 700,000 active sites. The follow system is the key difference from generic static hosting: Neocities is a platform, even if a deliberately non-algorithmic one.
Free · ~700k sitesSelf-hosting on a VPS
The maximum-control option. A virtual private server from Hetzner, DigitalOcean, or similar costs $5–10 per month for a basic setup adequate for personal sites, static generators, and light dynamic content. Requires comfort with SSH, basic server administration, and whatever static site generator or CMS you choose. The advantage is complete ownership: your content is where you put it, governed by your own decisions, readable by your own backups. The learning curve is real but well-documented.
$5–15/mo · Full controlGitHub / Netlify / Vercel Pages
Free static hosting from infrastructure companies. GitHub Pages, Netlify, and Vercel all offer free tiers that will handle traffic levels far beyond what most personal sites generate. The trade-off is that your hosting is still dependent on a company's continued existence and terms of service. Most indie web advocates treat these as reasonable options for the static HTML layer, with the caveat that content should always be version-controlled and backed up independently.
Free tier · Vendor dependencyCommunities and Discovery
How indie web sites find each other and build audience without algorithmic amplification.
Web Rings
A 1990s discovery mechanism being deliberately revived. A web ring is a group of sites that agree to be listed together and link to each other in a circular chain — each site has "previous" and "next" links that navigate through the ring. The original web rings used centralized directories; modern web rings are typically organized on Neocities, GitHub repos, or small dedicated sites. They work: being part of an active ring generates real referral traffic between sites with shared interests.
1990s concept · Active revivalIndieWeb.org
The community hub for the IndieWeb movement. Maintains a wiki with documentation on all the protocols and tools, runs regular "Homebrew Website Club" meetups in cities around the world, and hosts an annual IndieWebCamp unconference. The community is welcoming and actively maintained. The wiki is the best starting point for understanding how to implement any specific IndieWeb technology, with tutorials ranging from beginner to deeply technical.
Community · Wiki · EventsThe 32-bit Café
A Discord community and Neocities hub for people building personal sites. More focused on aesthetics and community than on technical IndieWeb protocols. Active channels for design critique, coding help, and site showcases. The community runs several web rings and maintains a curated directory of member sites. A good entry point for people who want to build a personal site and find a community around it, without necessarily wanting to implement webmentions on day one.
Discord community · Neocities adjacent