Nekoweb vs Neocities or.... both? Are we moving? Mirroring?

[torrent-empress]

Hey everyone!

So I made my neocities account a bit ago and got my website up, I'm pretty proud of it https://torrentempress.neocities.org

but I'm going to be honest, I already noticed just by hosting most of my art I'm already through a quarter of my space in the free tier. It's not that neocities is too much money, but I am kind of iffy on the creator after his very lukewarm response to the members about ""AI"" generated art being allowed on the host and his stances about NSFW - I get that he can't do much if the government comes down on him, but it's moreso the vibe of his dismissiveness. But I really like the neocities community and I want to make a seperate website for my webcomic. It's a fancomic so right now I'm hosting it on AO3 but I'm currently working on my own website for it, so I know I'm going to have to upgrade either neocities or nekoweb soon.

I know some people mirror their website on both - if you do, or if you have opinions/experiences on either nekoweb or neocities definitely weigh in??

[Tuffy!]

I make use of both hosters and nekoweb seems more permissive when it comes down to hosting different file types, bigger file sizes etc. I currently use nekoweb as my second home, for parts of my sideprojects, to host sound files (which aren't allowed to upload to neocities) and as hosting foundation of the rotten fishtank "game" that I have included via iframe on my main site.

Your post inspired me to think about mirroring my main homepage on nekoweb as well.

Nekoweb itself has listed some of the key differences between nekoweb and neocities:
not all of those are available in the free tier

its pretty similar to Neocities. Few differences are:
- you can customize your site box
- no file type limits for free
- no content security policy for free, you can fetch things freely
- you can invite others to edit your site
- you can see 1 month of site statistics for free instead of 1 week
- FTP instead of WebDAV
- Git support
- arguably better file editor: switch file within editor, supports autocompletion, emmet, formatting and more
- ability to use NekoVM to build your site with any js static site generator or framework
- support for custom http headers
- instead of social features directly on site, we only have a RSS feed
- cheaper donator perks: you can get all perks for $3 vs $5 on Neocities
- cool centralized community on discord
- the fact that, well, it's not Neocities. good to have another alternative, right?

Personally I like the neocities editor more. And their 1-click "download the whole site button" is always tempting (not sure if nekoweb has this feature as well) but nekoweb offers ftp transmission in their higher tier models.

[fairyrune]

the only problem that i have with nekoweb at the moment is that i have seen people say that the owners are unwilling to allow people using VPNs to register and use the site. i've checked just now; this is still the case. i am unwilling to give my IP address out freely, so i will have to make do with neocities.

it's unfortunate, but neither site is "perfect" - part of understanding the web is, i think, knowing there is no perfect home unless you build one for yourself from the ground up. overall nekoweb is better value, and probably a good idea for artists in particular. though, that makes it sting all the more that they're not open to VPN users at all...

[Corrupted Unicorn]

( "No sir not getting out of this chair" - Courage the Cowardly Dog meme)

Listen. If I were to get out of any place everytime I did disagree with its owner about something, I'd run out of places on Earth to go!     

I'm also not fond of Nekoweb's... "vibe", either. I feel like Neocities is at least a bit more subtle & neutral in its presentation. I'm aware this is entirely subjective, personal, and even petty, but at least it's mine 

[wolfkitty42]

I switched to Nekoweb because my school blocked Neocities last year... I really prefer how Nekoweb lets you use audio files for free. I also enjoy that they let you make two accounts. I am considering buying a support eventually because I have consistently had a good experience.

The VPN thing people mentioned is kind of a pain, though. It affects multiple people signing up from one IP address, which I discovered recently because I wanted to do an HTML and CSS project at my school and I planned to use Nekoweb until I discovered that you can't sign up multiple people from one IP address. We're still trying to work it out.... I understand wanting to prevent botting, but it can be frustrating.

[Tuffy!]

I understand wanting to prevent botting, but it can be frustrating.

Here we go. I have a very high chance of triggering the anti-bot systems whenever I sign-up for something on the web. Not sure if it has to do with my usage patterns, my mouse being broken or my pc setup in general.

It really is frustrating!

Hadn't any issues with neko or neocities BTW. <- I managed to get back on topic

[Marziponder]

There is a middle ground between using hosting providers like Neocities and Nekoweb vs going all the way to self hosting. I have been using DigitalOcean Droplets to great success on a site I'm working on.

The advantage is that Digitalocean is more "enterprise" focused, so they don't really care at all about what you're hosting so long as it isn't straight-up illegal. The other cool thing is that since you get root access to the server you can do whatever you technologically want with it. You can host sites, but also just files, media, or even have running software, etc.

The downsides are that it costs at least $6 month (a fixed price depending on the server power you choose, could be higher), but most of all that it's very technical. Need to know Linux command line stuff, SSH stuff, DNS stuff, SFTP stuff, etc. Not gonna lie, it's kind of a pain and do take like 8+ hours depending on if you have zero experience with any of that.

That said, you do have basically full control over everything. For those who want to host more risque or edgy content, or who want to be independent and non-reliant on third parties as much as possible, I think it is a very good solution which still lets you run a site without needing to build your own PC just to serve it and all that other stuff associated with the self-hosting route.

The basic steps to do this are:

Set up an SSH key
Pay to get a DigitalOcean Droplet
Add your SSH key to that Droplet
SSH into the Droplet and install web server software of your choice
SFTP your site files into a directory of your choice on the Droplet
Configure your server software to serve that directory
Buy a domain name from whatever provider you like (I like porkbun)
Configure your DNS to point to your Droplet's IP address
Victory


If anyone is interested in a detailed guide on how to go about this I could maybe write on up and put it somewhere on my own site for you and others to see. Would anyone be interested in reading such a guide?

[torrent-empress]

Unironically I love the vibe of nekoweb more but neocities has more community

[Nael]

There is a middle ground between using hosting providers like Neocities and Nekoweb vs going all the way to self hosting. I have been using DigitalOcean Droplets to great success on a site I'm working on.

I have been itching to swap to a middle ground, as you put it, but I have so much stuff and sites packed on my server and the idea of moving everything and learning linux is daunting  @_@ Can't wait to see what you are creating tho!

Unironically I love the vibe of nekoweb more but neocities has more community

I second this feeling. Web crafting can be pretty lonely and neocities at least make it easier to interact with others

[torrent-empress]

If anyone is interested in a detailed guide on how to go about this I could maybe write on up and put it somewhere on my own site for you and others to see. Would anyone be interested in reading such a guide?

I just wanna say that I definitely would be willing to read a guide on this but I don't want to be imposing since I don't know if I'd be able to get around to it for a while!!!

It's been so long since I've even really touched the command line that I've been like.... kind of dreading it all. I cannot believe I used to be the kind of girl that was winning hackathons and stuff because I'm so rusty on any and all programming I feel like lmao. I have seen people run mini private webhosts through digital ocean which is super intriguing so I think if I ever got a clique of friends I would do that.

[arcus]

Nekoweb relies on Cloudflare which has so many problems I'm just going to link to its Wikipedia page instead. If you're moving for moral/ethical reasons, you seriously do not want to give your money to Cloudflare.

To be fair, Nekoweb's admin might be unaware of Cloudflare's problems. Cloudflare has had so many controversies that the more serious ones get drowned out.


Hosts that don't use Cloudflare's CDN:

• Nearly Free Speech (Openly anti-fascist)
• Web 1.0 Hosting (For older style sites, no NSFW policy as far as I can tell)
• Marigold Town (Has a small town theme, 2 GB limit, unsure if donations can expand that, worth asking?)
• ichi (No paid plans, very limited storage, SFW only, listing for the sake of it)
• Comic Fury (For comics, a pretty popular host, has automatic RSS feeds)
• Neocities doesn't use it, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Good luck finding a solution.

[Marziponder]

The pricing of Nearly Free Speech looks great! And the fact that it's by usage on all three dimensions of hardware...I may have to try them out. Have you used them before?

My site is currently hosted on AWS Amplify and I really like that it easily hooks into my gitlab project and auto publishes changes on my main branch. Buuuut I want to start archiving big files and hosting some large videos (200MB or so) and Amplify refuses to serve mp4s correctly.

I will report back on the NFS experience if I do try it.


And torrent-empress, thanks for letting me know! It sounds like a nice thing to document so I would like to do it, it helps a lot to know at least one person is interested in reading it. But yeah I totally get not getting to it right away. Life is busy. I've been deep down the web crafting rabbit hole the last two weeks and soon I'll have to start giving some time back to real life for a bit . I will also report back when that's published

[grubbyfox]

i use both and like them. nekoweb made it a bit easier for me to get into, idk it just sort of clicked easier. but they're both good and i like keeping my options open

[arcus]

The pricing of Nearly Free Speech looks great! And the fact that it's by usage on all three dimensions of hardware...I may have to try them out. Have you used them before?

I have not, but it's a fairly popular host. A few people here use it: starbreaker uses it and so does candycane.

[BlazingCobaltX]

In the vein of "nothing is perfect", Neocities does exactly what I need it to do so I feel very little need to change things. Should I ever move away from Neocities, the logical next step would be some sort of self-hosting and not more of the same.

If anyone is interested in a detailed guide on how to go about this I could maybe write on up and put it somewhere on my own site for you and others to see. Would anyone be interested in reading such a guide?

I would also be interested. The way webmasters talk about moving to self-hosting makes it sound easy, but nobody really explains the steps of stepping it up and the migration. A tutorial would really help with seeing how much 'investment' is needed to do this.