What Is Hardcore IndieWeb Anyway?
If you’ve been on the web long enough, you probably remember a time when having a website meant writing HTML in a text editor, saving it to a folder, and uploading it to a server via FTP. No CMS, no database, no build pipeline. Just you, your words, and a URL.
The IndieWeb movement brings that spirit back. It’s a community-driven approach to maintaining your presence on the web that emphasizes owning your identity and your content completely. In 2026, with social media platforms collapsing, AI companies scraping everything in sight, and terms of service changing overnight, the idea of owning your own corner of the internet feels more urgent than ever.
Adam Newbold at Neatnik recently published a great piece called Hardcore IndieWeb, which argues for the most stripped-down approach possible: author your content on your hard drive, preview it locally, and upload it when you’re ready. No subscriptions, no databases, no JavaScript frameworks. Just HTML files on a server.
And the best part? You can do this for about $0.01 a day. That’s roughly PHP 0.60 at current exchange rates. Less than the price of a single text message.
Why Bother in 2026?
I know what you’re thinking. “Felix, WordPress exists. Medium exists. Substack exists. Why would I go back to writing raw HTML and FTPing files like it’s 1999?”
Fair question. But consider this: every time you publish on someone else’s platform, you’re renting their audience on their terms. They can change the algorithm, inject ads, train AI on your content, or shut down entirely — and you have no say in any of it.
The SaaS-ification of the web has been convenient, but it’s also made us dependent. The parallels to what I wrote about companies walking away from vendor-locked AI platforms are hard to miss — we’ve outsourced our digital presence to companies whose interests don’t always align with ours. The IndieWeb approach isn’t about being a purist — it’s about having a plan B. This is the same kind of thinking behind the EU forcing Google to open Android to rival AI assistants — challenging platform lock-in has become a defining tech debate of 2026.
This hit close to home for me back when I was setting up Bleuken. I went through several platforms before settling on self-hosted WordPress. Every migration was a headache. And I still rely on a database, plugins, and regular security updates. The IndieWeb approach eliminates all of that complexity. Your site becomes as durable as a text file.
What You’ll Need
The beauty of this approach is how little you actually need. Here’s the complete shopping list:
- A text editor — VS Code, Notepad++, Sublime Text, Nova, or even Notepad. Anything that can save .html files.
- A file transfer tool — FileZilla (free, cross-platform), WinSCP (Windows), or an editor with built-in FTP/SFTP support.
- A web host — This is where the $0.01/day comes in. NearlyFreeSpeech.net offers pay-as-you-go static hosting starting at a cent per day. You fund your account with as little as $0.25 and only pay for what you use.
- A domain name — Optional but recommended. You can use the free subdomain from your host to start, then add your own domain later.
- Basic HTML knowledge — And I mean basic. If you can write a <p> tag and an <a> tag, you have enough to build a complete website. HTML for People is a great free resource if you need a refresher.
That’s it. No package.json — which, after the jscrambler npm supply chain attack, might actually be a relief — no composer.json, no Dockerfile, no CI/CD pipeline. You don’t even need a command line if you don’t want one.
Step-by-Step: Setting Up Your Independent Website
Step 1: Sign Up for Hosting
Head over to NearlyFreeSpeech.net and create an account. Fund it with a dollar or two — at $0.01/day, that covers three to six months of hosting. Add a new site, choose “Static (non-production)” as the site type, and note your SFTP login details from the Sites tab.
The setup is about as straightforward as it gets. You get a free subdomain (something like yoursite.nfshost.com) that works immediately while you decide on a custom domain.
Step 2: Create Your Landing Page
Your landing page is index.html. This is the first thing visitors see when they type your URL. Create a new file in your text editor and save it as index.html. Here’s a minimal template to get started:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>My Independent Website</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to My Corner of the Web</h1>
<p>This is my independent website. I built it myself, one HTML file at a time.</p>
<p>Check out my latest post: <a href="blog/my-first-post.html">Hello, IndieWeb!</a></p>
</body>
</html>Step 3: Write Your First Blog Post
Create a folder called blog in your project directory, and inside it create a file called my-first-post.html. Write your content in HTML — headings, paragraphs, links, images. Keep it clean and semantic.
Here’s the thing that surprised me most about this approach: there’s something deeply satisfying about writing a blog post as a standalone HTML file. Each post feels like its own little creation, not just another row in a database. You can give each post its own style if you want, deviate from templates, add unique touches. Try doing that with a CMS template system.
Step 4: Create an RSS Feed
An RSS feed is just an XML file. Seriously. Create a file called feed.xml (or atom.xml), copy the Atom feed template from Wikipedia, replace the example data with your own info, and add an <entry> section for each of your posts. Then run it through the W3C Feed Validator to make sure it parses correctly.
Managing your own feed sounds like madness until you realize it’s just copy-paste with a few changed values. Every time you publish a new post, add a new <entry> to the top of the file, update the updated date, and re-upload. That’s it.
Step 5: Upload Everything
Open your file transfer tool, connect to your web host using the SFTP details they provided, and drag your files from your local folder to the remote server’s web root (usually /home/public on NearlyFreeSpeech).
The first upload copies everything. After that, you only transfer what changed: a new blog post, an updated index.html with the link to it, and an updated feed.xml with the new entry. The whole process takes maybe two minutes.
Step 6: Add a Custom Domain
Once you’re ready to make your site official, buy a domain name — Cloudflare Registrar sells domains at cost, and Namecheap is a solid option for .com and .ph domains. Point the domain’s DNS to your host’s nameservers or add an A record pointing to their server IP, and configure the domain in your host’s control panel.
What About Security?
One advantage of this approach that I don’t think gets enough attention: your attack surface is tiny. No database to SQL inject. No PHP to exploit. No plugin vulnerabilities to patch — and if you’re worried about what your current tools are sending to external servers, I showed exactly how to audit AI coding tools for data leaks in a previous guide. The only moving parts are your web server (managed by the hosting provider) and your HTML files.
For HTTPS, NearlyFreeSpeech provides free Let’s Encrypt certificates. Once set up, they auto-renew. No maintenance required.
That said, you’re still responsible for backups. The good news is that your entire site lives on your hard drive — backing up is literally copying your project folder to another drive or cloud storage. No database dumps, no export tools, no proprietary formats.
What You Give Up
I want to be honest about the trade-offs, because this approach isn’t for everyone or every use case.
- No WYSIWYG editing — You write HTML directly. If you’re used to Gutenberg or Medium’s editor, this will feel like a step back. For some of us, that’s the point. For others, it’s a dealbreaker.
- No comments — You can add a third-party comment system like utterances (GitHub-based) or Remark42, but it won’t be seamless like WordPress comments.
- No search — Unless you add a third-party search widget or rely on Google’s “site:” operator.
- No analytics — Again, you can add something like Umami or Plausible, but it’s an extra step.
- Manual process — Every post requires creating a file, linking it from your landing page, updating your feed, and uploading. It’s not automated, and that’s by design.
But here’s the thing: every one of those trade-offs is a trade-off for independence. You’re not giving up anything that someone else controls — you’re choosing to manage it yourself because you value ownership over convenience.
Is This for You?
If you’re a developer, writer, or just someone who cares deeply about their digital presence, I think this approach is worth trying — even just as a side project. There’s a certain clarity that comes from stripping away all the layers of abstraction between you and your content.
I’m not suggesting you abandon WordPress or whatever platform you’re using today. But running a simple independent site alongside your main blog, or using it for a specific project or portfolio, gives you a taste of what the web felt like before everything became a platform. And honestly, it’s kind of liberating.
The best part? If your host goes down tomorrow, you don’t lose anything. Your entire site is sitting in a folder on your computer. You can upload it to any other host in minutes. No export tools, no format conversion, no vendor lock-in. Just HTML files, ready to serve.
That’s real independence. And in 2026, that’s worth more than $0.01 a day.