The idea of making a website has hit me many times throughout my life, mostly when I was seeking a job or when I ran into a cool blog post linked in a news aggregator. Aside from my teenage year services, like [Live/Dead]journal or MySpace, I didn’t give it a shot until a few months ago when I stumbled upon a post referencing Neocities.

While I haven’t followed through on fully utilizing the service and instead opted to do everything myself for www.aavina.com including:

  • Writing the HTML + CSS with no assistance from static site generators, though I really appreciate them!
  • Buying a domain at Namecheap and utilizing their DNS services
  • Setting up a virtual machine to host it on with Linode along with their great how-to guides
  • Using all the guides and references that helped make the site so far, like W3Schools

I have to say, after going through the experience and finally publishing the site, when I revisit Neocities I can truly appreciate the work Victoria Wang and Kyle Drake put into it. I loved doing it on my own but recognize that not everyone would, and that’s where Neocities can come in. All you’ll have to deal with is the first and last bullet points above. So hats off to them!

If you’re looking to try out making a simple web site then I highly suggest checking them out. It’s free to make one and includes hosting, easy guides to follow, and there’s a nifty network to discover other Neocities-hosted sites. If you happen to like what they do, consider becoming a $5/month supporter to help them keep afloat like I’ve done. It’ll also bump your disk space and other perks on the service. Here’s a link for more info.

P.S. You can visit my own at https://antacon.neocities.org/