The
IndieWeb movement is a small group of about 400 passionate people who own their own place on the web. We want to increase this group in size, by helping you to join.
Let's grow the IndieWeb movementUntil now, joining the indie web was hard. That's why we are setting up
IndieHosters: a network of independent Hosters, who offer migration-oriented web hosting. This crowd-funding campaign aims to grow the IndieWeb. And you can be part of this unique moment in the history of the web!
This is the beginning of something bigAt the start, in this campaign, we are just two Hosters:
Pierre Ozoux and
Michiel de Jong. Our infrastructure is migration-oriented, so once we are up and running, it will be easy for new Hosters to join our network. And users will be able to migrate to a different Hoster whenever they want.
Because the migration procedure is just based on sending over a simplistic zip file of your data, any trained sysadmin can join the network as a Hoster, and start welcoming immigrating users.
And the IndieHosters revolution will not stop at IndieWeb; our network of Hosters will be able to offer any kind of personal server, not just personal blogs. We are
thinking of personal data servers like ownCloud or Cozy.
Eventually we will offer any personal server software you want,
including things like Diaspora, Mozilla Persona, and XMPP messaging.
We differ fundamentally from all other redecentralize-the-web projects
This is a big claim, but the fact that we don't develop software, makes us immune to the "not invented here" syndrom. We will host software that was developed by others.
We will not develop yet another control panel. Instead, we will host existing software. Your control panel as a user will be the admin interface of Known if you choose Known, and that of WordPress if you choose WordPress. For billing matters, such as updating your contact details, downloading your zip file, etcetera, you can either contact your hoster by email, or use the simple html form to submit a ticket, which your hoster will then deal with.
We will not develop yet another hosting platform. We host your website on a standard server configuration; we are just following standard practice to do this, and not reinventing the wheel. (for techies: we offload TLS with a standard haproxy setup, use SNI to allow multiple secure sites on one IPv4 address, and sandbox users with Docker)
We will not develop yet another federation protocol. The migration format is very simple, just the files needed to import a standard WordPress or Known site. (for techies: the migration format is simply the .pem, the .sql, and the .php files for the user's website). It's non-proprietary and well-documented, so whichever infrastructure someone else uses, they will always be able to import your site from the zip file we give you, and vice versa. This includes migrating from and to wordpress.com (the flagship instance for WordPress), and withknown.com (the flagship instance for Known).
You can become an IndieWeb participant
We will not spend your money on software development, just on hosting. We will use existing free software to run your internet domain. With the first perk of 50 euros for a year, you will become one of the participants in the IndieWeb. This includes:
a domain name
an SSL certificate
containerized hosting (either Wordpress with IndieWeb plugins, or Known)
email forwarding
technical support
hourly backups
one-click migration to another IndieHoster, without the need for renewed payment.
If you are generous, you can offer it to a friend, and we'll send you stickers. If you are really generous, you can offer it to two friends, and we send you the stickers and a beautiful organic cotton T-shirt.
And if you need help to get started, we can provide hours of training for 25€/hour.
How can we be that cheap?
We did careful calculations to offer you the best market price. We believe that 50€/year/website is the best we can do. It includes:
- 10€ for the domain name
- 10€ for the SSL certificate
- 10€ for the cost of hosting
- 1 hour to set up
- 1 hour of technical support
The Impact
One person starting IndieWeb today equals one person leaving Facebook or Twitter tomorrow. The IndieWeb movement is really important for us to get back our freedom!
Substantial accomplishments to date
Michiel has already realized some successful projects like Unhosted and Terms of Service; Didn't Read.
Pierre has a master in Computer Science, worked 2 years for Seedrs as System Administrator. He also contributed to major DevOps open source tools like Chef and Packer.
Press
![]()
"A New Service Will Help You Wrest Your Online Identity From Google" -
wired![]()
"Rejoignez IndieHosters, un réseau d'hébergeurs qui vous libère" -
Framablog![]()
"Reprenez le contrôle de votre identité en ligne avec IndieHosters" -
GIZMODO![]()
"IndieHosters entend recentraliser le web" -
toolinux
Risks & Challenges
The risks are
limited as we are currently hosting 15 alpha users on our
infrastructure. We already have everything working! Most of the work has
to be done to ease the process and the user experience.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you want to help, just speak about us to your friends and family!
As the project is open source, you can also help us to develop the infrastructure. Remember, we don't develop new software, but there is always packaging and configuration work to do (using Docker and CoreOS). We might need translations in the future. In any case, just send us an email, and we'll be really happy to hear you!
If you have any doubts about anything, please do not hesitate to drop us a line!
contact@IndieHosters.net
We are the Internet, nobody can stop us!
