Neocities is for nostalgic masochists.
The latest adventure in my search for a web host for a simple project brought me back in time to the reincarnation of Geocities: Neocities. I remember Geocities well, as I had a web site there and so did my wife. Plus I used to be one of the many volunteer admins for a part of it. So I was not unfamiliar with the concept and methodology of the 'static' web site.
Neocities is an accurate reproduction of the concept, with some slight changes as would be expected after ... 30 years? Has it been that long? Nearly, anyway. For one the html has changed a bit in the decades. That's only to be expected.
The question is: how good is the new version? Not "in comparison to the old" because on a purely 'site' basis they are the same. But how good is it for the intended purpose? Let's make an account and see.
Neocities is fairly well designed in terms of getting signed up and started. Very straight-forward and not loaded with 'glitz'. And not a speck of AI in sight. (Or should I say "in site"? LOL) But how easy is it to build your page there?
Oh boy, I had forgotten how hard it is to write every single bit of the tagging by hand! Also, the html editor is a strain on the eyes: coloured text on a black background is low contrast and difficult for some eyes to see. It is also very small. Of course you can construct your pages off line using the html editor of your choice and simply upload them. In that respect it is a much simpler and more comprehensible process than the more 'professional' sites.
However it does require knowledge of html. They have a nice tutorial the novice can run through, but it kind of 'boxes you in' to learn it the way it's presented, and that may not be the best. I found myself looking at off-site resources and constructing a text file of frequently used tags to supplement my ailing memory. And to better organise my thoughts for outlining a page design. Even so, I still had to go back through with the site's editor and correct mistakes. This is inevitable.
I looked at some of the pages hosted there and found some had done quite a good job with this 'primitive' system; high quality graphics and all sorts of work-arounds to create the desired results. Of course a lot of them were simplistic, both because that is the 'theme' of the place and because many of the 'builders' are just starting out and learning. It's all good.
But will it work for the project?
No, not really. The simplicity is welcomed, but at the same time its limitations make it difficult to be practical to the purpose. Not the fault of the site, merely a difference between need and application. Somewhere out there is a host that offers the simplicity of Neocities with a useful amount of the sophistication found at WordPress, but I haven't come across it yet.
If you want to dive into html for fun or for learning, Neocities is a-okay. I also looked briefly at their 'chief competitor' Nekoweb, but the initial impression I got of that was it's a bit too "Hello Kitty", if you know what I mean. (Many of the hosted pages had that same 'vibe', so perhaps that is the intent.)
Over-all I'd say Neocities and Nekoweb do a better job of accomplishing what they set out to do than either WordPress or WIX.