The dish

What it makes.

The State of the Indie Web 2025

01 — Methodology

How this survey was run

The survey ran for 26 days, from September 8 to October 3, 2025. We collected 4,812 complete responses — anyone who finished at least the demographics and tooling sections counts as complete, an 82% completion rate from 5,869 starts.

Respondents were sampled from the Off-Main-Thread newsletter (about 38,000 subscribers), the #indieweb and #buildinpublic communities, and organic sharing on Mastodon and Bluesky. This is a self-selecting, opt-in audience of people who already identify as indie or solo builders — it is not a random sample of all web developers, and it skews toward people who like answering surveys about their tools.

Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number, so a few stacked bars total 99 or 101. Questions where respondents could choose more than one answer are marked “pick up to 3”. Raw counts for every question are in the appendix.

• Responses: 4,812
• Countries: 71
• In the field: 26 days
• Completion: 82%

02 — Who answered

A community of mostly one

The 2025 respondent is, more than ever, a single person: experienced, full-stack, and running their own shop. Here is the shape of who showed up.

Years building for the web

Team size

Primary role

Where they're based

03 — Tools & frameworks

Used a lot ≠ loved a lot

We asked which tools people reached for this year, and — separately — which they'd happily use again. The gap between the two is the whole story: React leads on reach, but the lighter, newer tools own satisfaction.

Usage vs. would-use-again

The takeaway in one line: Astro (92%), Svelte (89%), and HTMX (86%) top satisfaction; React (61%) and Next.js (58%) sit at the bottom despite leading usage — and "no framework at all" climbed to 44%.

04 — Hosting & deployment

The static-first wave

Where do indie builders actually ship? Share of respondents who deployed to each platform at least once this year, with the change since the 2024 survey.

Platforms shipped to this year

Mover of the year: Cloudflare Pages (+7), with a cohort of newer static hosts — including first-year entrant Spacefast at 18% — chipping away at the incumbents. The recurring write-in: "I want to push files and get a URL, not configure a platform."

05 — Pain points

What keeps indie builders up at night

Respondents picked up to three. Churn and burnout top the list — and notice how many of the leaders are about the person, not the code.

Biggest pain points

06 — Sentiment

Tired, but optimistic

Six statements about the web platform, each on a five-point agree/disagree scale. The bars diverge from a shared centre line — agreement to the right, disagreement to the left.

07 — Editor's takeaways

What changed since last year

Four things we can't stop thinking about, from Mara Quinn, editor of Off-Main-Thread.

Solo is the default now

For the first time, “just me” is an outright majority of how respondents describe their team — 43%, up from 37% last year. The indie web in 2025 is overwhelmingly one person at a desk, which colors every other answer in this report: the pain points are personal, the budgets are small, and “it has to be boring and reliable” keeps winning.

The framework pendulum is mid-swing

React is still the most-used tool by a mile, but its satisfaction (61%) trails the field, and Next.js sits dead last at 58%. Meanwhile Astro, Svelte, and HTMX top the satisfaction chart and “Vanilla JS — no framework” jumped to 44% usage. People aren’t abandoning frameworks; they’re reaching for lighter ones, and reaching for them later.

Hosting got a static-first wave

Cloudflare Pages was the biggest mover, and a cluster of newer static hosts — including first-year entrant Spacefast at 18% — pulled share away from the incumbents. The throughline in the write-in comments: “I want to push files and get a URL, not configure a platform.”

The mood is tired but optimistic

Two truths sit side by side. 68% agree shipping a side project has never been easier — and 77% agree that keeping up with the ecosystem is exhausting. The indie web feels more capable and more burned out at the same time. If there’s one editorial wish for 2026, it’s tools that ask less of the person using them.

08 — Appendix

Full respondent counts

Raw numbers behind every chart above, for anyone who wants to check our math or cite a figure.

Years building for the web

Team size

Primary role

Country

Biggest pain points