Httpster is a web design inspiration gallery: its curators save screenshots of websites they admire, add a few facts, and publish them as a reference archive for designers. Its taste is stated plainly on the About page — "Minimalism to the max. Typography with teeth. A less-is-more brutalist bent." (the page's actual title is blunter still: "Because fuck boring websites"). Unlike jury-scored platforms such as Awwwards, there are no awards, ratings or votes; inclusion is entirely the curators' call. And unlike bulk-scraped inspiration sites, all 3,116 listed websites (as of 2026-09-21) were picked by hand. The site itself is hand-coded by its founder, extremely lightweight, and free of accounts, pop-ups and clutter.
The screenshot above shows the homepage (captured 2026-09-21). Entries appear newest-first as thumbnail cards carrying just a title and a "Visit" outbound link, with the running total ("3116 websites featured") under the headline. The fixed strip of coloured dots along the right edge is a site-wide index: each dot is one listed website, tinted with that site's theme colour, grouped by archive page, and clicking a group jumps to that page.
At a glance
- URL: https://httpster.net/
- Type: Hand-curated web design inspiration gallery
- Cost: Free to browse; no paid features
- Sign-up: None — the site has no account system at all
- Interface language: English only (checked 2026-09-21)
- Operator: A personal project of Dominic Whittle, based in Tasmania, Australia (sources: About, site footer)
Background
Httpster was founded in 2012. As the founder tells it on the About page, he shared a studio with designer friends and they would email interesting sites to each other but keep losing track of them — so he built a website to hold the collection. A 2014 Creative Bloq write-up confirms the origin: "This site was built because our studio didn't have a good system of sharing and sorting the stuff we like to look at" (Creative Bloq, 2014-01-17).
The team has always been tiny (source: About):
- Dominic Whittle — founder, who "founded, curates, designs, and meticulously hand-codes Httpster".
- Tom Fitzgerald — co-curator, who suggested the name Httpster; the 2014 report notes he is from Guvnor (Creative Bloq).
- Jessica Cruickshank — hand-lettered the logotype used from 2017 to 2025 (since retired).
- James Rakich — helped build an earlier version; Dominic ran the digital studio Weekends with him for eight years.
The footer reads "© Copyright 2012—2026 httpster" and states the site is located on the island of Tasmania, followed by an acknowledgement of the Muwinina people as traditional custodians of the land (source: homepage, checked 2026-09-21).
Browsing and taxonomy
There is no search box. Browsing relies on two flat sets of tags, each showing its entry count (source: site navigation, checked 2026-09-21):
- Styles — 19 tags: Typographic (1,193), Photographic (1,412), Minimal (847), Colourful (923), Responsive (1,106), down to long-tail tags like Brutalist (5) and Low carbon (3). These describe the visual and interactive bent.
- Types — 29 tags: Design & Illustration (1,032), Showcase (610), Ecommerce (456), Architecture & Industrial Design (269), Event (158), Education (89) and so on, roughly matching industries or site purposes.
Each tag leads to a filtered grid, for example the Typographic style page below:
The homepage shows 24 entries per page in reverse chronological order, paginated via /page/2/ and so on. A light/dark theme toggle is available; the preference is stored in localStorage (source: privacy policy).
Entry pages
Every listed site gets its own entry page, deliberately sparse: title, outbound link, the date it was featured, its Style and Type tags, credits (e.g. who designed or built it), a few large screenshots, and previous/next navigation. The Making Software entry below, for instance, reads "Published 26 May 2025 / Style: Monotone / Type: Education / Credits: Written and illustrated by Dan Hollick".
Note that an entry page contains only screenshots and metadata — no design analysis, colour or type breakdowns. Screenshots are static snapshots taken when the site was featured; the target site may have been redesigned or shut down since (observation based on the entry-page format).
Submissions and update cadence
The About page currently states twice that "Submissions are currently closed", so new additions depend entirely on the curators' own discoveries (source: About, checked 2026-09-21).
Additions arrive in irregular batches rather than a steady stream. Entry dates on the homepage show clusters in June–July 2023, late 2023 and early 2024, with the most recent batch in April–May 2025; as of 2026-09-21 the newest entry is dated 26 May 2025 (sources: homepage entry dates and the Making Software entry). In other words, nothing has been added for well over a year. Treat Httpster as a stable archive, not a continuously updated feed.
Privacy, content policy and monetisation
The privacy policy (last updated 25 April 2025) is unusually plain-spoken:
- Analytics: Google Analytics 4 for overall traffic patterns (GA4 loads on pages, verified 2026-09-21). The policy notes the site previously used privacy-focused Fathom Analytics but dropped it over cost.
- Storage: no cookies of its own beyond GA4; localStorage is used only to remember the dark-mode preference.
- Personal data: none collected or stored beyond voluntarily submitted newsletter email addresses; no selling or sharing of personal data.
- Newsletter: the policy says emails are sent via Kit (formerly ConvertKit) with GDPR-compliant double opt-in. However, as of 2026-09-21 no sign-up form appears on the rendered homepage, About page or entry pages, so whether the newsletter can actually be joined is unclear.
- External links: listed sites are third-party properties; Httpster is not responsible for their content or privacy practices.
- Affiliate and sponsored links: the policy discloses that some links are affiliate/sponsored and may earn a commission. Sponsored cards for Mobbin and Webflow appear in the homepage grid (marked as sponsored in the page data, checked 2026-09-21).
Editorially, Httpster is curation rather than UGC: the screenshots are produced by the operator, submissions are closed, and there are no comments or uploads, so user-content moderation is not a concern. What matters to readers is the external-link and affiliate disclosure above.
Good use cases
- Finding real-world references in minimal, typographic or brutalist directions — especially for quick visual scanning, since the site itself is fast and distraction-free.
- Browsing by industry: the 29 Type tags cover architecture, fashion, ecommerce, events, music and more.
- Studying how web design taste has shifted: the archive goes back to 2012 with original feature dates intact, making it a decade-spanning sample of styles (observation based on the archive's time span).
Limitations
- Stalled updates: the latest batch is from May 2025 — over a year old as of 2026-09-21 — and with submissions closed there is no way to predict when (or whether) new entries will appear.
- Limited findability: no search, no RSS feed (/feed/ and similar URLs return 404), no account-based saving. You browse by tag and pagination; the dot index helps you jump around but cannot match keywords.
- Shallow entries: screenshots plus a few metadata fields only — no analysis, colour palettes or font notes.
- Narrow taste: heavily skewed towards minimal and typographic work; less useful if you need skeuomorphic, 3D-heavy or maximalist references.
- English only, and snapshots may no longer match the live sites (see above).
- Newsletter uncertain: the privacy policy describes a mailing list, but no working sign-up form is currently present, so the only reliable way to track updates is to revisit the site.
Similar sites
- Awwwards — also a web design inspiration platform, but built around jury scoring and awards, with conferences, courses and other ventures attached; much heavier in scope and mechanics than Httpster.
- Land-book, Godly, Lapa Ninja — fellow curated web design galleries, each with its own taste, taxonomy and update cadence; useful complements.
References
- Httpster homepage (checked 2026-09-21)
- Httpster About (checked 2026-09-21)
- Httpster privacy policy (checked 2026-09-21)
- Creative Bloq: Httpster collates cool, unpretentious website design (published 2014-01-17, checked 2026-09-21)
