Ask HN: A Web template created in just HTML and CSS. Would you consider buying?

#1

Post by interfacesketch » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 10:17 PM UTC

These are thousands of Web templates available for different products and frameworks e.g. WordPress, Ghost, Bootstrap, React, Vue, Hugo etc.

Would you ever consider buying a website template written simply in clean HTML and CSS, and with an attractive layout and graphics (but not tied to a product or framework)?

I ask because I am interested in creating something like this. But is it futile given how saturated the market for templates is? Would you only be interested in a template available for the framework or product you use?

Re: Ask HN: A Web template created in just HTML and CSS. Would you consider buying?

#2

Post by flurly » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 11:47 PM UTC

I'd love this. Nowadays frameworks are so complicated and opaque that it's hard to understand what's going on. Simple templates would be amazing. Maybe start simple with e-mail templates? Those are notoriously hard to get right.

Re: Ask HN: A Web template created in just HTML and CSS. Would you consider buying?

#3

Post by radicalriddler » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 5:40 AM UTC

I don't know how reputable they are, but envato has a marketplace for HTML site templates at https://elements.envato.com/web-templates/site-templates

I don't think a lot of them are particularly good though, and you might be able to fill a niche by making actual semantic web templates, with good clean design.

Re: Ask HN: A Web template created in just HTML and CSS. Would you consider buying?

#4

Post by gtirloni » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 11:30 AM UTC

Yes, I would. Please leave a reference to your product here when it's done.

Re: Ask HN: A Web template created in just HTML and CSS. Would you consider buying?

#5

Post by brtkdotse » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 12:18 PM UTC

If you want a data point, I purchased a Tailwind-based landing page template for 49$ and would've easily paid double.

Re: Ask HN: A Web template created in just HTML and CSS. Would you consider buying?

#6

Post by interfacesketch » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

Thank you everyone for your encouraging comments. As with any product, there's always the fear of "if I build, will they come?" But without building, I'll never know. So time to get building :-)

Re: Ask HN: A Web template created in just HTML and CSS. Would you consider buying?

#7

Post by dylz » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 7:19 AM UTC

radicalriddler wrote: post #3

I don't know how reputable they are, but envato has a marketplace for HTML site templates at https://elements.envato.com/web-templates/site-templates I don't think a lot of them are particularly good though, and you might be able to fill a niche by making actual semantic web templates, with good clean design.

99%+ of them are all terrible. Think jQuery 1 written in 2020 with hundreds of useless includes, over 50 web fonts loaded simultaneously to frontload on the feature list while providing nothing of value.

Re: Ask HN: A Web template created in just HTML and CSS. Would you consider buying?

#8

Post by johnthescott » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 7:56 AM UTC

yes

Re: Ask HN: A Web template created in just HTML and CSS. Would you consider buying?

#9

Post by pdevr » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

Yes, I will. Please post here when you build one. Clean and simple code is rare.