smallweb-search

Wiby

A search engine devoted to hobbyist and early-web pages, complete with a 'surprise me' button that serves up a random old page. Search on the site itself, or via its simple JSON search endpoint, which this site can query directly. Good for serendipitous discovery of the classic web and for finding small hand-made pages on a topic.

Web full-text API

Search this archive

Why it’s useful & how it works

Wiby indexes only the classic, hand-made web: simple pages built by individuals, without heavy JavaScript, advertising, or corporate polish. A 'surprise me' button serves a random page from the index, which alone makes it useful for serendipitous discovery of sites you would never otherwise encounter. Echo can query Wiby directly through its JSON endpoint and return results in-page alongside other sources.

What’s inside

Wiby's index is intentionally small and curated, covering thousands of lightweight hobbyist and personal pages rather than the broader web. Sites are added through community submissions, so the collection grows slowly and by human selection rather than automated crawling at scale.

API access

https://wiby.me/json/?q= <q>

What we measured

Our own probes, not the archive’s own claims. Re-run periodically; every reading below is dated.

Reachability

Direct request: Responded HTTP 200 871 ms
Through a datacenter proxy: Responded HTTP 200 616 ms
API, direct: Responded HTTP 200 199 ms
API, through a proxy: Responded HTTP 200 1.3 s

Did a real search return anything?

Returned results · 12 results for the sample query · median 917 ms · stable across runs

Sample query: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepixFull.html

Benchmark coverage

Found 10 of 10 test items (100%) in the Web full-text cluster. Median response 329 ms.

By how well known the item is: 3/3 well-known, 4/4 mid, 3/3 obscure .

One item it found: https://linus.coffee/music/i-wont-give-up/

Reachability measured 2026-08-22. Search checked 2026-08-22. Benchmark run 2026-08-22.