I'm the person who writes the ‘I’m on so many different sites thread' and is overall very active within the community. I've not been around that long so my opinions might be a bit different compared to people who have been at this longer than me ^^. I've seen lot's of people throw their hat in the ring on how they feel about the state of various webhosting websites. As opposed to the In depth reviews I usually give in my ‘I’m on 5 different sites' or ‘8 different sites’ threads I'm going to do a small breakdown on some sites I wish to talk about.
I will be mainly base this thread on site traffic/ Activity as well as where I feel these sites are going to be currently and in the near future. Think of this as essentially part 3.
I feel that right now webcomic hosting sites are very reminiscent of the 5th generation of game consoles (Nintendo V Sega V Sony V Atari V Panasonic e.t.c.). Albeit with one main difference, we don't have a site that's a perfect 1 to 1 with what Sony was in 1994/5 nor an up and coming site that necessarily has the massive marketing budget that company had. Luckily for us, Webcomic hosting sites are not game consoles. Game Consoles are a massive financial risk in a way that websites for the most part simply aren't.
For Instance The Duck is in many ways the webcomic hosting site equivalent of Atari. It's old school but thankfully it is still alive.
From what i've been seeing personally as well as talking to the admins running the platform. The site is making a bit of a comeback, this is good news for anybody who made NSFW or adult orientated comics. Years ago the Duck was in quite a bit of turmoil with site glitches (Like comments randomly going missing) ; however nowadays the site is looking stronger. More people are choosing to back it on Patreon and things are honestly looking up. If you make adult comics join this site, if you want to make money on your adult comics. Use the site button feature to link to your Patreon or Ko-Fi or honestly anywhere you want linking too. Now is a very good time to give this site a try, things are genuinely going well right now.
Comic Fury is a similar story, more people have been joining it as of late and have been giving it a try. It's a site that doesn't really have a 1 to 1 with a 5th generation game console. Like the Duck it doesn't have an app due to the fact many of it's comics are NSFW. If you make adult content join this site as well. If you hate AI comics they have them banned completely from the website. I won't be discussing AI in any detail in this thread I just felt it was something I needed to quickly bring up. Overall site's growing, things are looking good. Hopefully Kyo can start affording meals other than cans of Beans in the near future *brrrr. I find this site has surprisingly good synergy with Tapas as they both have fleshed out forums. There's also quite a lot of places that newer creators can get help with their works. I sometimes wonder what my journey with all of this would have been like If I joined Comic Fury first. I think Fury, Duck and Tapas are much more beginner/creator friendly compared to Webtoons. They have dedicated forums you can go to and overall better site visibility. One thing I willl say is the site has some top tier fan artists. Shoutouts2 the creator of Nocturne 21 Still love this one.
Before I talk about the next two sites there are two things I need to address. 1. Ad revenue is down everywhere. 2 Youtube is in a stupid war with Ad blockers and as a result has inadvertently made people switch to stronger Ad Blockers to view it's website. So as a result more people have ad blockers now.
This isn't a particularly good look for Tapas on the surface. The reason why things like watch ads for free has been scaled back is likely because there's less ad revenue to go around. That being said I personally do not believe Tapas is in anyway doomed. In fact I believe the site is actually attracting new creators and readers. I post on other people's walls a lot and I run into quite a few people who are deciding to come back to Tapas and give it a try. So I think in the near future Site traffic will actually be going up a bit. People also want to get their comics and novels up on more sites and Tapas is one of the more well known sites to mirror onto. So overall it's good news and bad news. Good News is higher site traffic is always a good thing, Bad News is the reason free Ink rewards are getting scaled back in places is probably because they're not making as much ad revenue. I've not been on this site that long but I am very active on it, i've also read up on older sites that were discontinued like SmackJeeves. Tapas hasn't made a colossally Bad decision like Jeeves did as of yet. So I think this site will be ok I could be wrong, but I think it's going to be alright. The Youtube ad Blocker war might in theory benefit this site a little bit at some point because the Tapas offer wall rewards people for engaging with ads more directly. It is possible that advertisers could see Tapas as lucrative and want to start bidding for ad space. We'll have to wait and see on that one that is just a theory of a potential outcome. I will say this, which I will be saying briefly for Webtoons *clears throat * ahem ‘If you do well on this site and you love the site. I see no harm in continuing (ATM), if you have your reasons for not liking the site or want to try other options, there are a lot more options now. (End quote) ’ I personally love this site and have a lot of fun on it I am a desktop user and don't use apps much so that does play a part in it. I love the forums, I love the Discord, Inksgiving was amazing, the contests are run very well. I strongly suggest keeping an eye out for them and giving them a go.
Anyway time for Webtoons:
Some Creators have been leaving the site because they're fed up and want to try other options. This is a big reason why everywhere other than said website has been growing. On a positive note I have been informed I helped get the infamous comment bot fired after I left the site. The Terms of Service caused a panic earlier this year but it's been ameliorated and it's water under the bridge. The site is considering a tipping system the Tipping system is not implemented yet so i've nothing else to say on that aspect. time for the quote from earlier Scrolls up *clears throat presses ctrl V: ‘If you do well on this site and you love the site. I see no harm in continuing (ATM), if you have your reasons for not liking the site or want to try other options, there are a lot more options now.’ If you're like me and your comic flopped on there and you chose to leave you've no need to worry. There are lots of other sites to try that have much better visibility. If you are someone who does do well. Be wary of signing any originals contracts I've heard war stories about people who have signed them and have been worse off for it. Other people have gone into depth on this in the past so I will leave it at that. If you make romance comics, Slice of life or Iseakai's it's worth a try but not much else seems to do well on it nowadays.
Now For Globalcomix.
(Custom logo also Globalcomix is technically one word)
The site is growing, thanks to the Globalcomix app dropping. They've also overhauled the comment section a bit and so far the changes are well received. The App is in it's early days but it is a solid app. Even though the site has comics by publishers, like image or Dark Horse. Indie comics from what i've seen effectively rule the site with an iron fist right now. I have also read the Terms of Service, it's fairly reasonable it's nothing too dissimilar from Tapas or Namicomi. Only thing it mentions is they might share some overall site analytics and look at how people are using the site. I'm not a lawyer but nothing seemed particularly shady or untoward. Like anything be optimistically wary, but in my experience it is a great website. Professionals even have a commissions section to advertise in, that might be worth looking into. It's also much better for Adult orientated comic makers in comparison to Webtoons or Tapas. ATM AI comics are not allowed to make money on the site. Everytime I upload there's a AI disclaimer I need to click on everytime I update.
I've said this before and i'll say it again It's growing fast… very fast. I get the impression It's owners genuinely seem to care about creators.
Now for Namicomi
(Thirley Peak themed banner lol)
Namicomi is a beast, I joined it recently as was floored by how good it was. I wouldn't be surprised if in future Globalcomix and Namicomi compete with each other like present day Playstation and Xbox. With WT and Tapas sort of just sticking around in the background. Namicomi has so much going for it. A social page that's just like Twitter, the ability to set tiers like Patreon and Ko-Fi, contests, to enter with real cash prizes. It's still in beta but holy heck baskets this site went from potentially great to amazing the moment they got notifications sorted! Hawk and Flo Adventures is launching on there on January 1st. I hope I can do well on Namicomi it's a genuine beast of a website. Only thing is when you update it needs to get reviewed by a moderator before your chapter goes up. It might also have a few site quirks because it's still in beta, other than that double thumbs up, double toes up. It's still small but it's only a year old and it's making big strides! S tier site even though it's traffic is a bit small right now It's only going to grow from here. Very exciting time to be on Nami.
Next is Blocktoons
^ I don't have a custom logo for this site so here's a screen cap
Blocktoons has a lot of good ideas, reader rewards. online gaming style leader boards but, site traffic is low and it took Thirley Peak a week for one chapter to get verified. Then when it was verified the comic glitched and nobody could read it… It's still in beta, to be fair so things like that will happen. Cool news is my friend MK Wizard has recently become an Admin on there. Again I like what this site tries to do, but it's not quite there yet. Might want to wait for more site traffic. I don't want to put anybody off of trying it by all means do so, It's got some great ideas, but it needs a bit of work.
Listing websites like Top Webcomics, Indie Comics Zone, Top Webcomics and Comic Rocket advertise you for free. That being said it's debatable how effective they are. In fairness they're mostly low effort and it doesn't hurt to give it a shot. I know one person who actually got a backer from Top Webcomics so you never know.
Spider Forest and Hiveworks are publishers you pitch your stuff, if they like it they'll say yes.
Mangaplus is great if you make Mangas vert scrollers work on it too. I have a few friends that are on it and they genuinely enjoy it.
Reddit is a solid site for gag comics, outside of that it's a social media site you can use for promotion. Even though self promo is mainly looked down upon on Reddit. TBH I like browsing it occasionally but i'm not the biggest fan of uploading images or threads like this on it. I really wish people could look at an image as opposed to a wall of text like this one When browsing.
Tumblr has a lot of potential but it's hard to grow on it. Oddly it's the 2nd/3rd largest webcomic hosting site currently. Part of the reason why is because it's a genuinely good option for hosting webcomics. Lots of creators use it's customisable site layouts much like I do with Duck and Comic Fury. People can tip you directly which is cool though I've not done it myself personally. I think this is another case of ‘If you have already done well on it there’s no harm staying, but if you aren't doing well there's lots of other sites to chose from.
One last thing before I go because I don't want this post to be too long is here's an updated version of the Webcomic hosting site tier list!
Now breifly onto the sites D tier and lower :
Okida: I feel a bit bad for. it's not particularly bad but there's one thing that pretty much ends it's whole career. It has next to no site traffic at all that's it lol.
Deviantart: I don't feel sorry for, the whole site is just full of AI art now. Even people who have been on the site a long time and loved it in the past have few good things to say about it currently.
Mangatoon: I hear nothing but war stories, same goes for Webcomics. I once heard Webcomics didn't allow someone to delete their comic from the site… yikes.
Pocket Comics: is atrocious it used to be Smack Jeeves but now basically exists as an elaborate and corporate way to troll Webtoons. The owners of Pocket comics keep buying up smaller domain names solely to link back to it's trashy website.
So yeah there's bound to be some dour spots but tbh we've got plenty of good days ahead of us.
Competition is a good thing, we have more options now than ever. Best piece of advice I can give is be open minded and try most of these sites out. If there are any i've missed feel free to suggest them. I don't recommend anything on the list D tier or lower currently. Blocktoons I think will get genuinely better in the near future so that site is worth trying. Everything above it, give it a go see if you like it.
Hope this helps thank you for reading. I need to get to bed if i've made any typos let me know lol XD
