How this runs
What Nekotopia is, who's behind it, and how it actually works today.
What Nekotopia is
Nekotopia is a community for home labbers and retro geeks: a place to bring your hardware online, tinker with it, and share it with people who get just as excited about a humming rack or a 20-year-old workstation as you do. Wiki, forum, gallery, and a retro LAN, all wrapped around a private network that connects your kit to everyone else's.
The core idea is a ladder of exposure. Not every machine should sit in the same place on the internet. A precious vintage box you're keeping alive needs near-total isolation; a project you're actively building and want the world to reach needs the opposite. You pick the rung that fits each machine:
Private mesh
A WireGuard tunnel to your nearest hub. Your machine talks to other nodes on the network and nothing else. No internet breakout, no public address. The safe default for fragile or experimental kit.
Bridged Ethernet
Extend an L2 segment across the mesh so distant machines share a LAN as if they were plugged into the same switch. Retro protocols and LAN-only software just work.
1:1 dedicated NAT
A dedicated public IPv4 mapped straight to one machine via bidirectional NAT. Reachable from the internet, no router of your own required. A controlled door to the outside.
Fully routed public
A routable prefix advertised over BGP from your own router. No NAT, no middlebox, pure L3. You run your own slice of the public internet.
A two-decade-old box shouldn't sit raw on the internet. The point of the ladder is that you never have to. Each machine gets the security and exposure it needs, and you can move it up or down a rung whenever the job changes.
Who runs it
One person. Nekotopia was built and is operated by a single maintainer (Richard, "druk"), is self-funded, and is here for the community to share their passion for networking. It exists because it's the thing he wished existed and couldn't find. Nekotopia is somewhere to host old and odd hardware on a real network among people who'd appreciate it.
There's no sales team and no growth target; there never was one. It's a passion project that happens to run on production-grade plumbing.
How it runs right now
Right now, it's free. Basic is on for everyone; Plus and Pro are switched on after a chat with the maintainer. There is nothing to buy.
That said, this is honest about what keeps it alive. It runs on real infrastructure: WireGuard hubs in London and Ohio (three more regions built but offline), a RIPE NCC membership, BYOIP address space advertised over BGP, a web server, and a docker host running the wiki, forum and monitoring. That costs real money every month, and the maintainer covers it personally.
The breakdown below is shared so you can see what it takes to keep this running. It is not a pitch and there is nothing to pledge.
The plan
Nothing is for sale, and there is no paywall. Plus and Pro get switched on by hand after a conversation with the maintainer about three things: what you share (wiki write-ups, gallery entries, forum answers, Neko Pages listings), how long your machines stay on Torus, and how much of your allowance you actually use.
Use it, share it, then ask. A paid option for the heavier features may come later; if it does, it will be announced ahead of time. The ladder is on the Accounts page.
How it's run
A few principles that have held since day one:
Transparency first
Account tiers and access rules are published so members know what to expect.
Community over everything
It won't be sold. The community is the point.
Sustainable pace
Features, regions and users get added at a pace one person can actually support. No VC.
Open technology
WireGuard, BGP, RIPE-registered address space, standard routing. No proprietary protocols.
Project history
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free?
Yes. Basic is on for everyone at no cost, and Plus and Pro are switched on after a chat with the maintainer. There's nothing to buy and nothing to pledge.
What powers the network?
WireGuard hub routers in London and Ohio (three more regions built but offline), a FreeBSD web server, a docker host running wiki/forum/monitoring, NAT, load balancers, Transit Gateway peering, and RIPE NCC annual membership.
What's the difference between the NAT rung and the routed rung?
1:1 dedicated NAT gives one machine a dedicated public IP via bidirectional NAT. Simple, no router of your own needed. Fully routed gives you a routable prefix you advertise via BGP from your own router. No NAT; you control the routing. One is for getting a single box online; the other is for running your own network.
Who controls Nekotopia?
The maintainer is the sole decision-maker. Community input is valued and shapes the roadmap, but the buck stops in one place.
Will Nekotopia ever be sold?
No. This is a passion project. If circumstances ever changed, the community would be told and given options including data export and transition time.
Questions?
If you want to talk about the project or how something works:
- Email: signup@nekotopia.io
- Contact form: nekotopia.io/contact