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7-min read · 2026-05-20

Sites Like itch.io — 7 Indie & HTML5 Game Discovery Alternatives

itch.io is iconic — open uploads, pay-what-you-want, and the deepest indie + experimental game catalog on the web. But once you've drained your wishlist, where do you go? Here are seven sites with overlapping catalogues and complementary editorial angles.

Why itch.io is hard to replace

itch.io combines three things almost no other site has under one roof: an open self-publishing pipeline, native browser play (HTML5 / WebGL / Construct / Pico-8), and a tagging system deep enough to find very specific genres (yandere simulator, hangin-by-a-thread roguelite, etc).

It also hosts plenty of NSFW content and game jams, which gives the discovery surface a culture all its own. Most alternatives drop one or two of those properties for a cleaner consumer experience.

Seven complementary alternatives

  • Newgrounds (newgrounds.com) — the original Flash-era indie portal, now mostly HTML5. Strong music + animation cross-pollination, vibrant comment culture.
  • GameJolt (gamejolt.com) — younger, more discord-flavoured indie hub. Stronger social features than itch.io, less professional storefront.
  • Kongregate (kongregate.com) — old-school web-game portal, still publishing originals with achievement / leaderboard infrastructure baked in.
  • Game Jolt (separate from above duplicate, intentionally) — hosts a lot of Friday Night Funkin / Bonelab-style mod culture that itch.io doesn't always surface.
  • Steam (store.steampowered.com) — when an itch.io indie hits, it usually graduates to Steam. Use Steam to follow up on titles you discovered on itch.
  • CrazyGames + Poki — when an itch.io HTML5 game blows up, the publisher networks pick it up. PolyTrack started on itch and ended up on CrazyGames trending.
  • PixelGamesHub (this site) — curated discovery hub for the HTML5 subset of indie + commercial mini-games. Heavier curation, weaker depth, faster to decide what to play.

Which one for which use case

Want experimental / weird / jam games: itch.io is irreplaceable. Newgrounds and Game Jolt are the closest, but their catalogues are a fraction of itch's.

Want polished HTML5 mini-games: CrazyGames, Poki, or PixelGamesHub. itch.io has a layer of polished HTML5 too (Polytrack, Sprunki, Drive Mad started here) but the discovery is harder.

Want commercial indie games: Steam is the destination. itch.io is often the prototype shelf.

Want games with active communities (jams, modding, Discord): Newgrounds and Game Jolt. itch's community is quieter.

How HTML5 mini-game catalogs differ from itch.io

  • itch.io is open submission. CrazyGames, Poki, and PixelGamesHub all curate at the editorial layer — fewer titles, higher polish baseline.
  • itch.io supports paid sales. The HTML5 portals are universally free-to-play with ad / sponsorship monetisation.
  • itch.io plays Construct, Pico-8, and other niche runtimes natively. HTML5 portals stick to standard JavaScript / WebGL / WASM.
  • itch.io's tagging is anarchic but deep. HTML5 portals lean on a curated genre taxonomy that's faster to browse but loses the long tail.

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