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18 Category · Hidden Gems

Hidden Gems

Quietly excellent corners of the internet that almost nobody talks about. Curated since 2013.

What this is

The Hidden Gems category at BoredomBash collects sites that are quietly excellent but rarely surface in mainstream lists — conceptual rabbit holes (Library of Babel, Pudding Cool, Bear 71), genuinely useful niche tools (VocalFish, getnada.com, The True Size), and ambient experiences (Listen To Wikipedia, The Quiet Place). The category overlaps with Useless Websites in tone (single-purpose oddities) but the editorial bar is "quality nobody noticed" rather than "pure pointlessness." Sixteen featured below; many more in the broader pool.

The directory · 16 entries

Hand-picked hidden gems

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    Curator's pick

    Library of Babel

    Library of Babel is our category pick. Built in 2015 by Brooklyn-based developer Jonathan Basile as a digital implementation of Jorge Luis Borges' 1941 short story of the same name. Every possible 410-page book — every combination of 25 lowercase letters, comma, period and space — exists at a permanent address in the library. That includes every book ever written, every book never written, every wrong version of every book, the exact sentence you will say tomorrow at 3pm, and 10⁴⁶⁷⁷ pages of nonsense for each grain of meaning. The library is procedurally generated, deterministic, permanent — search any phrase up to 3,200 characters and it returns the exact hexagon, wall, shelf, volume and page where that phrase already exists. The editorial reasoning: Library of Babel is the rare site that operates simultaneously as art, philosophy, demonstration, and literally functional reference work. The math behind it (a deterministic shuffle of letters indexed by hexagon coordinates) is elegant; the cultural weight (Borges' story is foundational to information theory) is enormous; the experience of typing a sentence and being told the exact location it has lived since the universe began is genuinely unsettling. Most "internet conceptual art" feels like a pitch deck. This one feels like the actual library it claims to be. The honest caveat: the project's funding model is donations and the search index is hosted on Basile's personal infrastructure, so search latency varies and the site occasionally has outage windows during heavy traffic.

    For the conceptual rabbit hole

    Best for the conceptual rabbit hole.

    For the philosophical-or-aesthetic deep dive:

    Library of Babel — every possible 410-page book, permanent address.

    Pudding Cool — interactive data essays, 10-15 minute scrolls.

    Bear 71 — NFB interactive doc about a tracked grizzly.

    Listen To Wikipedia — live edit stream as ambient music.

    Stars Chrome Experiment — navigable 3D map of nearby stars.

      For the genuinely useful niche tool

      Best for the genuinely useful niche tool.

      For the quietly indispensable utility:

      VocalFish — paste a URL, get a human reading it back as audio.

      getnada.com — temporary email addresses, no signup.

      The True Size — drag countries to compare actual scale.

      Cooking For Engineers — recipes structured like flowcharts.

      MyFridgeFood — input what's in your fridge, get recipes back.

        Related categories

        Other rooms of underrated internet

        Useless Websites Weird Websites Internet Classics Feel-Good Loops Fact Engines Cool Websites

        More about this · tap to expand

        Editorial criteria What makes something a hidden gem. Read more

        Four editorial criteria.

        Quality is high but reach is low. A hidden gem is a site whose quality genuinely earns broad attention but for whatever reason — niche subject, no marketing, founder is a single quiet person, the listing-the-internet ecosystem missed it — never got listed widely. Library of Babel is referenced often in tech and philosophy circles but most casual users have never heard of it. The True Size has been online for a decade and is still a "wait, what" moment for most people who find it.

        It earns repeated visits or long sessions. Hidden gems aren't link-bait one-and-dones. Pudding Cool essays are 10-15 minute reads that people remember weeks later. Are.na is a daily-return platform for a quiet community. Cooking For Engineers gets bookmarked. The bar is "this changed how someone thinks about something" rather than "this was a quick laugh."

        Single-purpose or single-creator focus. Most of the listed gems were built by one person or a tiny team with a specific intent. Jonathan Basile built Library of Babel solo. Justin Sandercoe has been the only person teaching guitar at justinguitar.com for 20+ years. The single-vision quality is part of what makes hidden gems feel different from mainstream sites — there's no committee polish, just one person's obsession made public.

        Free or sustainably free. Most hidden gems are free because the creator built them as passion projects rather than businesses. We list freemium sites where the free tier is genuinely substantial (Are.na free tier, Justin Guitar's free curriculum) and avoid sites whose "gem" status depends on aggressive paid upsells.

        The underrated note Why we use the word "underrated." Read more

        "Underrated" is a relative term and we don't claim it lightly. Library of Babel has been written about in The Paris Review, The Atlantic and various academic philosophy contexts — it's not unknown in those circles. But measured against the size of the audience that would actually enjoy it (anyone curious, anyone who likes Borges, anyone who likes elegant systems), the reach is small. Same logic applies to Pudding Cool (well-known to data-journalism people, mostly unknown to general readers), Are.na (canonical in design Twitter, mostly unknown elsewhere), and Bear 71 (legendary in interactive-doc circles, largely forgotten by the general internet).

        The category isn't "sites nobody has heard of" (that bar is impossibly subjective). It's "sites whose quality should make them more widely known than they are." When a site graduates from gem to mainstream we move it. Pudding Cool may not stay in this category forever — it has become well-known enough that it's edging toward mainstream. We will reconsider its placement in 2027.

        Editorial standards How we curate. Read more

        Quarterly editorial review with monthly link checks (hidden gems are unfortunately the category most likely to suffer linkrot — solo-developer sites sometimes vanish without warning when the developer moves on or stops paying for hosting). Reader submissions through /submit/ are especially welcomed in this category and have higher-than-average acceptance — 22% versus the site-wide 14%, because the whole point of the category is surfacing things our editorial pool hasn't found yet. The category overlaps with Useless Websites (both feature single-purpose oddities; the difference is editorial bar — Useless is "pointless on purpose," Hidden is "quietly excellent") and Internet Classics (some hidden gems are also old-internet artifacts; the difference is reach — classics are widely-known old sites, hidden gems are obscure regardless of age).

        If you liked this If you liked this, try… Read more

        Useless Websites (the same single-purpose-oddity register, with editorial bar shifted from "quietly excellent" to "pointless on purpose"), Weird Websites (where the strangeness is the appeal), Internet Classics (old-web artifacts, some of which were once hidden gems before becoming canonical), and Cool Websites for the broader "things that don't fit a normal category" pool. Outside our directory, MetaFilter remains the canonical community for hidden-gem discovery — its "interesting things on the web" register inspired this category.

        FAQ · People also ask

        Questions about this category.

        What counts as a "hidden gem" on the internet?

        A hidden gem is a site whose quality genuinely deserves broader attention but never received it — usually because the creator is a single quiet person, the topic is niche, or the listing ecosystems missed it. Quality is high, reach is low. Examples: Library of Babel (Borges' infinite library, made functional), The True Size (drag countries to compare actual scale), Listen To Wikipedia (live edits as ambient music). Mainstream sites with big marketing budgets don't qualify even if great.

        Why is something "underrated" if it's already known?

        Underrated is a relative term — measured against the size of audience that would genuinely enjoy a site, not against being unknown. Library of Babel has appeared in The Paris Review and The Atlantic, but is unknown to most casual users who would love it. Pudding Cool is canonical in data journalism circles but mostly unknown to general readers. The category bar is "quality should make this more widely known than it is" rather than "literally nobody has heard of this."

        Where can I find more hidden gems online?

        Outside this category, the canonical hidden-gem discovery communities are MetaFilter (the long-running blue community whose entire point is interesting things people found), Hacker News for tech-leaning gems, and Are.na (a designer-favored discovery platform itself listed in this category). For weekly curation, the Web Curios newsletter and Things Magazine blog still publish hand-picked gems.

        Why aren't mainstream sites included here?

        Mainstream sites have entire ecosystems pointing at them — listicles, social media, advertising, SEO. They don't need a hidden-gems category to surface them. The category is specifically for sites whose quality earns broad attention but who never got it for whatever reason — usually a combination of niche subject, no marketing budget, and being built by a single person rather than a company. If a gem becomes well-known we eventually move it to the most appropriate non-hidden category.

        What's the difference between Hidden Gems and Useless Websites?

        Both feature single-purpose oddities, but the editorial bar differs. Useless Websites are pointless on purpose — the joke is the lack of utility (Pointer Pointer, Heeeey.com). Hidden Gems are quietly excellent — the appeal is genuine value that nobody noticed. The True Size is a hidden gem because it actually teaches you something profound. The Quiet Place Project is a hidden gem because it actually offers calm. Useless sites don't try.

        What's the difference between Hidden Gems and Weird Websites?

        Hidden Gems are quietly excellent regardless of subject. Weird Websites are sites where the strangeness itself is the point. A weird site might also be a hidden gem (some Bear 71 visitors find it weird), but most weird sites aren't hidden because the weirdness gets shared widely. Most hidden gems aren't weird — Justin Guitar is a hidden gem in the sense of "best free guitar lessons online that nobody told you about" but it's not strange. Cross-listing happens where editorial intent overlaps.

        How do I submit a hidden gem to this directory?

        Visit /submit/ with the URL and a one-paragraph note explaining why it qualifies as a hidden gem (what makes it quietly excellent, why it's not better known). Hidden Gems has the highest acceptance rate of any category — 22% of submissions ship versus the site-wide 14% — because the whole point is surfacing things our editorial pool hasn't found yet. We can't reply to every submission but we read every one. Submissions go through quarterly editorial review.

        What happens when a hidden gem becomes well-known?

        It graduates. We move sites out of Hidden Gems when they reach a level of mainstream recognition where the "underrated" framing no longer applies. Pudding Cool is currently on the watchlist — it has become well-known enough in data-journalism circles that we will reconsider its placement in 2027. The category is meant to be a working surface, not a permanent home. When something graduates, it usually moves to Internet Classics, Cool Websites, or whichever category best fits its new mainstream identity.

        Are these hidden gems safe to visit?

        Yes. Every site in this category has been editorially reviewed and is safe to visit on any device. Hidden gems are sometimes solo-developer sites with smaller security budgets than mainstream platforms, so we run monthly link checks specifically for this category to catch any sites that have lapsed certificates, started serving popups, or vanished entirely. None of the listed gems require account creation, payment, or personal data entry to use the core experience. A few (Are.na, Justin Guitar) offer optional account creation for save-state and community features.

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