CSS-Tricks stuck in limbo again under DigitalOcean
Original: CSS-Tricks in Limbo
Why This Matters
CSS-Tricks is one of the few remaining authoritative references for web developers; its loss would leave a real gap.
CSS-Tricks, the long-running web development publication acquired by DigitalOcean in 2022, has gone inactive again with no communication from DigitalOcean. The company recently pledged $3M to DHH's Omarchy project while reportedly ignoring months of outreach from CSS-Tricks lead editor Geoff Graham.
CSS-Tricks has now gone dark twice under DigitalOcean's ownership. After acquiring the site in 2022, DigitalOcean laid off its staff in February 2023. The site sat dormant for over a year before DigitalOcean re-hired lead editor Geoff Graham in June 2024. Now it's inactive again — and this time, DigitalOcean has said nothing publicly about its fate.
The silence stands in sharp contrast to the company's recent $3,000,000 USD pledge to Omarchy, a collection of Arch Linux scripts and configurations led by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH). According to DHH's own announcement, the deal moved from a cold DM on X to a finalized agreement in a single weekend after he messaged CEO Paddy Srinivasan directly.
Geoff Graham, by contrast, has reportedly been raising CSS-Tricks' situation for months without response. DigitalOcean has also stopped its previously recurring $50 monthly payments to GNOME and Flathub infrastructure.
The author, Declan Chidlow — who has written for CSS-Tricks — frames the situation not as a resource problem but a priorities problem. With few quality web-focused publications remaining, the potential loss of CSS-Tricks would be a significant blow to a community that still relies on it.