Small tech in 2025

Big tech can fend for itself. For me, small tech — home to all manner of creative computer weirdos — is where the fun is at. Here are some trends I’m keeping an eye on:

The open social web hit its stride in 2024. Idealists and software nerds got organized: the Social Web Foundation emerged to steward the ActivityPub ecosystem, Free Our Feeds started holding ATProto’s feet to the decentralized fire, and A New Social began building bridges between open networks. Independent researchers brought focus to the challenges of decentralized governance while nonprofits developed new resources for federated moderation. And, in early 2025, Mastodon took big steps toward community ownership.

Creative tinkerers have leveraged the social web’s openness to build interesting indie businesses. Surf.social ships an innovative UI for exploring open social content. Murmel sends top stories from your feed directly to your inbox. Mastohost makes it easy to self-host Mastodon. And Micro.blog continues to thoughtfully explore new directions.

Novel use of large language models

While big tech spins its wheels on “agentic” AI hype, small tech is discovering creative and force-multiplying new uses for LLMs.

Researchers like Amelia Wattenberger, Linus Lee, Tony Beltramelli, Maggie Appleton, and Shawn Wang are all exploring LLM-powered user experiences built on tight feedback loops. My favorite of these interface prototypes avoid chat-like interactions entirely, instead hiding LLMs gently in the background. Gestures lead to LLM invocations, which lead to the further evolution of the interface.

Meanwhile, services like CityMeetings.nyc show the potential for LLMs to transmute piles of unstructured content into actionable insight. CityMeetings breaks down every New York City Council meeting into easily readable and linkable digests. It has become an essential tool for local journalists. Impressively, CityMeetings is a one-person project!

Small tech is (of course!) full of indie devs, who naturally experiment with LLMs for their own software development. AI code assistants like GitHub Copilot are now omnipresent, and editor workflow innovations from Cursor and Windsurf AI, along with chat UX features like Anthropic’s Artifacts, suggest where tools might go next. Small tech startups like Val Town have learned from these patterns and introduced their own bespoke AI tools for developers.

Experiments in local-first

The small tech community has a long history of building tools that prioritize user agency and privacy. That’s why, when Martin Kleppmann and Adam Wiggins introduced the idea of “local-first software” architecture, the community paid attention. Local-first applications store data locally, work offline, and sync with other devices when possible — aligning nicely with the ethos of small tech and the open social web.

In his fun-to-read predictions for 2025, Tom MacWright anticipates that “local-first will have a breakthrough moment”. The technical challenges — building sync engines, resolving conflicts, and managing schema migrations — remain substantial, so I don’t expect to see a true market breakthrough. That said, new frameworks like Zero, Electric, and Jazz show that indie devs will keep pushing the envelope.

Sustainable and small

I’m always drawn to indie software shops that eschew “traditional” VC financing in favor of a focus on sustainable growth and personal independence. I’m delighted by the sheer amount of technical depth, art, whimsy, and nerdy joy I’m seeing from today’s crop of small tech startups. Creative experimentation is alive and well. While big tech keeps embiggening, small tech is quietly shaping a more humane and thoughtful future.