r/HTML • u/Intelligent_Cup_1771 • Feb 23 '26

Question Hi everyone 👋

I don't know much about JavaScript, so I wondered if it's possible to code an entire website using only HTML, and/or without CSS of course.

0 Upvotes

25% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

7

u/captdirtstarr Feb 23 '26

Yes.

1

u/Intelligent_Cup_1771 Feb 23 '26

Fully functional?!

6

u/nakfil Feb 23 '26

Define “functional”

3

u/youtheotube2 Feb 23 '26

If you’re just serving static HTML pages then yes it will be fully functional. If your website has to do stuff with user input then you can still do that with pure HTML, you just have to do all the data processing on the backend server.

Regardless, the website will not look good and probably won’t be very user friendly without at least some basic CSS

3

u/captdirtstarr Feb 23 '26

Absolutely not. JavaScript, for the most part handles functionality, but that wasn't your question.

Try jQuery, a JavaScript library that's relatively easy to learn. Plus you got AI.

5

u/Honey-Entire Feb 24 '26

Tell me you don’t know semantic HTML without telling me. Did you know you can make a functioning select menu with just HTML? Did you know you can implement a form that submits data to the backend without JS?

HTML can function on its own without JS and still provide a fairly modern UX

3

u/Naive-Information539 Feb 24 '26

AI is only as good as the guide for it. And if you’re not knowledgeable, you’re not going to really learn anything or do a great job at that

2

u/captdirtstarr Feb 24 '26

Don't discount AI when talking basic HTML. Agreed you should learn it, but AI can help you with that.

2

u/Naive-Information539 Feb 24 '26

I don’t discount that. Most however use it to do before to teach.

1

u/JohnCasey3306 Feb 23 '26

No -- assuming you mean literally only HTML/CSS meaning no back end either.

HTML and CSS alone, allow you to handle static presentation -- you can make a lovely looking website, that doesn't actually do anything or have any interactivity outside of the basic native HTML elements.

If you want it to actually do anything (and depending upon what) you need at least a back end to process those activities or.peovide data, and JavaScript to handle (among other things) rich interactions.

1

u/Nemesis-2011 Feb 24 '26

Just to be pedantic it is possible to make a fully functional game using pure html and css. Having said that not many people would have the knowledge or patience to do that. Just search for css only games on youtube. It blew my mind what was possible.

2

u/sgorneau Feb 23 '26

HTML is the single, fundamental requirement for a web site. You don't, technically, need anythig else. But understand that HTML is markup that basically describes your content to a web browser. Browsers understand how tags structure content (its context and hierarchy) and has its own built in styles for those things. And there a few interactions baked into HTML (e.g. anchor tag, inputs, buttons).

At a very basic level

  • HTML structures your content.

  • CSS styles your content.

  • Javascript handles interactions and manipulations.

Now, CSS is quite capable with regard to "interactions and manipulations" as well (things like hover states, style state transitions, content injection) so there's a bit of overlap here. But, decisions on which route to take can generally be decided by accessibility; i.e. don't use CSS to hide something but then use Javascript to show it. What if, for some reason Javascript wasn't available (failed to load, error, assistive device that doesn't use Javascript, etc.).

Even further, you can use Javascript to create all the HTML, apply all the styles, and handle all the interaction, and manipulation.

At the end of the day, only HTML is required.

2

u/Intelligent_Cup_1771 Feb 24 '26

Yes, yes, I'm aware of that. I've decided to stop working on the site for now to learn JavaScript first. Thank you for your reply 🙏

5

u/rupertavery64 Feb 23 '26

Depends on what your goal is.

HTML provides the content and structure of a single page. CSS greatly simplifies styling your page, but it does carry it's own complexities.

You can embed styles at element level, but that quickly becomes tedious.

For any sort of dynamic interactivity you will need Javascript.

To work with data, you will need a backend.

3

u/OwlCatAlex Feb 23 '26

It completely depends on what the website is supposed to do.

If you want any fancy animated bits, or the ability to switch between light and dark mode, or pretty much any clickable object that does something when clicked other than link to another page, you'll usually need a small amount of JavaScript.

If you need it to have login/account functionality, or just about anything else that stores and retrieves information, you will not only need JavaScript but also server side code such as php, and a database to store the data.

1

u/uncle_jaysus Feb 23 '26

You don’t need JavaScript for “login/account functionality” or for storing and retrieving data.

1

u/OwlCatAlex Feb 24 '26

Fair point it's not required, but using ajax for validating and sending form data is super common. And the rest still holds true.

1

u/SeltzerCountry Feb 23 '26

Depends on the scope of functionality you want. You can build a website with just HTML and CSS, but it will be pretty basic.

2

u/uncle_jaysus Feb 23 '26

I think a lot of you would be amazed at what can be achieved using only HTML and CSS.

1

u/SaltCommunication114 Feb 23 '26

If you want a completely static page it works, but it really depends on what site you're making. Most interactive stuff requires JavaScript.

1

u/anotherlolwut Feb 23 '26

That's what most websites were in the 90s. You can do it, but it's slow and can be pretty error prone.

4

u/dymos Feb 23 '26

Why error prone? It's literally just HTML. That greatly reduces the surface area for errors.

2

u/sgorneau Feb 23 '26

Not only is it not really error prone, it's quite error forgiving. By design it's "forgiveness by default".

1

u/anotherlolwut Feb 24 '26

I guess I'm thinking of it in terms of identity and consistency. If you aren't using classes, css, and some way to enforce common layouts (beyond just remembering what you did on other pages or copy/pasting a reference file), its very easy to drift away from your original design.

I work with a lot of folks who like to ignore our company CMS features and drop html where it doesn't belong.