ONWI Is Now BestSites: Free Launches, a Separate Paid Board, and a .si Domain

ONWI, the paid-placement board I launched in August, has a new name and a new domain. Since October 9 it has been BestSites, at bestsites.si. The old address, onwi.lol, now redirects every page permanently to the new domain. Links, bookmarks and search results that point to ONWI still reach the right page.

The board changed too, not only its name. BestSites now has two separate boards: a free community board, ranked by votes, and the paid board, ranked by the amount paid. This post explains why we changed the name and how each board works.

The screenshots come from a local build of the site, so the boards in them are empty. The live site shows real launches.

Why BestSites, and why .si

"ONWI" was short, but it did not tell anyone what the site was for. We wanted a general, searchable name for a place to find AI tools, SaaS products and indie websites, so we chose BestSites.

The domain is .si, and the choice is deliberate. On September 29, 2026, President Trump signed Executive Order 14434, "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence". It directs federal agencies to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in place of "artificial intelligence" and "AI". The order applies to federal agencies, not to everyone, but it made "SI" the US government's term for this technology. Many of the products listed on the board are SI tools, so bestsites.si reads the way we hope the board works: the best sites in the age of SI.

Two boards, each with its own rules

The homepage shows three steps:

• Discover: explore today's launches and vote for the ones you like.
• Launch: submit your product for free. After review, it joins an upcoming launch day.
• Promote: buy visibility on a separate board, ranked by the amount paid.

The paid board and the community board never mix. The footer of every page says it directly:

Paid rankings are advertisements ordered by the amount paid. Community launches are ranked separately by votes. Paid rank does not imply quality or popularity.

ONWI was built on one rule: a paid position is an advertisement, never a quality score. BestSites keeps that rule, and adds a board where money cannot change the order.

Free community launches

Launching on the community board is free. There is no payment, and you do not need a backlink or a badge.

Here is how a launch works:

1. Sign in. Use Google or a six-digit code sent to your email. There is no password.
2. Submit your website. A URL and a name are required. A display name, a tagline of up to 140 characters, a description and a category are optional.
3. Wait for review. Every launch, and every later edit, is reviewed before it can go public.
4. Launch the next day. An approved launch joins the next day's cohort, which starts at 00:00 Korea Standard Time (UTC+9). Each account can have one open launch per day.
5. Collect votes. Each signed-in account can vote once per launch. The Launching today column is ordered by votes, and payment cannot buy votes.

After its launch day, a product stays in the directory and on the Community all-time board for as long as it is published. A free launch can later buy paid placement too. It then also appears on the paid board, and its votes stay as they were.

You can check your launches on the My launches page. It shows whether each one is pending review, needs changes, is scheduled or is live.

A free first seat in empty categories

The paid board has a second free option. If nobody has paid for a seat in a category yet, the first row there is free.

This free seat does not need an account. It goes through the same review as a paid seat. On the paid board it ranks after paid rows, with a plain Free marker, so nobody mistakes it for a paid advertisement.

Everything is reviewed before it goes public

Paid seats, free first seats, community launches and edits all go through the same review:

• Instant rules: link shorteners, disguised addresses and private chat invites are blocked.
• Duplicate check: each URL can have only one open case.
• Safety and content checks: a safety check of the address, and a content classifier that reads the site.
• Human review: I decide anything uncertain. If nobody approves an uncertain case within 48 hours, it is rejected.

If a check fails or errors, the listing stays out. Nothing reaches the board because a check broke.

Some categories are not accepted at all: gambling, adult content, drugs, weapons, counterfeits, malware and fraud, extremism, unlicensed financial services, multi-level marketing, impersonation, fake followers and reviews, and medical, supplement, alcohol and tobacco advertising. The full list is in the launch and ranking guide.

Paid placement, now with clearer rules

The paid board still works like a ladder:

• Price: a new seat starts at $5, and amounts move in whole-dollar steps.
• Taking #1: it costs $5 more than the current top price. A seat that has held #1 before can take it back with a $1 step.
• Duration: nothing expires. A seat keeps its position until someone pays more.
• Paying more: you pay only the difference when you raise your amount.
• Add-ons: a Relaunch ($15) puts a listing back on the 24-hour board, and a Spotlight ($39) adds a hand-written review in Korean and English, plus one post each on X and Threads.

Payments run through Polar as the merchant of record, and every payment has a permanent receipt page.

What else changed

• A new visual identity, with sharper type, a neutral palette, and a mark used only for the brand and for votes. Gold and amber appear only on paid rows.
• Korean, English and Uzbek across the site. Japanese and Chinese were retired, and their pages redirect to English.
• A public launch and ranking guide that compares free launches with paid placement and answers common questions.
• Better search visibility: server-rendered pages, verified webmaster accounts on Google, Bing, Yandex and Naver, and a Google change of address from onwi.lol.
• AI-readable versions of listings and interviews through llms.txt and Markdown pages.

BestSites does not promise rankings, traffic, sales or AI recommendations. It gives a launch a public page, a fair place in line, and a clear label on every paid position.

Launch on BestSites

If you are building a website, a SaaS product or an SI tool, you can launch it on BestSites for free and let votes decide where it lands. The BestSites case study covers the engineering underneath: payment-gated publishing, database functions that enforce the price rules, and click counting without storing IP addresses.