If you're looking for an igHome alternative, you've probably been here a while. Maybe you came to igHome years ago when Google shut down iGoogle, and it gave you back that familiar home base — a search box and your gadgets, all in one place. And maybe lately it's started to show its age: gadgets that quietly stop loading, an interface that hasn't changed in a long time, a "beta" label that's been there for over a decade.
This guide is an honest look at the best igHome alternatives in 2026 — what each one is actually good at, and how to figure out which is the right move for you. We'll start with the option built for the "open my browser and everything's already there" use case, then cover the real choices in the iGoogle-successor space so you can pick by fit, not by whoever shows up first.
First, what igHome got right
It's worth being fair, because igHome filled a real gap.
igHome launched in 2012 as a near-clone of iGoogle, and when Google retired iGoogle in late 2013, it became a soft landing for people who didn't want to lose their setup. It mimics the iGoogle layout: a central search box, a row of Google-service links across the top, and a page of gadgets — weather, news, RSS feeds, a clock, calendar, and more — that you arrange yourself. You can split things across multiple tabs and import RSS feeds. It's free, it works across devices, and for a lot of people it did exactly one important thing: it kept the iGoogle feeling alive.
If what you want is that classic widget-dashboard — your news, weather, and feeds living on your homepage next to your links — and igHome is still working fine for you, there's an honest case to just stay. You may not need an alternative at all.
The people who go looking for one usually hit one of a few walls.
Why people look for an igHome alternative
A few patterns come up again and again:
It's barely maintained. igHome has carried a "beta" label since 2012, and there's little sign of active development through the 2020s — no notable new features, and an interface that feels frozen in the iGoogle era. For a page you open every day, "still running, but nobody seems to be home" is an uneasy place to be.
Gadgets break. In long-time-user reviews, the most common complaint is reliability: gadgets that stop working or disappear, custom content that vanishes between sessions. When the thing you start your day from can't be trusted to load, the search for a replacement usually starts there.
The dashboard is dense by design. The whole iGoogle/igHome model is more on the page — feeds, widgets, modules, all competing for attention. Plenty of people loved that once and don't anymore. They've realized they rarely read the homepage news feed; they just want their actual sites, fast.
The look is dated. A faithful iGoogle clone in 2026 looks like a faithful iGoogle clone in 2026. For some that's nostalgia; for others it's the cue that it's time to move on.
If two or three of those land, it helps to get specific about what you're really replacing. There are two different things people mean by "I want my iGoogle back," and they point to different tools.
What to look for in an igHome alternative
Before the list, here's a quick way to narrow it down:
- The gadgets, or the home base? Be honest about which part of iGoogle you actually used. If it was the live widgets — weather, news, RSS on the page — you want a widget dashboard. If it was really just "my sites and a search box, one place, every device," you want a clean personal homepage. These are different products.
- Calm vs. dense. Some tools minimize to just your links; others maximize information on screen. Pick the one that matches how your brain works at 9am.
- Maintained vs. frozen. The lesson of igHome is that "free and still online" isn't the same as "looked after." Check whether the tool is actually being developed.
- Setup cost. Starting from a blank page is the silent killer of homepage tools. The best ones give you a head start — templates or copyable collections — so you're useful in minutes, not after an hour of dragging widgets.
- Portability. Can you export your data and leave whenever you want? You should never feel locked in again.
The best igHome alternatives in 2026
1. Abunch — best for a clean daily homepage
Abunch is built around a single idea: your daily sites at a glance, plus a bunch to explore when you need more. Instead of a page of gadgets and feeds, it gives you your most-used sites, organized into categories, as the page your browser opens to. It's a personal homepage first — not an information dashboard.
The piece that sets it apart is the Daily + Occasional split. You get two desktops: one for the sites you actually open every day, kept deliberately clean, and one for everything else — the sites you use hard for a stretch and then not at all (buying a car, filing your taxes, planning a trip), plus the references you want to keep but rarely open. This is the part that answers the old iGoogle problem directly: igHome's instinct was to pile everything onto one page until it got noisy. Abunch's is to separate "daily" from "the rest," so your morning view never fills up. You're not keeping fewer sites — Free holds 100 links across 10 categories, and Standard holds 1,000 — your daily desktop just surfaces the ones you actually use day to day, and everything else stays one click away.
The other thing that solves the blank-page problem is Explore. You can browse dozens of curated collections — ready-made sets of links for a topic, hand-picked for quality — and copy one to your own homepage in a click. A new user can go from empty to a useful, organized homepage in about half a minute, which is exactly where most homepage tools lose people.
What it's honestly not: Abunch is focused. There are no RSS feeds, no weather widget, no news gadgets, no built-in notes or to-do lists — and that's a deliberate bet, not a missing checkbox. A widget is a preview; the thing you actually act on lives on the site itself. For anything you'll click into anyway, a widget is just a slower link — so Abunch puts its effort into getting you to the site fast instead of rendering a sliver of it on the page. The honest exception is glanceable status you never click through — weather at a glance, headlines you only skim. If that's the part of iGoogle you loved most, you'll miss it here, and the widget dashboards below do it better. Abunch is for the opposite: less on the page, faster to what you actually open.
- Free: 100 links across 10 categories, collection browsing and one-click copy, cross-device sync, use Abunch as your browser homepage. No ads.
- Standard: $3.99/month (or $39.90/year) — the Daily + Occasional dual desktop (50 categories × 20 links, 1,000 total) and JSON backup/restore.
- A note on timing: Abunch is new and currently in early access. Check abunch.io for current availability before you move your whole setup over.
Best for: anyone who wants a calm, maintained homepage that opens to their daily sites — and a fast way to get set up without building from a blank page.
2. Netvibes / Protopage — best if you actually want the gadget dashboard
If the part of iGoogle you genuinely miss is the widgets — feeds, weather, modules arranged on one page — then the closest spiritual successors are dashboard-style start pages like Netvibes and Protopage. They lean into the same RSS-feeds-plus-widgets model that igHome was built on, but they're more actively maintained. Protopage in particular keeps the multi-tab "Work / Personal / News" dashboard feel that iGoogle users will recognize. You won't escape density here — but if you like density and just want a more reliable home for it, this is the genre to stay in.
Best for: people who want the live-widget dashboard experience, kept up to date.
3. Start.me — best for a feed-and-widget command center
Start.me is the polished, modern take on the dashboard model. It does drag-and-drop bookmarks plus widgets — RSS news, weather, notes, to-do lists — and power users build a genuine command center out of it. The free plan is limited to three pages and shows ads; the PRO upgrade (around $25/year) removes ads and unlocks the full widget set. If you want the richest, best-supported version of "everything on one page," it's hard to beat.
Best for: people who want a dense, well-built dashboard and don't mind paying to remove ads.
4. Symbaloo — best for a visual tile grid
Symbaloo organizes links as a grid of colorful tiles ("webmixes"), each with its own icon. It's been around a long time, it's popular in classrooms, and the visual, icon-driven layout is easy for almost anyone to grasp — not far in spirit from iGoogle's friendliness. The trade-off is structure: tiles rearrange freely, but there's no real folder hierarchy, so large collections can get unwieldy.
Best for: people (and teachers) who want a simple, recognizable visual board over deep organization.
5. A self-hosted start page — best if you'll never trust the cloud again
If the igHome experience taught you not to depend on a service you don't control, self-hosted start pages (the kind that run on your own server) give you total ownership and zero third-party exposure. The cost is real: you maintain it, you back it up, and there's no one to call when it breaks. Most people don't want that job — but if control is non-negotiable, this is the path.
Best for: self-hosters who value control over convenience.
Quick comparison
| Best at | Free tier | Paid from | Still actively developed? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abunch | Clean daily homepage | 100 links, collections, sync, no ads | $3.99/mo ($39.90/yr) | Yes (early access) |
| igHome | Nostalgic iGoogle clone | Free, gadgets, multiple tabs | — | Minimal (long-running beta) |
| Netvibes / Protopage | Widget dashboard | Yes | Varies | Yes |
| Start.me | Feed/widget command center | 3 pages, ads | $25/yr (PRO) | Yes |
| Symbaloo | Visual tile grid | Yes | Paid tier | Yes |
Pricing, tiers, and service status change — confirm on each provider's site before deciding.
How to move off igHome
igHome doesn't offer a clean one-click export, so a move is less "transfer" and more "rebuild, quickly." The good news is it's faster than it sounds:
- Write down what you actually use. Open igHome and note the links and gadgets you genuinely touch — not the ones that have been sitting there since 2014. This list is usually shorter than you'd expect, and it's the real thing you're recreating.
- Get a head start instead of a blank page. With Abunch specifically, browse Explore, copy a ready-made collection close to your topic, and you're already most of the way there. Add the rest of your sites by hand — it's quick once the structure exists.
- Set it as your homepage. Point your browser's homepage and new-tab setting at the new tool so it opens automatically. (In Chrome: Settings → On startup → Open a specific page.)
- Keep igHome open for a week. Don't abandon the old setup until the new one has earned its place in your routine. Once it has, Abunch's JSON backup/restore means you've got a real copy of your setup going forward — something igHome never reliably gave you.
The bottom line
igHome did something good: it kept the iGoogle feeling alive for people who weren't ready to let go. If it's still working for you and you love the gadgets, there's no shame in staying.
But if you're here because it's frozen in time, the gadgets are dropping out, and you've realized you don't actually read the homepage news feed — then it's worth asking what you really wanted from iGoogle in the first place. If the answer is the live widget dashboard, a maintained option like Netvibes, Protopage, or Start.me keeps you in that world. If the answer is simpler — your sites, organized, opening the moment you launch your browser, kept calm and actually looked after — that's the gap Abunch is built for, with a Daily/Occasional split to keep your morning view clean and copyable collections so you're set up in seconds.
The honest version: don't replace one frozen dashboard with another. Pick the tool whose default screen matches the thing you actually do first when you open your browser.
Ready for a calmer homepage? Try Abunch →