Libero Community Shuts Down: Farewell to Digilander
TL;DR: On June 9, 2026, Libero shuts down all Community services: Digilander, WordPress, Spazioinwind, users.libero.it, chat, and Cupido. Deadline to save content: June 8. Libero Mail isn't affected — email stays active. It's the end of an era for the Italian internet.
Anyone who still has a site on Digilander has three weeks. Then those files, those pages, that slice of the Italian internet disappear forever.
What's Shutting Down and What Remains
On June 9, 2026, Libero will deactivate all the services grouped under the name "Community":
| Service | Status |
|---|---|
| Digilander (website hosting) | Shutting down |
| WordPress blogs hosted by Libero | Shutting down |
| Spazioinwind | Shutting down |
| Sites on users.libero.it | Shutting down |
| Libero chat | Shutting down |
| Cupido | Shutting down |
| Libero Mail | Stays active |
The distinction is clear-cut and explicitly communicated by Libero: email on libero.it and virgilio.it isn't affected. Anyone who only uses Libero for email doesn't need to do anything.
How to Save Content by June 8
The operational deadline is June 8, 2026 — one day before the shutdown. After that date, the files will no longer be accessible.
For Digilander sites: Log into the FTP control panel and download all the site's files to your computer. Also save configuration files and images.
For Libero's WordPress blogs: From the WordPress dashboard: Tools → Export → All content. The generated XML file can be imported into any other WordPress installation or compatible platform.
For Spazioinwind and users.libero.it: Procedures vary depending on the type of account. Check the email communication received from Libero or log into the service's personal area.
What Digilander Was
Digilander was, in the early 2000s, the first free Italian web hosting service designed for non-technical users. Before WordPress, before Blogspot, before any accessible CMS — Digilander let you upload HTML files and make them available online with a URL like digilander.libero.it/username.
For a generation of Italians, Digilander was their first website. Their first experience with HTML. Their first personal space on the internet. Millions of pages of fan sites, amateur blogs, portfolios, link collections, parish and neighborhood association pages.
It was the internet before the internet became social. Every page was a project — often imperfect, always personal.
Why Libero Is Shutting Down Community Services
Libero hasn't published a detailed rationale. The implicit reasons are the ones common to all services of this kind:
- Maintenance cost of the infrastructure for a steadily shrinking number of active users
- Format obsolescence: static sites on free hosting have been almost entirely replaced by social networks and modern CMS platforms
- Security risks: servers with content that hasn't been updated in years represent an unmanaged attack surface
Digilander had already undergone an initial reduction of services in 2019. The final shutdown in 2026 is the conclusion of a process that started long ago.
A Shutdown in the History of the Italian Internet
Digilander's shutdown isn't a technical story — it's a cultural fact. Those libero.it/digilander.libero.it URLs held the digital memory of a phase of internet history that won't come back.
Sites that aren't saved by June 8 are lost forever — unless they've already been archived by the Wayback Machine (archive.org), which has indexed many Digilander pages over the years.
Anyone who wants to check whether their page is already archived can search for it on archive.org before the shutdown.
Conclusion
The shutdown of Libero Community is the final farewell to an infrastructure that shaped the Italian internet. For users with active content: download it now, don't wait. For everyone else: it's one of those stories that remind us how fragile digital memory is — and how quickly it can disappear.
Sources: Libero.it official communication · Punto Informatico · HDblog · Tom's Hardware Italia