How many lines of code is a typical website? About 8,600 lines written for it, if it is a business site built the way we build them. That is the middle of six websites we built, five for clients and one as a concept of our own, counted on October 18, 2026: the smallest has 1,619 lines, the largest 13,209. This site, with its 3D scene, has 73,526. Below is each count, how we made it, what made the difference and what the number means for you as an owner.
How many lines of code is a typical website: the counts
| Website | Lines of its own code | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| RIM International | 1,619 | A matchmaking house told as a scroll film: halls instead of pages, six cities with live clocks |
| Colchis | 3,718 | Our concept of a travel house in Georgia, built in one night, with a 3D qvevri you can drag |
| Somatic Reset | 8,529 | Booking with live availability, Stripe prepayment and Google Calendar sync |
| Build Wise Investments | 8,699 | A contractor site with 63 pages, 38 of them for cities, and an admin |
| Buhgalteria na doloni | 9,113 | An accounting firm: a deadline calendar, three tax calculators, 19 service pages |
| Muzychko Vocal School | 13,209 | A WebGL opera stage, online lessons, reviews with moderation, a pitch test |
| 26loc.com | 73,526 | This site: 26 lines of light draw every picture on it |
Half of the six sites have fewer than 8,614 lines and half have more. None comes close to our own site, and the reasons are further down.
How we counted
We counted the non-blank lines in the files our team wrote, as each site's repository keeps them: Python, JavaScript or TypeScript, Astro components, HTML templates and CSS. We left out what nobody on the project wrote and what is not the site itself: libraries and frameworks, build output, database migrations, content and data files, documentation, and the tests, checks and tools that run beside the site. A comment counts as a line; an empty line does not.
A count changes with its method, so compare only counts made the same way. The counter at the bottom of this page, for one, counts the lines of this site's scripts, styles, templates and Python, empty lines and tests included: on the day we counted, it showed 89,264.
What a website stands on
The code written for a website is a thin layer on top of code nobody on the project wrote. Four of the six sites run on Django, the Python framework this site runs on too; our guide to Python web development explains what it does. Django 5.2's own code, without the libraries it bundles, its migrations and its translations, is 135,425 non-blank lines: about 16 times a typical site's own code. Under it run Python itself, the database and the web server, and in front of it, the visitor's browser.
That is good news for an owner. The part written for you is small enough to read, test and hand over to another team. The big part is open source, kept up by its own community, and its security fixes reach your site with an update, not a rewrite.
What adds lines to a website
Features add lines; pages mostly do not. In our count:
- Pages from templates. Build Wise Investments has 63 pages and 1,800 lines of HTML templates. Its 38 city pages share one template: each has its own text and a local FAQ, but the code behind them was written once.
- Tools that compute. The same contractor site has 1,437 lines of Python. Buhgalteria na doloni, with three tax calculators and a deadline calendar, has 4,100.
- Booking and payments. Somatic Reset, with live availability, Stripe prepayment and calendar sync, has 4,474 lines of Python and 3,327 lines of tests and checks beside its 8,529: 39 for every 100 lines of the site's code, because a wrong slot costs a client a session.
- 3D and sound. Muzychko Vocal School has 2,619 lines of JavaScript, its stage and its pitch test among them.
- Motion and markup. RIM International is a film told by scrolling: all its 1,619 lines are one HTML file that holds its styles and scripts too.
A feature that takes money or bookings brings the most tests with it. A page that repeats a layout adds almost nothing.
Why this site has 73,526 lines
This site is our showcase, not a typical client site. 26 lines of light draw every picture on it, its strings play notes, its pages change without reloading, and a reading mode turns any article into a quiet page. Its front end alone is 43,456 lines of TypeScript. Beside the site are 22,842 more lines of tests, checks and tools: before a release that changes what visitors see, the checks open it in Chrome and in Safari's engine and go through it the way a visitor does. As for the 26 in our name, our post DTEAM is now 26 Lines of Code tells where it comes from.
What the count tells you, and what it does not
More lines do not make a better website. They make a website that does more, and every line is one someone keeps up: updates, fixes, checks. Two sites can look alike and differ several times over in code, and the one with less code usually costs less to keep. What matters more than the total is who owns the code, how much of it is tested and how it is updated.
Five questions to send your developer
| Question | A good answer |
|---|---|
| How many lines of code did you write for my site, and in which languages? | A number from a counter, not a guess |
| Where is the code kept, and whose account is it in? | A repository you can open, in your name or handed over to you |
| What do the tests cover? | At least everything that takes money or bookings |
| Which framework and libraries does the site depend on, and who updates them? | Named versions and a plan for updates |
| If we part ways, what do I get? | The code, the accounts and the data, with a handover |
What a website costs with us
The price follows what the site does, not how many lines it takes. A website starts at $499 and a web application at $5,000. What the first price includes, and what booking or payments add to it, is on our affordable website page; a design of your own is custom website development, and larger builds are web application development. Not sure which one you need? Tell us what the site should do, and we will say which it is.
Questions
How many lines of code does a simple website have?
The smallest live site in our count, a scroll film for a matchmaking house, has 1,619 lines of its own code, all in one HTML file with its styles and scripts. A site with booking, payments or calculators has several thousand more.
How many lines of code does a website with booking and payments have?
The booking site we built with Stripe prepayment and Google Calendar sync has 8,529 lines of its own code, and 3,327 lines of tests and checks run beside it.
Do more lines of code make a better website?
No. More lines mean the site does more and needs more upkeep; judge a site by what it does for its visitors and how well it is tested.
Is HTML counted as code?
In our count, yes: HTML templates are written and kept by the team like any other code. The text you type in an admin is content, not code.
How many lines of code is Django?
Django 5.2's own code is 135,425 non-blank lines, counted on October 18, 2026 without the libraries it bundles, its migrations and its translations: about 16 times the code of a typical site we build on it.
How do I count the lines of code of my website?
Ask your developer for the repository and run a line counter over the files the team wrote, leaving out libraries, build output and data. Only counts made the same way can be compared.
Why is the company called 26 Lines of Code if its site has 73,526?
Lines of code are what we write, and on this site 26 lines of light draw every picture you see. Our post about the new name tells why 26.
How we wrote this: we counted the lines with a short script over our own repositories and Django's package on October 18, 2026, and drafted the text with an AI assistant; every number in it comes from that count.