The Top 5 Sites Developers Should Post To & Learn from In 2024

Gone are the days when the key to your success in Developer Relations was centered around writing content just for your blog. Developers looking to keep up to date with the latest trends or learn a new framework or language have endless options on which outlet they choose. Excluding video and MOOCS for right now, as I plan to write about these in a later post, here are my five top go to sites every Developer should bookmark in 2024

Dev.to

Dev.to has become one of the most popular platforms for developers to share their knowledge and experiences. It offers a welcoming community, easy-to-use interface, and excellent visibility for published articles. The platform encourages engagement through comments and reactions, helping developers build their online presence and connect with peers. Personally, I also find the tone of content to be a little more casual, which I enjoy.

Hashnode

Hashnode is a developer-focused blogging platform that allows users to create their own blogs with custom domains. It provides a supportive community and tools for developers to showcase their work, share tutorials, and engage with other professionals in the field. Hashnode's focus on personal branding makes it an attractive option for developers looking to establish their expertise. At times, content here does lean a little towards self-serving promotion, but if you can get past that, there is a wealth of great knowledge  people willing to share content.

Medium

While not exclusively for developers, Medium remains a popular choice for publishing technical content. Its clean design and large user base offer excellent exposure for well-written articles. Many developers use Medium to reach a broader audience beyond the tech community, making it ideal for those who want to explain complex concepts to a general readership. I almost left Medium off the list here because of their paywall policy. I get it, companies need to make money and selling subscriptions is a valid approach, but if I looking to a) publish content - I don’t want to restrict who can consume it b) read content - I don’t want to be blocked by a paywall. Let’s see where Medium goes in the next few years, but paywalls irk me.

GitHub

GitHub, primarily known as a code repository, has become an increasingly popular platform for developers to publish content through its README files and GitHub Pages feature. Developers can create detailed documentation, tutorials, and even personal blogs directly within their repositories. This approach allows for seamless integration of code examples and project documentation. In my experience, GitHub is probably my number one go to resource for learning. The proximity of a README and ability to look at code make it invaluable. Digging deeper into tools like ahrefs and semrush, you always see Github referrals near the top of your list when trying to drive Developers back to your site.

Stack Overflow

While traditionally a Q&A platform, Stack Overflow has expanded its offerings to include a blog feature. Developers can now publish long-form content, sharing in-depth knowledge and insights. The platform's established reputation in the developer community ensures that high-quality content receives significant visibility and engagement. This is another site where I am curious if the popularity will be as strong over the next few years. Rewind a couple of years and StackOverflow was my goto coding resource. I’d write some code, google how to do something, and inevitably land on a StackOverflow post that I’d hunt through the answers until I found something that works for me. Nowadays, with the rise of AI and prompt engineering, my development workflow has changed significantly. I’ll go to perplexity.ai type something like “generate a Swift struct for x endpoint” and let AI do its magic.

Summary

Developers have endless options on where to publish and consume content. The outlets I’ve included in the list above are my goto resources in 2024. Which ones suit your need and style is always an individual choice. For me, the closer content is to code, the tone of content and authors, and the free access to as much content as possible are key factors to what makes a great Developer site. And, with the rise of AI, I can only imagine that there will be new outlets offering just-in-time content for you to consume. The next few years are going to be a wild ride.