Software development is not a piece of cake.
With new technologies, stacks, architecture and frameworks coming around almost every week, it is becoming ever more challenging. To thrive as a software developer, you need an ecosystem of those who have similar skills and interests, who you can network with and count on when you are in a fix. The best developer communities help you achieve just that.
If you have been searching for top developer communities to learn about coding best practices, knowledge sharing, collaboration, co-creation and collective problem solving – you have come to the right place.
We made this list of 25+ most engaging and useful developer communities that you may want to join, depending on your requirements and expectations.
Pro-tip: Don’t limit yourself to one community, rather, expand your horizon by joining all that are relevant. (For ease of understanding we have divided the list into a few categories to help you pick the right ones.)
General communities
Following is a list of developer communities that are open to all and have something for everyone, across tech stacks and experience. Most of these communities have dedicated channels for specific tech stack/ language/ architecture discussion that you should consider exploring.
1. StackOverflow
One of the top developer communities and a personal choice for most software developers is StackOverflow. With a monthly user base of 100 Mn+, StackOverflow is best known for being a go-to platform for developers for any questions they may have i.e. a platform for technical knowledge sharing and learning. Cumulatively, it has helped developers 45 Bn+ times to answer their queries. It offers chatOps integrations from Slack, Teams, etc. to help with asynchronous knowledge sharing. It is for all developers looking to expand their knowledge or senior industry veterans who wish to pay forward their expertise.
Be a part of StackOverflow to:
- Get real time expert inputs and answers to your queries
- Be a part of community building by upvoting correct answers
- Provide correct and intellectual answers to challenging questions posted
- Shorten your time to market with immediate information
- Get access to a centralized knowledge repository
2. Hashnode
One of the best developer communities for blogging is Hashnode. It enables developers, thought leaders and engineers to share their knowledge on different tech stacks, programming languages, etc. As a free content creation platform, Hashnode is a great developer community for sharing stories, showcasing projects, etc.
Be a part of Hashnode to:
- Write and read blogs/ share stories for free without ads
- Built -in newsletters to get subscribers
- Get inputs from peers on drafts
- Participate in writing challenges to get up your tech blogging game
3. HackerNoon
HackerNoon is one of those top developers communities for technologists to learn about the latest trends. They currently have 35K+ contributors with a readership of 5-8 million enthusiasts who are curious to learn about the latest technologies and stacks.
Be a part of HackerNoon to:
- Contribute tech stories based on your experiences and learnings
- Learn about the different tech updates like cryptocurrency, blockchain, etc.
4. GitHub
If you are looking for a code hosting platform and one of the most popular developer communities, GitHub is the place for you. It is a community with 100 Mn+ developers with 330 Mn+ projects and enables developers to build, scale, and deliver secure software.
You should join GitHub to:
- Access collaborative codespaces for fully configured dev environments
- Get suggestions for whole lines or entire functions
- Want to search, expand or navigate your code
- Get instant notifications for push request on your code repository
5. Hacker News
Hacker News is a leading social news site and one the best developer communities for latest news on computer science and entrepreneurship. Run by the investment fund and startup incubator, Y Combinator, is a great platform to share your experiences and stories. It allows you to submit a link to the technical content for greater credibility.
You should join Hacker News to:
- Share your technical content with a wide range of developers and tech enthusiasts
- Participate in great technical contests
6. Women Who Code
An exclusive developer community to enable women to thrive and excel in the field of technology. With approximately 300K+, Women Who Code has largely (50%) engineers, and about 1/4th (26%) from other tech roles like architects, consultants, etc. The rest are executives, designers, management professionals, among others.
Join Women Who Code, if you want access to:
- Coding resources including tutorials, videos, articles to excel in programming
- A global community which conducts 2000+ events annually to network with peers
- WWCode Job Board to apply for tech roles in leading companies for a thriving career
- Scholarships and incentives for events and networking opportunities
7. Reddit
If you are looking for a network of communities, Reddit is where you should be. You can have conversations on all tech stacks and network with peers. With 330 Million+ active users, Reddit is ideal for developers who want to supplement technical discussions with others on the sidelines like those about sports, books, etc. Just simply post links, blogs, videos or upvote others which you like to help others see them as well.
Join Reddit to:
- Learn something new, especially about topics you haven’t even heard about remotely
- Get best advice for decision making on your coding challenges or a new job you want to pick up
- Access news about the latest technologies and everything else which is fake proof and you don’t have to double check everything you read.
8. CodeProject
As the tagline says, for those who code, CodeProject is one of the best developer communities to enhance and refine your coding skills. You can post an article, ask a question and even search for an article on anything you need to know about coding across web development, software development, Java, C++ and everything else. It also has resources to facilitate your learning on themes of AI, IoT, DevOpS, etc.
Joining CodeProject will be beneficial for those who:
- Want to participate in discussions on latest coding trends
- Wish to socialize with professionals from Microsoft, Oracle, etc. and accelerate their learning curve
- Participate in interesting coding challenges to win prizes and refine their coding game
- Participate in coding surveys to contribute to sentiment studies
Specific communities (for CTOs and Junior developers)
While the above mentioned top developer communities are general and can benefit all developers and programmers, there are a few communities which are specific in nature and distinct for different positions, expertise and level of seniority/ role in the organization. Based on the same, we have two types below, developer communities for CTOs and those for junior developers.
Here are the top developer communities for CTOs and technology leaders.
9. CTO Craft
CTO Craft is a community for CTOs to provide them with coaching, mentoring and essential learning to thrive as first time technology leaders. The CTOs who are a part of this community come from small businesses and global organizations alike. This community enables CTOs to interact and network with peers and participate in online and offline events to share solutions, around technology development as well as master the art of technology leadership.
As a CTO, you should join the CTO Craft to:
- Get access to a private Slack group exclusively for 100s of experienced CTOs
- Participate in panel discussions, roundtables, and even networking receptions
- Receive online mentorship and webinar access, along with guided CTO discussions
While you can get started for free, membership at £200 / month will get you exclusive access to private events, networks, monthly mentoring circles and much more.
10. Global CTO Forum
As a community for CTOs, Global CTO Forum, brings together technology leaders from 40+ countries across the globe. It is a community for technology thought leaders to help them teach, learn and realize their potential.
Be a part of the Global CTO Forum to:
- Expand your professional community and network with other CTOs and tech leaders
- Grow faster as a CTO with exclusive mentorship opportunities
- Build a brand as a CTO by getting nominated as a speaker for tech events
- Participate if GCF Awards and get recognized for your tech expertise
As an individual, you can get started with Global CTO Forum at $180/ year to get exclusive job opportunities as a tech leader, amplify your brand with GCF profile and get exclusive discounts on events and training.
The following top developer communities are specifically for junior developers who are just getting started with their tech journey and wish to accelerate their professional growth.
11. Junior Dev
Junior Dev is a global community for junior developers to help them discuss ideas, swap stories, and share wins or catastrophic failures. Junior developers can join different chapters in this developer community according to their locations and if a chapter doesn’t exist in your location, they will be happy to create one for you.
Join Junior Dev to:
- Be a part of their Slack channel and connect with peers, industry experts and other experienced developers
- Attend meetups in your locations for networking and learning
- Become a speaker at different Junior Dev events and local meetups
- Access learning resources to strive professionally
12. Junior Developer Group
Junior Developer Group is an international community to help early career developers gain skills, build strong relationships and receive guidance. As a junior developer, you may know the basics of coding, but there are additional skills that can help you thrive as you go along the way.
Junior Developer Group can help you to:
- Work on real-time projects to practice and polish your skills
- Get learning on managing Jira projects, effective communication, agile ways of working, etc.
- Attend Discord meetings and events for workshops, planning future projects, answering questions
Specialized communities
Let’s now dive deep into some communities which are specific for technology stacks and architectures.
13. Pythonista Cafe
Pythonista Cafe is a peer to peer learning community for Python developers. It is an invite only developer community. It is a private forum platform that comes at a membership fee. As a part of Pythonista Cafe, you can discuss a broad range of programming questions, career advice, and other topics.
Join Pythonista Cafe to:
- Interact with professional Python developers in a private setting
- Help other Python developers grow and succeed
- Get access to one-off Python training (courses & books) and book 1:1 coaching
14. Reactiflux
Reactiflux is a global community of 200K+ React developers across React JS, React Native, Redux, Jest, Relay and GraphQL. With a combination of learning resources, tips, QnA schedules and meetups, Reactiflux is an ideal community if you are looking to build a career in anything React.
Join Reactiflux if you want to:
- Get access to a curated learning path and recommended learning resources on Javascript, React, Redux, and related topics
- Attend Q&A’s and events with Facebook Engineers and React community developers
- Get access to previous events and QnA’s in the form of transcripts to learn and grow
15. Java Programming Forums
Java Programming Forums is a community for Java developers from all across the world. This community is for all Java developers from beginners to professionals as a forum to post and share knowledge. The community currently has 21.5K+ members which are continuously growing.
If you join the Java Programming Forums, you can:
- Ask questions and start new threads on different topics within Java
- Respond to unanswered questions
- Access blogs and videos on Java to refine your skills and coding knowledge
- Attend daily/ regular events and discussions to stay updated
16. PHP Builder
PHP Builder is a community of developers who are building PHP applications, right from freshers to professionals. As a server side platform for web development, working on PHP can require support and learning, which PHP Builder seeks to provide.
As a member of PHP Builder, you can:
- Get access to learning resources from PHP coders and students as well as getting started guide
- Comprehensive articles on architecture, HTML/CSS, PHP functions, etc. along with a library of PHP code snippets to browse through
- Archives of tips and pointers from experienced PHP developers focused on hacks and scripts
17. Kaggle
Kaggle is one of the best developer communities for data scientists and machine learning practitioners. With Kaggle, you can easily find data sets and tools you need to build AI models and work with other data scientists. With Kaggle, you can get access to 50K+ public datasets and 400K+ public notebooks.
As a developer community, Kaggle can help you with:
- No-setup, customizable, Jupyter Notebooks environment
- Accessing GPUs at no cost to you and a huge repository of community published data & code
- Hundreds of trained, ready-to-deploy machine learning models
- Refining your data science and machine learning skills by participating in competitions
18. CodePen
CodePen is an exclusive community for 1.8 million+ front end developers and designers by providing a social development environment. As a community, it allows developers to write codes in browsers primarily in front-end languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and preprocessing syntaxes. Most of the creations in CodePen are public and open source. It is an online code editor and a community for developers to interact with and grow.
If you join CodePen, you can:
- Use CodePen Editor to build entire projects or isolate code for feature testing
- Participate in CodePen challenges and get visibility among the top developers
- Share your work with one of the most active front-end developer communities and start trending
Communities for Tech Founders
Finally, we come to the last set of the top developer communities. This section will focus on developer communities which are exclusively created for tech founders and tech entrepreneurs. If you have a tech background and are building a tech startup or if you are playing the dual role of founder and CTO for your startup, these communities are just what you need.
19. IndieHackers
Indie Hackers is a community of founders who have built profitable businesses online and brings together those who are getting started as first time entrepreneurs. It is essentially a thriving community of those who build their own products and businesses. While seasoned entrepreneurs share their experiences and how they navigated through their journey, the new ones learn from these.
Joining Indie Hackers will enable you to:
- Connect with founders of profitable online businesses who have been there and done what you seek to achieve
- Get feedback and suggestions on your business ideas, codes, landing pages, etc. from seasoned startup founders
- Read stories about startup founders, their successes, challenges and how they hit it big
- Attend Indie Hackers meet up and connect with fellow entrepreneurs
20. SaaS Club
If you are an early stage SaaS founder or an entrepreneur planning to build a SaaS business, the SaaS Club is a must community to be at. The SaaS Club has different features that can help founders hit their growth journey from 0 to 1 and then from 1 to 100.
Be a part of the SaaS Club to:
- Get step by step advice to start and scale up your business
- Get honest feedback in real time to make quick changes
- Get access to a 12-week group coaching program to launch your product, build your business and grow recurring revenue
You can join the waitlist for the coaching program at $2,000 and get access to course material, live coaching calls, online discussion channel, etc.
21. GrowthMentor
Growth Mentor is an invite only curated community for startup founders to get vetted 1:1 advice from mentors. With this community, founders have booked 25K+ sessions so far and 78% of them have reported an increase in confidence post a session. Based on your objective to validate your idea, go to market, scale your growth, you can choose the right mentor with the expertise you need to grow your tech startup.
You should join Growth Mentor if you want to:
- Get on to 1:1 calls with vetted mentors over Zoom or Google Meet
- Find your blindspots and challenges quickly, and fix them too
- Get personalized advice on your business and growth strategy
- Access podcasts and videos on growth as a tech startup
The pricing for Growth Mentor starts at $30/ mo which gives you access to 2 calls/ month, 100+ hours of video library, access to Slack channel and opportunity to join the city squad. These benefits increase as you move up the membership ladder.
22. Founders Network
Founders Network is a global community of tech startup founders with a goal to help each other succeed and grow. It focuses on a three pronged approach of advice, perspective, and connections from a strong network. The tech founders on Founders Network see this as a community to get answers, expand networks and even get VC access. It is a community of 600+ tech founders, 50% of whom are serial entrepreneurs with an average funding of $1.1M.
Be a part of the Founders Network to:
Get exclusive access to founders-only forums, roundtable events, and other high-touch programs for peer learning across 25 global tech hubs
- Receive $500k in startup discounts, access to top-tier VCs, and visibility among 35K+ followers
- Get access to the mentoring programs and online mentorship platform for peer to peer mentorship, amidst 2 global tech summits
Founders Network is an invite only community starting with a membership fee of $58.25/mo, when billed annually. Depending on your experience and growth stage, the pricing tiers vary giving your greater benefits and access.
Final Thoughts
If you are a developer, joining some of these top developer communities can help you accelerate your growth professionally. Based on your preferred tech stack and experience, choose the developer communities that best suit your needs. Don’t shy away from joining more than one community. While most of these best developer communities are free, some might come at a small cost, which you can consider an investment in your career growth. Make sure whichever community you choose gives you with the resources, networks and support that can help you thrive as a developer.
