What are hardware communities?

Communities for hardware engineers, electronics hobbyists, and embedded systems developers. Discord and Reddit host communities for Arduino, Raspberry Pi, PCB design, and DIY electronics, alongside more professional spaces for engineers working on commercial hardware products.

Where do most hardware communities live?

Reddit is the most common platform in this report (40% of 30 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

97% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical hardware community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 1.1M members and the median is 127K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.

What do these communities usually include?

Forum is the most common (83%). Others that show up often include live chat and online/offline events.

How does Hive Index collect this data?

Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.

Where can I see the full list?

The full directory is on Hive Index's Hardware topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Hardware Communities Report: Stats, Platforms, Trends &...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 30 hardware communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: hardware communities are broad and fragmented, with many small groups and a few very large outliers.

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated 2026-06-08

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Communities: 30
Platforms: 7
Avg members: 1.1M
Median members: 127K

Where Hardware Communities Are Hosted

Reddit
12(40%)
Independent Platforms
9(30%)
Discord
3(10%)
Slack
2(7%)
Facebook
2(7%)
Telegram
1(3%)
Discourse
1(3%)

Format mix

Forum / feed-based
24(80%)
Chat communities
6(20%)

Forum / feed-based is most common (80%), but chat communities is also well represented (20%).

Reddit leads, but Independent Platforms and Discord also represent meaningful shares.

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
0(0%)
Small
20-100 members
0(0%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
3(10%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
2(7%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
3(10%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
6(20%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
4(13%)

12 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (1.1M vs 127K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Hardware Differs From Other Categories

Hardware is more free-to-join, and larger, compared with typical Hive Index topics.

Metric	Hardware	Hive Index average
Free to join	97%	85%
Median members	127K	25K
Average members	1.1M	669K
Paid or apply-to-join	3%	15%
Live chat	23%	38%
Discord share	10%	16%

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Forum
83%
Live Chat
23%
Online/Offline Events
20%

Niche Features

Paid Community
3%
Pairing
3%

Forum appears on 83% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 44

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Reddit	12	40%	9	23%
Independent Platforms	9	30%	1	3%
Discord	3	10%	8	20%
Slack	2	7%	11	28%
Facebook	2	7%	3	8%
Telegram	1	3%	8	20%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Slack gets 28% of clicks but only 7% of listings, so visitors click it more than you'd expect from supply alone.

Most-clicked formats

Chat communities
27(68%)
Forum / feed-based
13(33%)

Most-clicked features

Live Chat
27(68%)
Forum
16(40%)
Online/Offline Events
4(10%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Medium
15(38%)
Gigantic
6(15%)
Huge
2(5%)
Massive
1(3%)
Large
1(3%)

Top-clicked listings

Softer Hardware
8(20%)
Robotics & IoT Developers
8(20%)
r/hardware
5(13%)

Most clicks go to chat communities and forum / feed-based communities.

Trends

Founded year

2005

2008

2009

2010

2012

24 communities have no founding year on file.

Most listed groups were founded around 2012.

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Hardware. We exclude removed or suppressed listings. Member counts, traffic, features, reviews, and ratings may vary by source and are updated periodically.

•Last updated 2026-06-08

FAQ

: Communities for hardware engineers, electronics hobbyists, and embedded systems developers. Discord and Reddit host communities for Arduino, Raspberry Pi, PCB design, and DIY electronics, alongside more professional spaces for engineers working on commercial hardware products.
: Reddit is the most common platform in this report (40% of 30 listings).
: 97% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 1.1M members and the median is 127K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Forum is the most common (83%). Others that show up often include live chat and online/offline events.
: Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.
: The full directory is on Hive Index's Hardware topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

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