What are Software Development communities?
The software development industry is an ever-changing beast. Every year new programming languages emerge, new technologies hit the market, and existing languages and technologies are either left behind or completely re-imagined. It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle when you’re new to the industry — your skills are too outdated to help you land a job, but they’re not modern enough to help you keep one. Software developers are always looking to learn more about their craft, but they don’t always know where to look. This list of communities is dedicated to engineers, software developers, coders, and hackers. Some are online communities dedicated to a particular technology or programming language, and some are general purpose communities or those that help developers early in their career. The communities on this list are an excellent source of inspiration, knowledge-sharing, and networking.
About Online Communities on Independent Platforms
These are online communities that are hosted on their own platform, and not a part of a social network like Reddit/Facebook/LinkedIn, or communication platform like Slack and Discord. Although they may utilize community software like circle.so to implement the features of their community, they have their own brand and identity.
Stack Overflow
Founded in 2008, Stack Overflow’s public platform is used by nearly everyone who codes to learn, share their knowledge, collaborate, and build their careers. Our products and tools help developers and technologists in life and at work. These products include Stack Overflow for Teams, Stack Overflow Advertising, and Stack Overflow for Talent and Jobs. Stack Overflow for Teams, our core SaaS collaboration product, is helping thousands of companies around the world as the transition to remote work, address business continuity challenges, and undergo digital transformation. Whether it’s on Stack Overflow or within Stack Overflow for Teams, community is at the center of all that we do.100.0M members
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Code Project
Code Project is a community for computer programmers with articles on different topics and programming languages such as web development, software development, C++, Java, and other topics.14.7M members
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Hacker News
Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. It is run by Paul Graham's investment fund and startup incubator, Y Combinator. In general, content that can be submitted is defined as "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.5.0M members
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DaniWeb
1.2M members
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Codecademy
When we started Codecademy, our goal was to give anyone in the world the ability to learn the skills they’d need to succeed in the 21st century. We set out to create a new, interactive way of learning — making it engaging, flexible, and accessible for as many people as possible. Since then, we have helped millions of people worldwide unlock modern technical skills and reach their full potential through code.1.0M members
ForumChatPerksEventsJobsDigital Point
Digital Point is the largest webmaster community in the world. Includes tools and a large marketplace.892K members
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Bytes
A community for Developers and IT Professionals. Covering topics such as: Software Development, Web Development, Database Development + Optimization, Database Administration, System Administration, Network Administration and much more464K members
ForumfreeCodeCamp
Our mission: to help people learn to code for free. We accomplish this by creating thousands of videos, articles, and interactive coding lessons - all freely available to the public. We also have thousands of freeCodeCamp study groups around the world, and an active online community.244K members
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Ozzu
At Ozzu you will find headlines and all types of information and resources that a professional webmaster, designer, programmer, developer, or web artist can use in their daily activities. Our mission is to create a community where a webmaster can find everything they need in one place.56K members
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devRant
devRant is a fun community for developers to share and bond over their successes and frustrations with code, tech, and life as a programmer. DevRant has an iOS and Android app for the community.50K members
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Django Girls
Django Girls is a non-profit organization and a community that empowers and helps women to organize free, one-day programming workshops by providing tools, resources and support. We are a volunteer run organization with hundreds of people contributing to bring more amazing women into the world of technology. We are making technology more approachable by creating resources designed with empathy.17K members
ChatEventsNewsletterLobsters
Lobsters is a computing-focused community centered around link aggregation and discussion14K members
ForumSuperHi
We make online courses that help creative people stand out. Learn how to code, design, and manage projects among our global community!12K members
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Blogging for Devs
Become part of the private community for developers, indie hackers, freelancers, and tech creators growing their audience through writing online. Private community of 300+ developers you can learn from and collaborate with. Get feedback on your articles, blog, newsletter, content, or distribution plan. Join live Workshops and AMAs with experts and creators in tech you already follow. Access to the Video Vault containing weekly screencasts and past events (all captioned).350 members
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Oat++ Framework
A Gitter community for Oat++ developers. Talk to Oat++ developers, ask questions, share your knowledge and use-cases.209 members
ChatNative Talent in Tech
Native Talent in Tech is a collection of Indigenous technologists across various skills and experiences. The project’s goal is to highlight their work and elevate their voices by parsing Twitter bios for popular keywords. With more representation, we hope that it can also help companies discover the next generation of Natives talent.61 members
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Treehouse is a platform with online courses for people of all skill levels and backgrounds. They also have an online forum-based community where you can ask questions about programming topics.Forum
Freenode
The freenode project exists to help peer-directed project communities flourish. Peer-directed projects combine open, informal participation with broad licensing and wide dissemination of output. freenode provides facilities to peer-directed project communities, including those of free and open source software (FOSS). The IRC component of freenode is a self-referential medium, existing mainly to service IRC users — but the network was created to serve groups that exist outside of IRC. freenode is designed to encourage community members to improve their skills in the areas of cooperative effort, interpersonal communication and project coordination, and to create a real-time bridge to the outside world for our target communities.ChatEventsJobs
DALnet
Started in 1994 as an alternative to the overburdened networks of the time, DALnet has grown into a vibrant community and is widely regarded as the most "friendly" of the major IRC networks. DALnet pioneered nickname and channel registration, giving users the right and ability to govern their online experience, without the fear of channel takeover, impersonation or harassment.ChatXDA
XDA Developers was founded by developers, for developers. It is now a valuable resource for people who want to make the most of their mobile devices, from customizing the look and feel to adding new functionality.ForumNewsletter
