The Best Blogging Platforms for Developers

Numerous platforms and software solutions are available for your blog, but the concern is which one is the best match for your requirements.

Let’s now identify which blogging platforms are the most suitable for your developer blog, without any delay.

freeCodeCamp

If your aim is to have a large audience for your written work, freeCodeCamp is an excellent option as they operate their publication much like a conventional scholarly journal.

You can enjoy the benefit of not having to be concerned with constructing or upkeeping your own blog.

An additional advantage is that you won’t need to concern yourself with promoting your articles. By publishing them on freeCodeCamp, you’ll be able to tap into their vast readership base. They actively promote their authors’ articles throughout their network, so your content won’t go unnoticed.

Conversely, freeCodeCamp invests significant effort in editing and promoting their articles and therefore requests that they not be republished on alternative platforms.

In addition, you must submit an application to write for them, which requires providing samples of your written work.

Listed below are the advantages and disadvantages of publishing content on freeCodeCamp.

Advantages:

You don’t have to worry about building and maintaining the blog.
You don’t blog into the void. freeCodeCamp has a considerable following.
They have an editorial team that green-lights your own article ideas or helps you come up with article ideas, and edits your articles.

Drawbacks:

freeCodeCamp doesn’t want you to cross-post articles that they’ve helped you edit, publish, and publicize.
You have to apply to become an author, and even then they reject a lot of article ideas.

Hashnode

Like the other platforms mentioned in this article, Hashnode is a tool that permits you to develop a blog and produce content.

Hashnode allows you to personalize your domain by mapping your own custom domain, which means you no longer have to settle for a generic username.bloggingplatform.com, rather, you can have the more professional yourname.com.

By doing so, your blog appears more professional and readers can recall your blog address with greater ease.

One major advantage is that you have the freedom to disengage from the platform. You can effortlessly retrieve all your posts or transfer them to GitHub, allowing you to depart without encountering significant difficulties.

It is important to have the capability to conveniently export your articles, as exemplified by my experience of losing majority of my articles when I transitioned from WordPress to Hashnode.

In addition, it is possible to modify and tailor your blog to your preferences. It is common knowledge that other blogging platforms only offer a single design that is utilised by all users. Nevertheless, Hashnode enables each individual to customise their blog using custom CSS, guaranteeing a distinct appearance and atmosphere.

Despite this, you will not have complete authority over your blog. If you are not starting your blog from scratch, you will always rely on another person.

If you desire a feature, you must suggest it and then patiently wait for it to be put into effect. Despite the typically prompt implementation of features, you are still subject to waiting and lack of influence.

Although it is a great platform for blogging, core Hashnode features cannot be modified or removed. This means that the “Sign In” button on your blog page, for example, cannot be taken away.

Therefore, it is important to examine the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing Hashnode.

Advantages:

It gives you the possibility to backup all your posts.
You are part of a large community.
You can customise and personalise your blog.

Downsides:

You have to accept and follow the Terms of Service.
You’re still using someone else’s platform.

Hacker Noon

With more than 12,000 developers both creating and consuming content, Hacker Noon serves as a reputable platform catering to not only developers but also builders, founders, makers, and hackers alike. Consequently, there exists a broad spectrum of subjects that can be explored and shared on the platform.

Hacker Noon’s advantage lies in their editorial team, which ensures that articles undergo scrutiny before publication on the platform, disallowing unrestricted postings.

Similarly, the articles’ quality is elevated as the editors manually review them. What advantages does this yield for you? By having a person edit your articles and give feedback, you benefit. Feedback reception helps you recognize areas where your knowledge falls short, allowing you to address them.

In addition, Hacker Noon boasts a social media following of over half a million individuals, allowing for extensive article dissemination. This also aids in establishing one’s personal brand, as the author’s details are showcased twice in the piece, along with their corresponding social media handles. Consequently, a larger audience is attained, whilst simultaneously self-promoting.

Conversely, it is not possible to assign your personalized domain. Consequently, the URLs of Hacker Noon are the ones indexed by Google or other search engines instead of your own. As a result, authors are forfeiting prospective Google traffic.

Finally, there is a uniformity in the appearance of all blogs and there is no provision for customization of the design of your blog.

Although there may be some minor issues, Hacker Noon is an excellent platform for blogging.

Advantages:

They have an editing team that checks your articles. You can then improve them based on the feedback you receive.
They have a social media community with over 500k people. As a result, you can reach a broad audience.

The disadvantages are:

Authors are giving away potential Google traffic because search engines index the Hacker Noon URL.
No ability to use your custom domain.
Inability to customise and personalise your blog.

Dev.to

Dev.to, created in 2016, is a developer-focused platform that simplifies the process of creating a blog and publishing your technological expertise.

Dev.to’s community of tens of thousands of developers is its most valuable aspect. When you publish a new article, it will appear on the homepage feed just like on social media. The community can engage with your content, providing you with increased visibility.

The SEO Optimization of this platform is one of the reasons why I included it in the best blogging platforms for developers list. It’s truly impressive that their website shows up in the first 3 Google results when I search for development-related articles about 1 out of every 3 times. Additionally, Dev.to has a significant social presence. It’s not uncommon for them to feature your articles on their pages, increasing your visibility. Of course, there are a couple of drawbacks to this platform.

You won’t be able to use any custom domain,
Personalization is very scarce, leaving you unable to properly optimize your Blog experience.

Despite being adequate for those who are just starting out, Dev.to analytics lack the necessary insights to personalize the user experience and optimize it for conversion goals. For advanced or professional bloggers, the absence of custom domain and proper analytics may discourage them from using Dev.to. Lastly, it’s worth noting that the analytics provided by Dev.to are not very helpful.

Apart from that, this is an exceptional blogging platform for developers who are embarking on their journey of technology writing.

Advantages:

Easy to set up and use.
Gigantic community of developers.
Strong social presence.
Amazing SEO Optimization.

Downsides:

Low to no personalizaton.
No custom domain.
Lacks of proper analytics.

Medium

Although Medium is not a platform exclusively targeted at developers, it is still highly regarded as a blogging platform created by one of the Twitter co-founders. Its user-friendly interface and widespread adoption by major publications have contributed to its ever-increasing popularity.

Creating a blog on Medium is a simple task that only requires a few clicks. It offers a significant degree of customization, and its Text Editor, which closely resembles WordPress, is a revolutionary tool.

The primary distinguishing factor between Medium and the rest of the blogging platforms for developers on this list is:

Publications,
Monetization.

Domain-specific organizations known as publications allow individuals to publish their content after being accepted. Doing so can significantly increase your readership, as your content will be exposed to both your own followers and those of the publication.

To be accepted for publication on Medium, you will be required to adhere to a variety of guidelines and regulations that differ from publication to publication. For instance, some may demand subject-specific pieces about “JavaScript” or “Open Source,” while others may impose stricter regulations on your writing style and topic selection.

The premium posts function is a frequently utilized tool on Medium. It allows you to lock certain articles behind a paywall, ensuring that they are only accessible to Medium premium members and enabling you to earn revenue based on their reading time. It is worth noting, however, that relying solely on Medium articles to generate income can be challenging, and I personally prefer other monetization methods. The payment system is not entirely transparent, and paywalls can be bothersome for a considerable segment of users. As a result, for some, Medium’s monetization feature is seen as a disadvantage rather than an advantage.

Similar to Hashnode and Dev.to, Medium has various drawbacks for developers who use it, such as the lack of a customizable domain or the ability to adjust the user interface/experience. Additionally, users must comply with the site’s Terms of Services and do not have ownership of the platform or its user base. While the personalization settings are more substantial than those of other platforms we reviewed, they are still somewhat limited.

Advantages:

Great Community
Publications will bring thousands of users
Large outreach also outside the dev community
Monetization / Paywalls

Drawbacks:

Monetization / Paywalls
Lack of personalization settings
No custom domain

Hosted Blog

Although more suitable for skilled content creators or highly motivated developers entering the blogging realm, this remains my top selection for beginning a blog.

Owning a blog provides complete autonomy when it comes to content creation, user involvement, customization, revenue generation, and features. Moreover, it empowers you to manage your audience’s data and experience entirely. With your blog, you can leverage your domain, send emails, enhance your UI and UX to optimize conversions, and exclusively own your data and content.

As previously mentioned, keeping up with a blog and regularly posting articles is a significant undertaking. If you also have a proprietary platform that demands a lot of maintenance, the workload becomes even more substantial. Therefore, it’s crucial to have a minimalist tech stack. When it comes to constructing a personal blog, my preferred technologies are:

WordPress.
Elementor.
RankMath.

WordPress – CMS and blogging

WordPress is an amazing Open Source CMS, that’s very easy to use and allows you to set up a blog in 5 minutes.

Elementor – Styling

Installed as a plugin on WordPress, Elementor is a drag and drop builder that provides an extensive range of pre-built components for your website, enabling complete customization.

RankMath – SEO

It’s likely that the top SEO Plugin for WordPress available is RankMath. Utilizing this tool assists me in optimizing my posts, monitoring my views, conversions, and keywords.

You are welcome to utilize the stack that suits you best; nevertheless, ensure that it is uncomplicated enough to allow ample time for composing the articles.

Naturally, there are drawbacks to owning a blog that is hosted. These may include expenses connected to the domain name, the hosting facility, and the amount of time required to set up various essential features such as analytics, subscription services, and others.

Owning your own blog has a drawback in terms of the exposure of your content. When using platforms like Hasnode, Dev.to, and Medium publications, your articles receive visibility and initial traction through sharing with the community.

However, unless you promote it through SEO techniques and develop a readership, your blog will not be recognized by anyone.

Except for the initial expenses and increased exertion needed to gain visibility for your posts, owning a blog offers greater scaling possibilities for developers than any other blogging platform. It provides complete authority over your audience’s experience and unrestricted autonomy for your online presentation’s aesthetics.

Advantages: