9 Best Forums for Developers to Join in 2023

Stack Overflow is a public platform for technology-related answers. Stack Overflow is serving 100 million people worldwide. It is a powerful Q&A platform to ask questions, learn, and share technical knowledge. Stack Overflow integrates and improves ChatOps tools like Jira, Teams, Slack, GitHub, and Okta.

Stack Overflow features

• Technology experts and developers can share knowledge and insights with other community members
• Companies can connect with their target audience, build their brand, and attract tech talent 
• Developers can find credible answers to their questions, engage with knowledgeable people, and grow together

Some ways to leverage Stack Overflow

• Post unique, challenging, and well-researched questions related to technology
• All the questions are tagged based on a topic. It can be related to a programming language or software. The tag list helps users to browse topics of their interest
• Upvote answers that you feel are correct
• You can improve posts’ ranking by editing the posts or commenting to clarify a question or answer 
• Gain reputation when others vote for your questions, edits, and answers As you gain reputation, unlock benefits like the ability to vote, comment and edit others’ posts

Showwcase is a network for coders to connect, share knowledge, learn, explore opportunities, get feedback, and ask questions.

On this platform, coders are the decision-makers. They can choose the people they want in their network, the content they want to view, and the kind of messages they want to deliver.

Showwcase offers a range of sub-communities from ReactJS, Web3, JavaScript to the blockchain, and more for developers to explore.

Showwcase features

• Users can initiate discussions, ask questions, and share ideas
• Developers can create and share content in the form of articles and blogs with the community 
• Developers can join or propose a new community for discussions related to technology 
• Users can create their own circle of like-minded people to collaborate, get referrals and earn new opportunities
• Developers can share their profile with a free custom domain Job seekers can find relevant job opportunities
• With the Profile Builder developers can build great tech resumes that can be downloaded as PDFs 
• Companies can hire developers by evaluating them directly on Showwcase with their respective developer profiles

Some ways to leverage Showwcase

• Create your unique profile showcasing the best work and skills Explore various communities, join them, or create your community and get access to better features
• Add links to your LinkedIn profile, personal website if any, GitHub, or other handles by clicking on Elsewhere Post images, videos, codes, and more
• Create your first post and pin it to your profile
• Attach a custom domain to your profile
• Share your unique work, product launches, updates, and more with the feature ‘Shows’

Hashnode is a blogging community for developers and tech geeks to connect and share knowledge. It’s a free content creation platform for developers to share their content with a free custom domain.

Hashnode features

• Developers can write and read ad-free articles
• Developers can modify the blog appearance with the custom CSS feature
• Developers can retain all the rights to their content by exporting and downloading content 
• Users get access to free in-built newsletter services, and the readers can easily subscribe for blogs
• Built-in advanced analytics for users to check the performance of their content
• Users can get feedback on drafts from peers before publishing the content
• Users can easily group a series of articles related to a topic Be it a Hashnode subdomain or a custom one, users get a free SSL certificates for blogs 
• Team members can invite others, and allow multiple authors to publish articles on the same blog platform 
• Users can get their personal blogs featured on the Hashnode homepage for a better reach amongst the dev community
• Users can have a backup of content, and publish it directly on a private or public GitHub repository
• The performance, accessibility, and SEO of blogs are excellent as they are supported by Next.js

Some ways to leverage Hashnode

• Read the recent, popular and personalized articles in the ‘My Feed,’ section
• Explore popular tech blogs and trending tags
• Share drafts with friends and teams for a peer review
• Bookmark a favorite blog post to quickly get back to it when needed
• Explore ‘Hashnode for Teams,’ a blogging platform for devtools, engineering, and open-source teams
• Map your personal web domain with Hashnode blog
• Take up the Hasnode created writing challenges like ‘Self Starter’, ‘Word Warrior’, ‘Crazy Blogger’, and more to become a better writer

Major League Hacking or MLH is the official student hackathon league. It’s a hacker community for the next generation of technology leaders and entrepreneurs. MLH drives more than 200-weekend invention competitions to empower thousands of students across the globe.

MLH Features

• Users can access the complete guide for organizing hackathons
• The Member Events Organizers get one-on-one mentorship, event promotions, and on-site support from trained MLH representatives
• Hackon, an in-person conference by MLH, helps students to meet and build relationships with community leaders and develop new skills
• The MLH community provides complete support pre, during, and after the hackathon

Some ways to leverage MLH

• Integrate MyMLH account with your website
• Customize MyMLH with API that is extensible
• Hackathons and third-party hackathons can view and manage the personal information of
• users who have created an account with MyMLH
• Attend the MLH Localhost workshops to learn, teach and grow

Dev is a community for software developers to write, share, collaborate, and network. In this community, developers and organizations can create various upcoming events, job openings, mentorship offers, education courses, product listings, and more.

Dev features

• Users can explore a variety of interesting podcasts related to technology
• With Dev Tags, users can select and follow tags to discuss posts related to Cloud, Angular, Kubernetes, Go, Machine Learning, Android, and more. 
• Users can watch insightful videos posted by community members
• The Markdown editor in Dev is a text-to-HTML conversion tool, where users can write with an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, and convert their text to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML)

Some ways to leverage Dev 

• Click on ‘Write a Post’ to write and publish articles with relevant tags   
• Use the markdown editor to edit posts, tags, titles, and more. To know more, visit the Dev page. 
• Get your blogs featured on the home page by posting high-quality content on the Dev platform 
• Set up a canonical URL for better Google ranking before publishing

Aviyel is a forum for developers to find open-source projects and build professional relationships with like-minded people. Developers can learn from experts and share knowledge in the community.

Aviyel features

• Users can add open-source projects to the community, engage with contributors, and expand their community
• Users can attend or host the events and discuss ideas, conduct training, and learn more about different projects
• Users can earn rewards for contributions to the projects.   Some ways to leverage Aviyel 
• Add your open-source project   
• Track your activities   
• Connect with the contributors in your community   
• Find the resources related to your project   
• Explore events to attend or host one   
• Answer the users’ questions   
• Offer guidance on projects

CodeProject is a popular community where software developers help each other by sharing code, tutorials, and knowledge for free. CodeProject is an excellent platform for programmers to explore several articles and tutorials related to programming languages. Developers from top companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and more often read CodeProject articles.

CodeProject features

• Discussion boards help users find relevant answers and discuss with fellow mates
• The Lounge is a unique feature for CodeProject members to socialize and know what’s happening in CodeProject
• CodeProject members can customize the weekly newsletters to read only ones that are of their interest
• In the Community Surveys section, users can suggest a survey, search queries from the available surveys, and find the results
• The rating and comment feature helps in filtering good articles from bad ones
• Registered users get benefits like storing personal files in their account, having live hyperlinks in their profile biography, and more
• Members can write their articles and code for visitors to view

Some ways to leverage CodeProject 

• Have your own page and share your interests, personal information, and a listing of all your articles 
• Vote articles of other authors   
• Bookmark articles of your interest 
• Filter articles and Q&As based on tags and scores   
• Participate in competitions to get rewards and enhance your skills

CodePen

CodePen is an open community for front-end designers and developers to write codes, create attractive websites, showcase their work, build test cases to learn and debug, and find inspiration for new projects. CodePen users use JavaScript, HTML, and CSS languages. Pens are code snippets in CodePen with three separate windows for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and a preview pane for real-time updates as and when you code.

CodePen features

• Members can use Preprocessors in CodePen to simplify the coding process 
• CodePen Embeds provide customizable personal themes to each member. They can edit these themes to match that of the blogs   
• Developers can create Template Pens that help to minimize the repetition of ideas or concepts
• Developers can test a code in real-time in multiple browsers and devices with the Live View feature
• For some inspiration or new ideas to code, users can choose from a huge collection of Pens in the Pattern library
• Emmet in CodePen is a time-saving plugin that converts some of the time taking tasks into simple shortcuts
• The Collab Mode allows real-time coding and chatting with multiple people

Some ways to leverage CodePen 

• Create small codes using Pen Editor   
• Use the Project Editor to code for projects   
• Use Collections to add any Pen of your choice   
• Share Pens easily on social media sites via SMS     
• Create a copy of a Pen by using the Fork option       
• Make the codes readable using the formatting options in the Pen Editor     
• Fix the code errors with the Analyze option in the Pen Editor       
• Share your Pens on social media channels by clicking on the share button       
• Download and save your work in the system with the Export button

Turing, a remote-first company, has created a career-centric community for developers to share their experiences, enhance skills, and build their engineering careers.The Turing Developer Community is built for developers, by developers. With the community, developers can supercharge their professional growth and get matched with some of the top US companies. With the help of mentors present in the Turing community, developers can build excellent software products from the start.

Turing community features   

• Developers can build their dream engineering careers with actionable career advice and tips   
• Developers can boost their professional development by adding technical and soft skills to their toolkits, and accelerate their career growth with the guidance of mentors and industry experts     
• Developers can expand their network by meeting professional and experienced engineers   
• Exclusive events like Jump Start, which are basically live and guided sessions run by experts to help developers complete Turing’s vetting process, coding sessions, career development workshops, and more help developers upgrade their skills and explore opportunities

Some ways to leverage the Turing community   

• Head to the Turing community and join the Turing Forum to connect with experts and mentors     
• Select from a wide range of events like webinars, podcasts, career development series, ESL (English as a second language) sessions, and many more to learn and grow     
• Join an event by selecting any of the Chapters in the community

The above-mentioned names are just a few of the active forums for developers. There are many other forums to explore. The purpose of developer communities is to provide the resources for developers to learn anything they want to. Communities encourage developers to have peer-to-peer conversations, find opportunities and engage with other members to develop successful products or applications. 

Which of the above forums would be your choice? Let us know in the comments!

Would you like to explore remote developer jobs with excellent compensation and career success? Try Turing! Turing developers work with leading US companies in a wide range of industries. Developers can explore opportunities at Turing based on their skills, career goals, and aspirations.

1. Which community is the best for a software developer in 2023?

The Turing Developer Community is a great platform for developers to connect with peers, grow their network, share knowledge, explore opportunities, learn new skills, and more. Here are a few other developer forums developers can join:

• Stack Overflow
• Showwcase 
• Hashnode
• MLH
• Dev 
• CodeProject 
• CodePen 
• Aviyel
• Turing Developer Community

2. How do you grow a developer community?

Here are a few ways to grow a developer community:

• Encourage participants to create and share content that challenges, inspires, and informs the readers
• Keep the lines of communication open for the members to feel involved and be heard
• Recognize the active members for their excellent contributions and involvement
• Create events to strengthen the developer relationship

3. How important is a developer community?

The developer community is important for the following reasons:

• To share knowledge with fellow members
• To build a great network with people of similar interests and goals
• To enhance writing skills, soft skills, technical skills, entrepreneurial skills, and more
• To learn from industry leaders and mentors by attending events and workshops

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