New to the coding world and looking for a place to start? Developer and coding communities online can serve as a great resource to connect with fellow enthusiasts, solve complex technical problems and network your way towards your next job opportunities. Whether you’re looking for answers to a specific question, seeking mentorship, or hoping to connect with like-minded people in your community, there’s an online group out there for you.
In this article, we’re taking a tour of the online ecosystem to highlight the most popular and helpful online coding communities.
Why Join an Online Coding Community?
There are numerous reasons you can benefit from participation in, or even just visiting, an online group or community devoted to your area of interest. When it comes to the programming profession, here are some positives you might find in a group on the net.
- Support System – Programming can be isolating work at times, so here’s your chance to connect (or commiserate) with like-minded individuals and show of your best work
- Answers to Questions – No matter how niche your problem seems, someone has likely encountered it before. Many of the sites listed here are geared towards matching frustrated coders with experts who are willing to work through the toughest of bugs. Just don’t forget to pay it forward!
- Mentorship – Connecting with the right person can make all the difference in your professional journey. With online communities, coders are no longer bound by geography when it comes to seeking out those who have walked the path before them and can serve as a guide toward building a portfolio, finding freelance clients, acing the interview process, and more.
- Job Opportunities – Recruiters often scour sites, looking for applicants with expertise that match their criteria. Building a big enough profile online could be your ticket to your next big freelance contract or a full-time role at a major tech organization.
- Knowledge Growth – From all the widely used languages like Python, Java, C++, and R to the proliferation of frameworks and libraries, the learning curve for coders can be steep. You can utilize groups for tips and insightful answers throughout your coding journey
- Fun! – No one can truly relate to the trials and tribulations developers go through than their colleagues in the industry!
Top 12 Most Popular Online Groups for Coders and Developers
Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow is for programmers, by programmers, and has been for its entire 13-year history. The site boasts more than 10 million active users and is a top resource for community-based answers to any coding difficulties. The company has even developed a Saas product called “Stack Overflow for Teams” that serves as a knowledge management and collaboration solution for businesses. The main programming languages discussed are Javascript, PHP, C#, Python, and Android, although this list is far from comprehensive.
Github
Another titan of the developer world, Github’s tagline is, “where the world builds software.” More than 65 million users have hosted more than 200 million projects and repositories on this open-source platform. This is a great space to seek inspiration and take a pulse on what others in the community are working on. The site also offers an automated software workflow feature, built-in code review tools, and the ability to craft a portfolio of projects right on the site.
Reddit is home to millions of users who make up thousands of sub-communities called “subreddits.” The biggest barrier to entry here might be finding the right one, but once you’re in, you’ve unlocked the door to endless discussion, troubleshooting, and memes. This platform veers more towards the conversation-based side, with communities of any interest or affiliation you can imagine. Within the development and engineering world, you can start with r/LearnProgramming and r/Coding, before moving into niche topics like r/reactjs and r/Python
Hashnode
This is the leading site for developers to start a blog and with their hefty list of features, it’s easy to understand why. The free platform allows users to create their own custom domain, with no ads and no paywall. That’s not all: all blogs are HTTPS by default, allow for the building of individual domain authority and come with built-in features like a newsletter service and article organization tools. The “My Feed” and “Explore” pages make it easy to connect with fellow content creators and curate your experience.
Dev.to
Dev is a community of more than 700,000 developers, geared toward knowledge and career growth. Anyone can post to the site, with the best and most well-researched content rising to the top of the homepage via positive engagement and reactions. Users can sort posts by Listings (“Seeking a Mentor,” “Job Listings,” “Upcoming Events”), Tags (#devops, #css, #programming), or Medium (podcasts, posts, videos).
Google Developer Groups
Looking to create community IRL? This is probably the entry for you. You might not have known that Google facilitates hundreds of chapters of developer groups around the globe. These individuals come together monthly to participate in workshops and trainings and build connections within the local tech scene. Chapters also come together for large-scale programming, like DevFest. One of the best aspects of Google Developer Groups is that each chapter curates its programming, based on the needs and interests of the local community, so no two groups are alike.
Freecodecamp
If you’re a beginner exploring the development space, Freecodecamp is as good a place as any to start. The nonprofit organization offers completely free instruction in many coding languages through videos, articles, and interactive lessons. Within the 3,000 hour curriculum, users can develop projects and earn certifications. The community aspect comes into play with the site’s ability to connect fellow learners through study groups around the world.
Women Who Code
This is another non-profit organization, but geared towards supporting women in the tech field, at all levels of the industry. More than 200,000 women worldwide are members, and joining allows access to coding resources, 1,900 annual events, scholarship opportunities, and the WWCode Job Board. There are also 85 regional organizations with their own slate of virtual and in-person programming.
Kaggle
For Data Scientists and Machine Learning Specialists, almost no resource is more valuable than Kaggle. The site offers a no-setup customizable Jupyter Notebooks environment and a repository of more than 19,000 public datasets and 2000,000 open notebooks. Discussion forums are available to help users get started and connect and free courses (with certifications) are offered in topics like Python, Machine Learning, SQL, and more.
Experts-Exchange
Experts Exchange is a similar site to Stack Overflow, in that users can post questions and seek answers from the greater tech community. However, it differs in that EE charges a membership fee ($19.99/month). What do you gain by having to pay? The site has built a reputation for trustworthiness and detailed solutions and insights into the toughest tech quandaries. More than 15,000 members volunteer their time to solve problems across over 430 tech topics. Members in senior-level roles can also become Certified Experts, and be granted access to write articles, publish videos, and host webinars.
Sitepoint Community
An offshoot of Sitepoint, a provider of more than 600 books and courses on tech topics, the community forums provide another outlet for asking and answering questions within the tech and coding world. Categories with well over 5,000 posts and responses include HTML/CSS, Javascript, PHP, and CMS, and WordPress.
Hackernoon
Hackernoon is how hackers start their afternoon (get it?). This independent tech media site definitely has a personality of its own and serves as an extremely popular resource for staying up to date with software and industry trends. Anyone can sign up to write for the site and connect with other enthusiasts.
Beginning a Career in Coding and Web Development
As you can see, there are all types of online coding communities to match the varying needs of developers and tech professionals. We hope you take some time to dive into each of these phenomenal groups and find the one(s) that feel like a perfect fit! If you’re interested in the learning and professional development aspect of these groups, we are also the home to dozens of resource articles you can check out right here on codingbootcamps.io:
- Interested in coding, but don’t know where to start? Explore our list of free resources on the web or read our detailed guides to C, C#, C++, HTML/CSS, Java, Python, R, React, Ruby, or SQL
- Learn about popular career paths, including software engineer, web developer, back-end web developer, front-end web developer, and more.
- Check out which tech jobs are in high demand for 2022 and command the highest salaries.
- Check out our comprehensive guides to creating a web developer portfolio or a technical resume
- Expand your knowledge with Our program listings and comparison pages for a variety of tech specialties, including Coding, Cybersecurity, Data Analytics, Data Science, Digital Marketing, Fintech, and UX/UI.
