Practicing a few key disciplines goes a long way toward building a successful career as a developer. Staying up to date with the latest coding trends is definitely one of them. And that’s where software development blogs and communities come in handy.
However, as a simple Google search on the term software development blog can prove, there are just a few resources out there. It’s easy to feel discouraged about where to even start reading.
Never fear, I’m here to help you wade in with Draft.dev’s guide to 30 of the best software development blogs on the web. Get ready to enhance your career and deepen your personal knowledge with informative, enriching articles for every discipline and every background.
For easy skimming and quick decision-making, I’ve rated each blog based on five different criteria:
Writing quality: the overall quality and readability of the content the blog normally produces
Consistency: how often the blog produces new content
Longevity: the length of time the blog has been around, which often indicates the trustworthiness and authority of its content
Technical depth: the level of technical detail you can expect to find on the blog
Broad usefulness: how many different interests, disciplines, and skill levels the blog appeals to
Let’s begin.
DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean might be the next great thing in the developer community. With their recent incorporation of Alligator.io and Scotch.io, their library is vast enough to fulfil the needs of every developer. They publish a truly staggering amount of content monthly, with great technical depth.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 5
Longevity: 4
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 5
Overall score: 4.8
Smashing Magazine
Visually appealing for web developers of all backgrounds, Smashing Magazine consistently provides long, technical reads about topics like JavaScript, React and web design in general.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 5
Longevity: 4
Technical depth: 4
Broad usefulness: 4
Overall score: 4.6
Stack Overflow Blog
Naturally, the most famous website for developer knowledge from all over the world has a blog, with simple, easy-to-understand guides on every type of topic for developers of all backgrounds.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 5
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 5
Overall score: 4.6
CSS-Tricks
Don’t get misled by the name; CSS articles aren’t the only reason it’s worth a visit. CSS-Tricks is a great platform for all web-related technologies, publishing three to five new articles daily of great quality and technical depth. The site’s UX is extremely modern, complementing a rich collection of guides on web topics like Flexbox and SASS.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 5
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 3
Overall score: 4.2
Level Up Coding
Written by select authors, this Medium blog shares great web technology content for all types of developers, with a consistent quality of writing and a very active community.
Writing quality: 4
Consistency: 5
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 4
Overall score: 4.2
Bits And Pieces
Two million developers tune in monthly to read about the web on Bits and Pieces. Join the blog and get daily content about your favorite JavaScript frameworks. Accessible for developers of all skill levels.
Writing quality: 4
Consistency: 5
Longevity: 4
Technical depth: 4
Broad usefulness: 4
Overall score: 4.2
Coding Horror
Jeff Atwood created this website in 2004, and he has described his blog as being a complete life-changer for him. The website, however, has also changed the life of thousands of coders from all over the world reading it. Making its quirkiness and humorous graphics its strong point.
Jeff hasn’t been publishing often in the last year, yet the website remains a gem for all passionate coders, especially those looking for all web development related topics presented in a fun, playful way.
Writing quality : 5
Consistency : 2
Longevity : 5
Technical depth : 5
Broad usefulness : 4
Overall score : 4.2
BetterProgramming
The most followed Medium publication about coding. BetterProgramming publishes more than fifteen articles a day of truly great quality, ranging across all technologies, for all developers. Its editors pay special attention to selecting the best authors based on their skills, with great attention on diversity between them.
Writing quality: 4
Consistency: 5
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 4
Overall score: 4.2
freeCodeCamp
freeCodeCamp made history as the most-followed Medium publication ever. They’ve since moved on their own website, with more than 6000 articles about any type of coding technology. A great site for beginners, and not only because of the quality of content, they offer a free software development curriculum. Pair the lessons with their articles to fast-track your learning.
Writing quality: 4
Consistency: 4
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 5
Overall score: 4.2
Tutorialspoint
Choose a coding language, and Tutorialspoint will have dozens of articles ready for you to pick from. Really one of the best linear resources for developers looking to acquire new skills.
Writing quality: 3
Consistency: 4
Longevity: 5
Technical depth: 4
Broad usefulness: 5
Overall score: 4.2
DEV.to
On Dev.to, you will find a community of more than half a million developers reading and sharing each other’s articles. It hosts thousands of articles, podcasts and Q&As related to any type of coding language, with new content added daily. Everybody can contribute whenever they want to this website, like in social media. This makes the platform very content-rich but also low in quality sometimes, as there is no checking on the published article’s quality.
The platform also offers a cool gamification system to reward contributors with badges and free gifts from their shop.
Writing quality: 3
Consistency: 5
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 5
Overall score: 4.2
Todd Motto
Google expert Todd Motto provides readers with deeply technical articles about the web’s most used frameworks, such as Angular and React. Unfortunately, the website isn’t that consistent when it comes to new content, but it’s still worth checking out.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 2
Longevity: 4
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 4
Overall score: 4
Robin Wieruch
Robin Wieruch’s followers are used to a collection of truly amazing articles about React every month. Easily learn everything you ever wanted to know about the library thanks to Wieruch’s straightforward, easy-to-understand writing style.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 3
Longevity: 4
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 2
Overall score: 3.8
Ray Wenderlich
A masterpiece when it comes to discussing mobile technologies, this blog publishes three to four deeply technical articles a week. With a special focus on Swift and Kotlin, this site allows free subscribers to download resources from select articles, making it a masterclass for students of mobile tech.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 3
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 3
Overall score: 3.8
SitePoint
Since 1999, SitePoint has been an excellent platform for web-based technology tutorials. With four to five highly researched articles published a week, topics range from JavaScript and PHP to Angular and React.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 3
Longevity: 5
Technical depth: 3
Broad usefulness: 3
Overall score: 3.8
Stack Abuse
Weekly articles about JavaScript, Java and Python are perfect for developers with some experience. Stack Abuse gets in-depth and can be complex for novices.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 3
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 3
Overall score: 3.8
LogRocket
LogRocket builds software for monitoring your frontend. Conveniently, they’ve created a blog with deeply technical articles and how-tos for improving application performance. Suggested for more experienced professionals.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 4
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 3
Overall score: 3.8
The Crazy Programmer
Providing weekly instructive articles about programming and industry, The Crazy Programmer offers a wide variety of tutorials, programs and interview practice for JavaScript, Android, C, C++, Java, .Net, PHP, SQL and PL/SQL. Suggested for both junior and senior developers.
Writing quality: 3
Consistency: 3
Longevity: 4
Technical depth: 4
Broad usefulness: 5
Overall score: 3.8
Towards Data Science
An extremely large Medium publication, Towards Data Science is focused on, well, data science, with a good amount of content related to coding. Best fit for people who are in the field of AI or machine learning, this site publishes great quality material daily.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 4
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 2
Overall score: 3.8
JavaScript In Plain English
This is the place to be for all developers passionate about JavaScript. Rapidly growing, JavaScript in Plain English offers daily education and inspiration for junior developers who want to master the language of the web.
Writing quality: 4
Consistency: 5
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 3
Overall score: 3.8
Simple Programmer
John Sonmez created this website in 2009 to share his experiences about how to land a coding job. And his efforts paid off: the community has grown into a great place to get career advice, even how to create your own online business. Articles are published daily, but only some of them are technical. The majority of the blog’s content still focuses on employment.
Writing quality: 4
Consistency: 5
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 3
Broad usefulness: 3
Overall score: 3.6
A List Apart
This website hasn’t been publishing a lot lately, yet its collection of articles is still great for all the web developers out there with a passion for project management and creativity tools.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 3
Longevity: 4
Technical depth: 2
Broad usefulness: 4
Overall score: 3.6
Flavio Copes
The most astonishing thing about Flavio Copes is his consistency to publish new content every day. He writes short-format articles, kind of like pills of knowledge, on topics ranging across all languages, but particularly JavaScript. Check out this site for beginner how-to guides, as well as Flavio’s library of free ebooks.
Writing quality: 3
Consistency: 5
Longevity: 4
Technical depth: 3
Broad usefulness: 3
Overall score: 3.6
Hackr.io
I found Hackr.io to be particularly useful for those looking for career orientation. In fact, most of their articles are guides for interviews. Expect to find two or three new posts every month. If you want help deciding what to learn first, they offer a special section listing the best online tutorials chosen by the community for every technology you can think of.
Writing quality: 5
Consistency: 2
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 2
Overall score: 3.4
codeburst
Another Medium publication, codeburst publishes two to three articles a day, usually for web technologies like JavaScript and its frameworks. Occasionally, though, you can find true gems of career advice. Especially helpful for intermediate developers with a passion for JavaScript and related technologies.
Writing quality: 4
Consistency: 4
Longevity: 2
Technical depth: 3
Broad usefulness: 4
Overall score: 3.4
Codecademy
Codecademy is one of the best places online to start your career in coding. Their blog reflects that, with quality weekly content about interviews and landing a job as a developer.
Writing quality: 4
Consistency: 3
Longevity: 4
Technical depth: 2
Broad usefulness: 2
Overall score: 3.2
Kent Dodds
Kent Dodds’ site is a hidden gem for React lovers. His passion for the library is evident in every article — unfortunately, there aren’t that many, less than 200 as of today. Still, check out Dodds’ site for deeply technical content for all types of React developers.
Writing quality: 4
Consistency: 2
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 5
Broad usefulness: 2
Overall score: 3.2
Hackernoon
Hackernoon is for people passionate about technology — they don’t only focus on coding, setting it apart from the rest of the blogs in this guide. It also covers startups, decentralization and gaming. A great place for techies, but a little distracting for developers looking for specific tutorials.
Writing quality: 3
Consistency: 4
Longevity: 4
Technical depth: 2
Broad usefulness: 3
Overall score: 3.2
David Walsh
Tech guru David Walsh, who works for Mozilla, writes new articles about web development every week. On his blog, you will enjoy a variety of contents ranging from JavaScript to its frameworks. Or, if you prefer, an amazing series of articles regarding career advice from an absolute master like David.
Writing quality: 4
Consistency: 2
Longevity: 4
Technical depth: 4
Broad usefulness: 3
Overall score: 3.2
Code Like A Girl
A community built by women to inspire other women to join the tech world and help create its future. Their Medium blog publishes great content daily, especially related to career advice for women in tech.
Writing quality: 4
Consistency: 3
Longevity: 3
Technical depth: 2
Broad usefulness: 3
Overall score: 3
Do you have a favorite software development blog that I didn’t include in this list? Submit your suggestions here!
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