Why Devs Are Quietly Leaving Stack Overflow in 2025
“I haven’t opened Stack Overflow in months.”
You hear it more often now, in Dis...
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Stack Overflow still has it's place in the ecosystem. And the chat bots are serving their purpose perfectly. They were trained on this data for a reason. Now, instead of newbies asking questions from experts that have been asked dozens or hundreds of times before, they can simply ask a bot and get access to every relevant answer without the attitude. An attitude caused by moderating those repeat questions.
The dip in traffic is actually a good thing. It means that the experts can take a step back from the platform. But those same experts still need a place to go to ask questions. And many LLMs have knowledge cutoffs with no direct internet access to fetch data about the latest library, or best-practices or simply cannot grasp the full complexity of some issues. So Stack Overflow will not die, just evolve. But this evolution depends on users willing to take the time to share their knowledge. If you spend hours or even days solving a problem, please do us all a favor and share your findings. Post a question and answer it yourself if necessary. Not for glory, or recognition, but for the greater good.
Brilliantly said, this is the kind of perspective that often gets lost in the AI vs. human debate.
For me it's ease that inbuilt AI tools are providing with the editor. As they have code context and can easily understand the problem statement and give specific solutions.
That’s totally fair, having AI built directly into the editor with full code context is a huge win. It’s hard to beat that tight integration when you're deep in a codebase and just want specific, in-scope help without jumping tabs.
I think that’s where tools AI tools really shine, they reduce friction. For folks with more standardised setups, that context-aware support can feel almost magical.
For me, it comes down to trade-offs. Built-in AI tools offer speed and convenience, but sometimes I still lean on external chats like Claude when I need a bit more control or when things get too custom and nuanced.
How has it been working out for your daily workflow overall? Found any limitations or is it smooth sailing so far?
Thanks for this insightful write-up.
It's reassuring to discover I am not the only one that found the moderator attitude on Stack Overflow off-putting.
I can totally relate to your statements like, "Aggressive moderators" and "It’s about culture. Stack Overflow needs to become less hostile, more empathetic, and actually... fun?"
As soon as A.I. came on the scene, all incentive to ask coding questions on S.O. instantly vanished for me. Why put up with the hostility and cockiness in order to wait hours, if not days, for answers, when I can get a more comprehensive insights instantly from a friendly and infinitely attentive A.I. LLM?
If the culture on S.O. wasn't so hostile, I'd likely still use it as I appreciate human interaction.
You’re definitely not alone. That feeling of being talked down to or gatekept on Stack Overflow has pushed away so many devs who just wanted to learn or contribute in peace.
What’s wild is that the moment AI showed up with zero ego and unlimited patience, it exposed just how exhausting some parts of the community had become. When you're stuck on a problem, the last thing you want is to feel like you're being judged for not already knowing the answer.
I still believe Stack Overflow has huge value, especially when it comes to edge cases or human insight, but yeah, the culture needs a reset.
Hopefully as more folks speak up like this, we’ll see a shift. Human interaction can be amazing, when it’s not laced with condescension.
Nice! It's interesting to see how developers are finding new places to share and learn. Do you think these newer communities will be better at helping people feel welcome than Stack Overflow was?
I do think these newer communities have a real shot at being more welcoming, especially since many of them were built with that exact critique of Stack Overflow in mind. Places like Discord servers, dev.to, and even Reddit threads feel more casual, less performative, like you’re talking with people, not trying to earn points.
That said, the real challenge will be maintaining that inclusive vibe as they grow. Culture doesn’t scale automatically, it needs intention. But I’m hopeful. If we’ve learned anything from Stack Overflow’s journey, it’s that devs value helpfulness and empathy as much as correctness.
I don't disagree with anything in this article, but one thing I often get from stack overflow is a decent debate in the comments, sometimes reading opposing or alternate ideas leads to the best solution for your situation.
Also having to ask several questions to achieve enough points before be able to answer a question or comment on a question does not seem to make sense to me. I usually find an answer before needing to post my question.
Completely agree, some of the most valuable takeaways from Stack Overflow aren’t just the answers, but the discussions in the comments. Seeing different devs challenge each other’s assumptions or offer alternate approaches often leads to those lightbulb moments.
Agree on the tone. It's gotten increasingly bad in the past few years. Meanwhile, Copilot is built right into VSC.
real, the hostility is still here even in 2025
how do you think stackoverflow can reduce this hostility?
still real in 2025. The platform has done a lot technically, but the tone of the community hasn’t evolved at the same pace.
SO is where most of the answers in your AI chat bot come from. That's just a nicer interface for most people, is all.
If SO disappeared, then AI answers would stagnate, at least to an extent, since they can't scrape your Discord.
Discord is transient. You don't go there to look up an answer to an existing problem, you go to ask a question. It's not an archive. If people ask the same question too often, devs will add it to an FAQ, at which point it's documentation or a replication of SO.
Really, the reason SO "engagement" is down is twofold: the rise of the companionable judgement-free interface of AI, and "engagement" being defined by you as writing questions and answers. Even without AI, SO would get (and is) saturated with content for existing problems. The majority of people going there are after a solution which has already been presented, so why would they ask the same question again? And why wouldn't people moderate/merge/close that repeat question?
Also, the traffic trend graph would be more honest if it started its Y-axis at zero, like the other graph does.
I don't mind with the hostility. I used to it.
But I getting locked with chatgpt because it gives answer faster and context aware.