🎯 Medium vs. DEV vs. Hashnode vs. Hackernoon 🔥

I have been to over 20 calls.
Many people asked me: What platform should I post on?
I think that’s a valid question but the wrong question to ask.
The real question is: What platform should I launch on?

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Your blog 📄

If you are in tech and want to grow your product, you need a blog that can be good for:

• Motivated developers who wish to learn more about you.

• Developers who are doing research about a problem and want to find a solution (SEO).

I don’t like to discuss other benefits, such as credibility and education, that can be for another post.

Now that we have established the importance of a blog, why would you want to use an external blog for your content?

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Your external blog 📜

What if:

• People are not aware that they have a problem. (Product without market dominator, such as Novu).
• SEO has a meager amount of traffic, and the competition is stiff.
• You don’t have enough time to wait for long-term channels.

You can use external blogs. They have a lot of mixed visitors who scour their platform daily and might be interested in what you offer.
Those platforms work in the “marketplace” mode, where they promote interesting and trending articles.

Nothing stops you from posting your article on your website blog and then posting your articles to all the other platforms with a canonical link back to your website. I used a freelancer on Upwork for a few dollars to post my articles on DEV, Hashnode, Hacknoon, and Medium whenever I have a new article.

And for the question, “What platform should I post on?” The answer is: all of them.

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Traffic to launch 🚀

As I mentioned, the biggest question is, “What platform should I launch on?”
When you launch something, you send every possible traffic you currently have: Social Media, Newsletter, etc. to the platform of your choice. Your main goal is that the platform will reward you with the traffic you send. Here are my thoughts about the different platforms:

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Medium

Medium is a generalized platform, and it has the most significant amount of audience for developers. If you managed to trend on Medium, you might get tens of thousands of developers reading your content. But it’s hard.

If you are starting, here is what I would do:

I would not put my launch on Medium. I will post my articles there regularly, and after a while, some publications will contact you and give you the ability to publish the post on their feed. Use it, and always post on their feed. I play with my publications between Javascript in plain English, Bits and Pieces, and Dev Genius. After a while, your audience on Medium will grow, you will get more followers exposed to your new articles, and your initial traffic can significantly increase.

Here is a trick I really liked from Ariel Weinberger, founder of Pezzo.

Ariel has the most extensive Udemy course about NestJS. When he has a NestJS-related article, he sends people to the article on Medium and gets thousands of likes. And you can do the same with different traffic sources you have.

Once you have a vast audience, you can feel comfortable to launch on Medium.

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DEV

DEV is my favorite platform to launch; getting your article trending there requires meager traffic. Their algorithm is still young, so you can quickly bring enough traffic and likes to the platform to be on the top feed.

I had articles there reaching 100k views with a minimal amount of marketing.

The platform consists mainly of juniors and Javascript developers. You acquire an audience fast there; I have more than 11k followers in one year.

I feel like the platform has started getting less traffic than in the past.
It’s good enough for now, but let’s see what happens next year.

I am a big advocate for DEV, and my blog contains many tricks to get your articles trending there.

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Hashnode

Hashnode is an interesting platform. It’s a blog that consists of many blogs. And on the main, there is a “Featured” section for trending articles.

I think DEV made a better approach since when I go to somebody's article on DEV, I stay on the DEV website so that I might be exposed to other people's articles. On Hashnode, you remain in the personal blog, so the traffic is not circulating. As a result, I feel that Hashnode has much less traffic than DEV.

I was featured on Hashnode multiple times and got little traffic.

What I do feel is that

They get new features rapidly outside compared to DEV

The owner of the platforms is very active daily there and helps articles out.

I think there will be a significant change there in the coming years.

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Hackernoon

Hackernoon it’s the weirdest platform of all of them in terms of design. You can post articles. You have to “Submit” them. They also charge companies to post. I had one piece there, and the results were “meh” compared to posting on DEV. The platform itself is super complicated, and the UX is awful. I don’t even post there regularly.

I might lack information about this platform as I am not motivated to explore it deeply. Do you think you know better what to do with it? Let me know.

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Where do you usually post?

Comments

[CoderLegion]

Please look at coderlegion.com. Moderation is there to control quality of posts submitted.

[Andrew Maksimchenko]

@nevodavid From my experience publishing across dev.to, Medium, Hashnode, and Hackernoon, I’ve found Hackernoon has a few strong advantages worth considering:

1. Exceptional Google ranking: Most of my articles published there show up at the very top of search results — even above Medium duplicates in some cases. Example for my recent article on Web Components:
2. High organic reach: Some of my articles have reached ~50K reads (like this one - Boost Your Productivity As a Software Developer and this one - Boosting Your App's Intelligence: Leveraging OpenAI and JS File API).
3. Editorial review process: Unlike platforms where you can publish anything instantly, Hackernoon has a team of editors who review submissions. It’s not for everyone, but it helps ensure the platform maintains higher content quality overall — which benefits both writers and readers. It's their advantage. Less plagiarism, no scam, no unwanted ads, unrelated promotions, or garbage content.
4. Massive audience: Their tech readership is substantial, and the brand itself is well-recognized in dev and startup circles.

Yeah, I totally agree their publishing interface could be more intuitive 😅 NO idea why they haven't shifted their focus to improving it, but Hackernoon still delivers strong value.

Also worth mentioning — freeCodeCamp with one of the largest and most loyal audiences, which put them ahead of many others in terms of consistent educational traffic. Recently, I've joined their freeCodeCamp Writers Team, and they also maintain a very selective editorial process. First, you must be qualified to be an author. And only afterward, you can write publications with them. The article's review process can take days / weeks, and not every submission gets accepted. But that’s what sets them apart — they prioritize educational value and clear technical depth. I see that as a strength, much like Hackernoon, where editorial review helps maintain a high content bar and filter out low-quality or overly promotional pieces.

[Daniel T Sasser II]

Spot on! Here you are still getting traction on this post. I recently started writing articles ahead of our company launch, posting on my blog and here on Dev. I’ve been amazed at the response I’ve received on this platform, though I haven’t hit your numbers yet! 😁 Dev has been fantastic for launching my content and driving traffic back to my personal blog, and it’s worked really well for that.

I’ve also gained a new appreciation for HackerNoon. They’ve picked up three of my articles (with another one coming out next week), and I’ve learned that writing original content for them gets prioritized. They’ll feature your work on their homepage, and they have a large community known for quality, vetted content. Plus, you can buy into their newsletter, putting your work directly into a ton of email inboxes!

For now, I’m enjoying the freedom these platforms give me to share my voice while building my EEAT and driving traffic to my personal blog. Once I see the results I want there, I may move on, but for now, this journey has been exciting. As for Medium, I'm still trying to figure that one out. But that's for another story.

[Shift Mag]

I feel so much better for still trying to figure out how HackerNoon works! Antonija/ShiftMag

[Alexey Poimtsev]

Dev.to becomes a platform “for developers” with content which is not actually related to development - politics, sexual preferences, etc. And there is no ability to downvote an irrelevant or low-quality post. If you want to see a good example of strong professional community - you can check Habr

PS - I’m not against LGBT topics, but dev.to isn’t a right place for similar posts

[Syakir]

Same experience with DEV here.. i was actively blogging in 2021. Got some articles trending and bring much traffics to my blog

[Amar Gupta]

Great✌

[Jacelyn Sia]

Choosing the right platform depends on your specific goals as a developer, especially if you're looking to hire offshore developer :

Medium: Medium is a versatile platform with a broad audience, making it suitable for sharing a wide range of content. It's excellent for reaching a general readership and exploring diverse topics.

DEV: DEV is a developer-centric platform with a strong community. It's ideal for in-depth technical articles, discussions, and networking within the developer community.

Hashnode: Hashnode offers customizable tech-focused blogs, making it a good choice for developers who want more control over their blog's appearance and functionality.

Hackernoon: Hackernoon specializes in tech stories and caters to tech enthusiasts. It can be a great platform for sharing unique experiences, insights, and stories related to the tech industry.

Your choice should align with your content focus, target audience, and personal preferences. Many developers also cross-publish their content on multiple platforms to reach a wider audience.