Wanted to share some thoughts as a founder who has been building and shipping developer tools and applications (including open source, Voiden).
When I started, every discussion and engagement I had with dev-tool marketers and experts revolved around the idea that effective developer marketing should be a combination of genuinely helpful content, engaging tutorials, thoughtful blog posts, and insightful guides that actually help people get unblocked or see common problems from a new perspective.
I wanted to — and still want to — contribute to that kind of ecosystem.
And to be clear, I still believe this is what good developer marketing looks like.
But I also realized that a lot of what passes for “dev marketing” today (especially in the API tooling space that I’m in) is much more about SEO, keyword stuffing, backlinks, and thinly veiled sponsored content.
Case in point:
I came across a post on dev.to titled:
“12 open-source alternatives to popular dev tools.”
Great idea, right?
Except the first tool listed wasn’t open source at all — it’s a paid SaaS.
Some of the “alternatives” weren’t even truly comparable. It felt much more like keyword stuffing and backlinking than a genuine resource meant to help developers.
And some of the comments below were things like:
“Great list!”
So I made a joke in the comments calling out the issue. Something along the lines of:
“You could also add the tool to a list of ‘Top burger joints in Manhattan’, since people could also test APIs while eating a burger, right?” or something like that.
In hindsight, maybe not the best joke ever made.
The author of the post apparently thought the same and deleted my comment.
Twice.
But this isn’t really about that one tool or that one post.
I have seen many companies do similar things.
That said, I also don’t want to overgeneralize and in a weird way I can even sympathize a bit.
A lot of founders and makers fall into a strange trap: the idea that self-promotion is inherently bad.
So instead of honestly sharing what they’ve built or what they’ve learned, they look for clever tactics or “growth hacks” to appear neutral, helpful, or educational while still getting attention.
In a way, they’re staging the play they think developers want to see.
It’s understandable (maybe).
But it can easily cross the line into something misleading or manipulative.
I honestly don’t know whether this happens because people underestimate developers’ ability to see through it, or because the SEO benefits eventually pay off anyway.
Maybe both.
From my experience, developers are skeptical and notoriously allergic to being marketed to. And when marketing stretches the truth this far, it can slowly erode trust — not just in one tool, but in the ecosystem as a whole.
The lesson I’m taking away as a founder:
Authentic engagement wins.
- Build tools that solve real problems.
- Share honest insights.
- Be simple and transparent about what you are doing.
A little vulnerability goes a long way.
Anyway, enough whining.
Let’s make it fun:
What’s the most absurd developer marketing you’ve seen lately that made you roll your eyes?
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