If you are trying to build out your portfolio, find a co-founder, or just score some free pizza, hackathons are still the best place to do it in 2026.
But actually finding the right hackathon—especially if you want to attend in person—is notoriously annoying. The landscape is fragmented across a dozen different platforms, university boards, and dead Discord servers.
After years of competing, here is my definitive stack for finding the best global hackathons this year.
1. Devpost (The Behemoth)
You can’t talk about hackathons without mentioning Devpost. It is the industry standard and hosts the vast majority of official corporate and university events.
The Good: If a massive company is throwing a hackathon with a $50k prize pool, it will be here.
The Bad: The UI is an endless, scrolling text list. It is incredibly frustrating if you are trying to find an in-person event in a specific city or region, as their geographic filtering is still stuck in 2015.
2. Major League Hacking (MLH)
If you are a university student, the MLH season page should be bookmarked. They partner with universities globally to run standardized, high-quality events.
The Good: You know exactly what you are getting. Hardware labs, travel reimbursements (sometimes), and a great beginner environment.
The Bad: If you have already graduated or are building as an indie hacker, a lot of these events won't accept you.
3. Hackamaps (The Visual Radar)
I actually built this tool myself after getting so burnt out on scrolling through endless text lists on Devpost. Hackamaps.com flips the discovery model by putting every upcoming hackathon onto a global, interactive map.
The Good: Visual discovery. If you want to know if there is a hackathon happening in Berlin or San Francisco next month, you just look at the map. It filters out the noise and lets you see exactly where the global builder community is gathering.
The Bad: It relies on community curation, so smaller, unannounced university events might take a few days to show up on the radar.
4. TAIKAI
If you are operating in the Web3, blockchain, or decentralized space, TAIKAI has aggressively taken over that niche.
The Good: High-value bounties. The platform itself has great team-matching mechanics built directly into the UI.
The Bad: It is hyper-niched. If you want to build a standard SaaS app, AI wrapper, or hardware project, you won't find many relevant events here.
5. Specific Subreddits (r/hackathon & r/csMajors)
Never underestimate the power of raw, unpolished Reddit threads. Often, organizers will post their events on Reddit weeks before they pay to get them listed on the major platforms.
The Good: You can talk directly to the organizers in the comments.
The Bad: High noise-to-signal ratio. You have to dig through a lot of "looking for teammates" posts to find actual event announcements.
The TL;DR
If you want the biggest prize pools, go to Devpost. If you are a student, check MLH. But if you just want to quickly see where the next in-person event is happening near you without scrolling for hours, check the map on Hackamaps.
Where are you all finding your events lately? Let me know if I missed any good platforms.
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