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DEV VS Hashnode VS Medium: Where Should You Start Your Tech Blog

Shahed Nasser on February 18, 2021

This article was originally posted on my personal blog Let me start by saying that I recommend you start a tech blog. By sharing your knowledge an...
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Arek Nawo

I'd say start a personal blog - the best option for building a personal brand and optional monetization. Then, (eventually) cross-post your content for exposure to some or all of the platforms you've mentioned. That's what I'm doing with my personal blog and mainly Dev.to, rarely other platforms. I've recently built a tool to make technical blogging and cross-posting easier. Check it out if you're interested.

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Shahed Nasser

Oh I’ve tried using this tool but unfortunately it wouldn’t work for some reason. Whenever I clicked on the card to start a new article nothing happened.

Starting your personal blog is definitely the best option, but it’s not always the most convenient. I also have my personal blog and I cross post on the three platforms, but for some and especially for beginners it can be a hassle. Also, as I mentioned there are so costs to take care of which is not something everyone can do.

Tbh I think hashnode can work as a personal blog, even if just in the beginning. It has a lot of options that makes your blog as similar as a personal blog can be.

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Arek Nawo • Edited

Oh, in this case, I recommend you check it out again. In the free tier, you can't create new articles but only edit the existing ones. Get into the one that's pinned, remove the whole content and go from there (up to 6000 characters with all code snippets, embeds, and images counted as one). Sorry for the confusion, it's MVP and I could have done a better job explaining this.

R.e. personal blog, I'm planning to write a guide on how to start one easily with GH Pages (if it'll be successful, then I might consider doing something similar for other platforms as well).

Yeah, Hashnode might be nice for beginners, but I feel like it's a bit limited.

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Shahed Nasser

Oh I see I didn’t know that. I should check it out again then.

Yea I did a similar tutorial in the blog post I mentioned in the article blog.shahednasser.com/deploy-a-web...

I think GH pages is a good option too

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Luis Vilca

Hello! It looks interesting, but I did not quite get what are the key differences between that and Notion

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areknawo profile image
Arek Nawo

You can read more on CodeWrite here:

Basically, CW is focused exclusively on technical blogging - rather than being all-in-one tool like Notion.

This means that while it doesn't have as many formatting options or embeds as Notion, it comes with features that technical bloggers would appreciate. Good example is VS Code-level editor for code blocks with built-in Prettier integration for code formatting right in CW.

Also, with simplified set of Markdown features, CW allows for pretty much all formatting options you'd normally need, while being easy to convert to formats for different blogging sites. That's how the autofilling feature for Dev.to, Hashnode, Medium, etc. is possible to be implemented.

I'm currently working on next version of CW - fixing bugs, separating the editor from the extension into dedicated web app, adding cross-device sync, collaboration features, content management and more. The end goal is the best editor for technical, code-related writing - both for individuals and teams. It'll take some more time, but I hope to get there.

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Dennis Groß (he/him)

I just started blogging recently, on dev.to.

My last post hit 210 visitors. At best I tought 10 people would read it but I was very pleasantly surprised.

I think I will stay here. Perhaps I'll have a personal home page build with NextJS at some point and include my dev.to posts through the dev.to API.

But let's see. So far I believe that this community is exactly what I was looking for.

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Menard Maranan • Edited

I only wrote here in dev.to, but what I noticed is that people here are more engaged, and it brings you more traffic to your blog, which makes you as a writer feel better that people are actually reading your stuff.

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SRI AAKASH S

Nice Blog. Thanks for sharing

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Juni Nguyen

Thanks for writing this. I myself started Hashnode at first but then I switched to Medium to get more traffic. I also like dev.to a lot personally. So in the level of likeliness to me: Medium, Dev.to, then Hashnode accordingly.

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Nil Madhab

I have made a chrome extension to easily import your medium articles to dev.to, chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/...

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Azizbek Umidjonov

Cool, found this article on DuckDuckGo & immediately hit follow button :)

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Shahed Nasser

Thank you!

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Aakash Singh Rajput • Edited

Nice blog sir.
I also gone through 'global rank' and 'visits over time' of Medium, Dev and Hashnode on similerweb .com.
Medium have highest counts. : )
But can I write a blog on my website and then copy paste that blog in all three: Dev,medium,hashnode???????

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Shahed Nasser

Yes you can. Dev has a RSS feed tool that pulls articles from your blog automatically. Medium allows you to import articles. I’m not sure about hashnode.

Also, I’ve created a tool cross-post that allows you to easily cross post your articles on dev and medium and hashnode. You can fine it here: github.com/shahednasser/cross-post

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Rahul

Hashnode stills has some amazing features that maybe Dev.to will not add

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Mohamed Yamani

What do you think of posting originally on one platform, and cross posting on the others? Is that a smart thing to do?

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Vijay Nadkarni • Edited

Have you looked at WordPress vs Hashnode four a personal independent blog? Any thoughts?

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Atit Patel

Thanks for the article. I would like to know how we can monetize dev.to and hashnode? Do they support partner program like medium?

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Reme Le Hane

Hashnode and dev can be monitized via coil.com. While mediums partner program is pretty good, its very restricted at the moment as they are dependant on stripe who does not have a very wide reach.

Personally living in South Africa, there is no way to use the program, I can get in via a VPN, sign up with stripe, but without being able to verifity with a form of verification from one the country you selected you are SOL.

Medium probably has the potential to be more profitable, but at the same time, as a developer are you writting to get paid or writting to share knowledge and possible get noticed.

I tested out the MPP and in 2 weeks made $50, but can't actually get it and will be moving all my posts back to public as it was literally a test, I have a job, I don't really need to get paid for sharing my knowledge, I rather be part of the community and give away freely.

While everythign is posted on all 3 platforms, even without posting to a larger publication, I still get at least 3x the readers via medium than dev.to, however, that could be as a direct result of medium being th eonly links I share accross social media.

I am going to switch to hashnode being my primary posting platform, with dev and medium being teh reshare sites. Hashnode does have considerably more features and visually its far more appealing.

If I make a few bucks via coil, then happy days, some extra crypto, but I prefer the fact that it in order to maybe make a few bucks it does not need to be hidden behind a paywall, blocking it from being accessible to the wider community.

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Shahed Nasser

No there isn’t. You can find an integration for hashnode, but from hashnode itself there isn’t

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sarpit2021 profile image

Thanks for the article. I'm doing with my personal blog - sabdatascientist.com