Feeling isolated in the vast IT landscape? Look no further! I've compiled a list of the top IT communities for 2024. Find opportunities to mentor or be mentored by others in your line of work.
In this article, I'll include a summary of each community to help you learn who it's for and why it's great – and help you find other IT professionals to learn from and share your insights with.
Join the conversation, diversify your network, and grow your IT career with my list!
Best IT Communities 2024 Shortlist
Here's a shortlist of the best IT communities I think are worth joining in 2024:
- Stack Overflow — For coding questions and software development tips
- GitHub Community — For collaborative coding and project hosting
- Spiceworks Community — For IT professionals to exchange knowledge and tools
- DEV — For sharing development projects
- Reddit r/sysadmin — For system administrators to discuss IT challenges
- Cisco Community — For Cisco products and networking solutions
- Google Developer Groups — For resources on Google technologies
- Microsoft Tech Community — For Microsoft products and networking
- Reddit r/ITCareerQuestions — For career advice in the IT industry
- Hashnode — For global developer community insights and engagement
- Reddit r/programming — For programming insights and discussions
- TechRepublic Forums — For IT pros discussing tech challenges
- Hacker Noon — For sharing tech stories and insights
- Hacker News — For tech news and discussions
- VMware — For virtualization technologies and solutions
- Infosec Community — For cybersecurity professionals
- Ubuntu Forums — For Ubuntu Linux solutions and knowledge-sharing
- Microsoft Learn Community — For Microsoft technology discussions
- Women Who Code — For empowering women in tech through community
Find more details about each community below.
The 19 Best IT Communities
1. Stack Overflow — For coding questions and software development tips
The Stack Overflow community is a Q&A platform to ask and answer programming-related questions, coding, development, and software engineering, from basic syntax questions to complex algorithmic challenges.
- Audience: Professional and programming enthusiasts, software developers
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
The Stack Overflow community offers collaborative documentation and wikis that allow the community to create and maintain guides and references on programming topics. Users can ask technical questions and receive answers from experienced developers and experts with the voting system highlighting the most useful content.
2. GitHub Community — For collaborative coding and project hosting
GitHub Community is a platform for developers to collaborate on code, host projects, and share insights. It provides tools for version control, project management, and collaboration.
- Audience: Developers, software engineers, open-source contributors
- Size: 14,700+ members
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
The GitHub community’s large collection of repositories allows users to contribute to open-sourced projects, track issues, and collaborate on code development, encouraging learning and contributing to the tech community. Members can network, engage with other developers, and participate in community events and discussions.
3. Spiceworks Community — For IT professionals to exchange knowledge and tools
The Spiceworks Community features forums and resources to help IT staff solve problems to improve their practices, provide product reviews, and connect buyers and vendors, making it a global technology market.
- Audience: IT professionals, network administrators, system administrators
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
The Spiceworks Community provides direct vendor access, allowing customers to engage with vendors like Adobe, Google, Microsoft, and SAP, and ask for product information, support, and quotes. The community also offers valuable discussions to enhance skills and solve complex technical issues, and how-to guides, helping IT professionals stay updated on the latest tools and technologies, and to improve efficiency in managing IT environments.
4. DEV — For sharing development projects and learning new tech skills
DEV is a social platform where coders of all skill levels share their projects and learn new technologies to grow their careers.
- Audience: Developers, software engineers, tech enthusiasts
- Size: 1,551,000+ members
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
DEV offers collaboration and knowledge-sharing through writing and publishing articles, relevant discussions in community forums, project showcases, tutorials, and code snippets. It has a wide library of resources and perspectives, job boards, and updates the community on upcoming hackathons and coding challenges to encourage participation and skill development.
5. Reddit r/sysadmin — For system administrators to discuss IT challenges
Reddit r/sysadmin is a subreddit dedicated to system administrators to discuss network, server, and IT infrastructure issues.
- Audience: System administrators, IT professionals, network administrators
- Size: 895,000+ members
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Reddit
Why Join:
Reddit r/sysadmin offers a platform for sharing system administration-related experiences, solutions, and practical perspectives. Discussions include troubleshooting, best practices, valuable insights, emerging technologies, and the latest industry trends for computer system administration.
6. Cisco Community — For discussions on Cisco products and networking solutions
Cisco Community offers forums, blogs, and resources to help users find solutions and optimize their Cisco deployments.
- Audience: Network engineers, IT professionals, system administrators
- Size: 1,946,000+ members
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
The community provides collaboration tools, answers to questions, research independent reviews on products, and the latest updates and developments in Cisco technologies. It also offers access to resources, technical documentation, training materials, exclusive access to Partners and Inside User Group, and support and troubleshooting from Cisco experts.
7. Google Developer Groups — For resources and networking on Google technologies
Google Developer Groups (GDG) is a global community where developers can connect, learn, and grow their skills with Google technologies.
- Audience: Developers, software engineers, tech enthusiasts
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website and in-person events
Why Join:
Google Developer Groups provide access to the latest resources, tools, and updates from Google, Google products, technologies, and APIs. The community offers interactive sessions on practical skills, real-world applications, tech talks on various Google technologies such as Android, TensorFlow, and Firebase, and guided coding sessions to help developers learn and apply new skills.
8. Microsoft Tech Community — For insights on Microsoft products and networking with experts
The Microsoft Tech Community is the leading source for insights and resources on Microsoft products, services, and technologies.
- Audience: IT professionals, developers, system administrators, tech enthusiasts
- Size: 1,400,000+ members
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
The community offers access to valuable information through forums, expert blogs, and webinars. It allows members to ask questions, seek answers, receive support from peers and Microsft experts, and build skills to enhance their experience with the Microsoft Cloud. It also offers a database of official Microsoft support documentation where how-to articles, videos, and training for Office, Windows, and Surface are readily available for community members.
9. Reddit r/ITCareerQuestions — For career advice in the IT industry
Reddit r/ITCareerQuestions is a subreddit dedicated to sharing guidance and experiences and discussing career-related topics in the IT industry.
- Audience: IT professionals, students, career changers, job seekers
- Size: 440,000+ members
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Reddit
Why Join:
Reddit r/ITCareerQuestions provides advice and mentorship about job hunting, certifications, interview preparation, and workplace challenges in the IT field. The community also discusses job market insights including trends and salary expectations, and gives feedback on resumes and cover letters.
10. Hashnode — For global developer community insights and engagement
The Hashnode community is an excellent blogging platform for learning, teaching, sharing insights, and growing through content creation and collaboration.
- Audience: Developers, software engineers, tech bloggers
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
The Hashnode community provides a supportive environment for developers to showcase their expertise through writing, get feedback, build their brand, and connect with other professionals. For members who prefer to read, the community is a huge collection of technical articles, blogs, tutorials, and discussions for skill enhancement and continuous learning and improvement.
11. Reddit r/programming — For programming insights and discussions
Reddit r/programming is a subreddit dedicated to sharing programming and coding insights. It is a forum for developers to exchange ideas and stay updated on industry news.
- Audience: Programmers, software developers, tech enthusiasts
- Size: 6,200,000+ members
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Reddit
Why Join:
The Reddit r/programming community offers meaningful discussions on coding, software development, new programming languages and frameworks, and debugging tips. It provides different perspectives and expertise, helping the members stay updated on the latest advancements and trends in the programming and development industry.
12. TechRepublic Forums — For IT pros discussing tech challenges
The TechRepublic Forums is a community of IT experts that aims to share their knowledge and help members make informed technology decisions.
- Audience: IT professionals, system administrators, network engineers
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
TechRepublic Forums help with technical challenges, share solutions, and exchange knowledge on technology-related topics including hardware, software, networking, troubleshooting techniques, and cybersecurity. The community offers business technology reviews, how-to tutorials, tips and templates, and best practices for CXOs, CIOs, and IT leaders.
13. Hacker Noon — For sharing tech stories and insights
Hacker Noon is a hub of user-generated content that covers and shares knowledge and insights on innovative ideas in the tech industry.
- Audience: Technologists, developers, entrepreneurs, tech enthusiasts
- Size: 45,000+ members
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
The Hacker Noon community allows members to read and contribute articles on tech-related topics including software development, artificial intelligence, startups, and blockchain. It offers the latest updates, and trends, and has diverse content for continuous learning and professional development.
14. Hacker News — For curated hub for tech news and discussions
Hacker News is a social news website focused on computer science and entrepreneurship. It provides high-quality content on programming, startups, and industry trends.
- Audience: Technologists, entrepreneurs, software developers, startup founders
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
The Hacker News is known for its knowledgeable community and intelligent discourse, making it an excellent source of tech information and learning resources. It has a voting system where users can upvote or downvote discussions, influencing its visibility, and users can also share self-published projects and get feedback and advice from tech enthusiasts and professionals.
15. VMware — For virtualization technologies and VMware solutions
The VMware communities consist of forums, blogs, and resources that IT professionals can use to optimize their use of VMware products and solutions fully.
- Audience: IT professionals, system administrators, virtualization experts, network engineers
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
VMware offers active learning and problem-solving forums, expert blogs, detailed technical resources, and the latest developments in VMware solutions and virtualization technologies. Members receive assistance and advice from VMware’s technical support and experienced users and access resources and tutorials.
16. Infosec Community — For cybersecurity professionals to share knowledge and strategies
The Infosec Community is a collective of cybersecurity professionals and enthusiasts dedicated to sharing knowledge, best practices, and the latest updates in cybersecurity.
- Audience: Cybersecurity professionals, IT security experts, network security analysts
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
The Infosec community provides resources, expert advice, and industry news for securing information systems. Members can participate in discussions, get advice about the latest threats, defense strategies, and cybersecurity challenges, and develop effective solutions.
17. Ubuntu Forums — For Ubuntu Linux solutions and knowledge-sharing
Ubuntu Forums is a highly active community platform where users can find solutions to issues, discussions, tutorials, and support for Ubuntu-related topics.
- Audience: Ubuntu users, Linux enthusiasts, system administrators, developers
- Size: 2,177,000+ members
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
The Ubuntu Forums offer troubleshooting tips, installation guides, customization tutorials, and the latest developments to optimize the Ubuntu system. It has a specialized support category where members can go for Ubuntu flavors-related topics and another for more general community discussions like resolution centers, membership applications, and announcements and news.
18. Microsoft Learn Community — For Microsoft technology discussions
The Microsoft Learn Community is a platform for discussions, forums, tutorials, and resources for Microsoft technologies, products, and services.
- Audience: IT professionals, developers, system administrators, tech enthusiasts
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website
Why Join:
The Microsoft Learn Community provides learning paths and modules on Microsoft technologies like Azure and Microsoft 365, study guides, and practice exams to help users prepare for Microsoft certifications. The community also offers access to events, webinars, and virtual training sessions by Microsoft experts and a member-exclusive dashboard to track learning progress, completed modules, and earned certifications and badges.
19. Women Who Code — For empowering women in tech through community
Women Who Code is a supportive community that aims to empower diverse women to excel in technology careers and support them with resources and opportunities for growth in the tech industry.
- Audience: Women in technology, software developers, engineers, tech students, IT professionals
- Size: 360,000+ members
- Membership Cost: Free
- Platform: Website and in-person events
Why Join:
Women Who Code offers regular workshops, coding sessions, and tech talks to help members improve their technical skills and stay updated with industry trends. The community has tutorials, webinars, and articles on various tech topics and programming languages, mentorship programs, and access to job boards, resume reviews, and interview preparation sessions.
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