Are you looking for a place to network with your peers in web design and development? Online communities allow designers and developers to ask questions, offer advice, and share their latest work. In this post, we’re going to reveal vital statistics about the top active forums, Q&A networks, and social media groups for web designers and developers.
Forums for Web Designers & Developers
Before there were Facebook Groups, forums were the place to share your web design and web development knowledge. Internet forums – formerly known as message boards – allow members to take part in an online discussion on a specific topic by posting messages in threaded conversations.
To get the best value from your forum experience, start by reading the forum rules after you sign up. Most forums have one or more moderators who enforce rules about the quality and content of all members’ posts in an effort to boost quality discussions and reduce spam.
Once you have created your account, fill out your profile. Most forums allow members to complete a profile to share their name, photo, website link, and social media links.
Next, add your signature. Your forum signature is added to the end of each of your posts and replies to posts. Signatures can include text, images, and links. Some forums will require you to be a member for a specified number of days or make a specific number of posts in the forum before you can add a signature.
Finally, bookmark the forum on your browser. You will want to check on forums daily for new conversations or subscribe to email updates from the forum. This will keep you engaged with other forum members. Look for pages that list the latest posts or today’s posts – that’s the easiest way to get your reply on the first page of the thread for everyone to see.
Code Forum
Code Forum has almost 600 members and 6,800 posts. Members of this forum discuss programming & coding, development, and operating systems. Popular topics include general discussion, web programming, and the community hub.
Coding Forum
Coding Forum has over 205,000 members and 1.4 million posts. Members discuss client-side development, server-side development, computing & sciences, and web-related projects & services. Popular topics include PHP, Javascript, and HTML & CSS.
CoffeeCup Software and Web Design Forums
Members of CoffeeCup Software Web Design Forums discuss web design using their software. Popular topics include the web form builder, responsive site designer, and HTML editor.
Digital Point
Digital Point has over 467,000 members and 17 million posts. Members of this forum discuss search engines, business & marketing, web design, and web development. Popular topics include SEO, Google, and general marketing.
DreamTeamMoney Internet Marketing Forum
DreamTeamMoney Internet Marketing Forum 522 has over 480,000 members and 5.5 million posts. Members of this forum discuss internet marketing, networking, making money from home, and e-currency. Popular topics in the webmaster forum include hosting, design, and programming.
Drupal Forums
Drupal Forums has over 1 million posts. Members discuss general topics related to Drupal websites, support, and services. Popular topics include post-installation, module development, and theme development.
ForumWeb.Hosting Forums
ForumWeb.Hosting Forums has over 14,000 members and 80,000 posts. Members discuss web hosting, domain names, security and technology, web design and development, hosting software, hosting businesses, internet marketing, and hardware. Popular topics include SEO, VPS hosting, content management systems, and website design.
GoDaddy Community Forums
GoDaddy Community Forum has over 15,000 members and 40,000 posts. Popular topics include managing domains, website builders, and the community hub.
Graphic Design Forums
Graphic Design Forums has over 23,000 members and 172,000 posts. Members of this forum discuss graphic design, website design, hardware, software, business, related disciplines, and training. Popular topics include graphic design, graphic design critiques, and web design.
Graphic Design Forum
Graphic Design Forum has almost 5,000 members. Members of this forum discuss graphic design, web design, typography, motion graphics, business issues, and photography.
HTML Forums
HTML Forums has over 700 members and 4,800 posts. Members of this forum discuss web development, web services, business, and marketing. Popular topics include HTML, website services, and general marketing.
HTMLHelp Forums
HTMLHelp Forums have over 26,000 members and 78,000 posts. Members of this forum discuss web authoring and programming. Popular topics include markup (HTML, XHTML, XML), CSS, and general web design.
Internet Life Forum
Internet Life Forum has over 6,000 members and 22,000 posts. Members discuss topics about the internet, webmasters, hosting, and technology forums. Popular topics include SEO, VPS hosting, and shared hosting.
MacRumors
MacRumors has over 1 million members and 28 million posts. Members of this forum discuss Apple mobile devices, wearables, desktops, software, services, and special interests. Beyond the Apple-specific discussions, popular topics include digital photography, developers (programming and web design), and digital video.
Ozzu Webmaster Forum
Ozzu Webmaster Forum has over 49,000 members and 474,000 posts. Members discuss web design & development, graphics, OS & hardware, and internet marketing. Popular topics include programming, website design, and Google.
PHP Forum
PHP Forum has almost 3,500 members and over 55,000 posts. Members of this forum discuss PHP coding, databases, security, system administration, and HTML. Popular topics include general PHP coding, MySQL, and PHP scripts.
PHP Freaks
PHP Freaks has over 1.2 million posts. Members of this forum discuss PHP coding, SQL, client-side programming, applications, server administration, and freelance jobs. Popular topics include PHP coding help, SQL help, and Javascript help.
SitePoint Forums
Members of SitePoint Forums discuss web design, user experience, accessibility, client and server-side programming, business, and marketing. Popular topics include PHP, HTML & CSS, and Javascript.
Small Business Computing & E-commerce Forums
Small Business Computing & E-commerce Forums has over 20,000 members and 43,000 posts. Popular topics include rate my site, e-commerce, and SEO.
Stef’s Coding Community
Stef’s Coding Community has over 36,000 members. Members of this forum discuss studioweb, programming, business & marketing, and web design. Popular topics include beginner’s web design, CSS, and PHP.
StudioPress Community Forum
StudioPress Community Forum has over 50,000 posts. Members discuss StudioPress premium themes for WordPress, design tips, and tricks.
TalkGraphics
TalkGraphics has over 32,000 members and 75,000 posts. Members of this forum discuss graphics and web design with Xara products and general graphics and design-related topics.
Warrior Forum
Warrior Forum has over 1.5 million members and 9 million posts. Members discuss business, marketing, and development. Popular topics include SEO, ad networks, and website design.
Webmaster World
WebmasterWorld has over 2 million posts. Members of this forum discuss social media, mobile internet, code, content, hardware & OS, browsers, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, marketing, advertising, search engines, and local optimization. Popular topics include Google SEO, Google AdSense, PHP, and Webmaster General.
Web Designer Forum
Web Designer Forum has over 400,000 posts. Members of this forum discuss web design resources, web development, website marketing, software, and hardware. Popular topics include frontend coding, website design & UX, and server-side coding.
Web Design Forums
Web Design Forums has over 61,000 members and 278,000 posts. Members of this forum discuss web design, design software, programming, marketing, and hosting. Popular topics include website ratings and reviews (where you can share a link to your site for feedback), general web design, HTML & CSS help, and PHP.
WebDevForums.com
WebDevForums.com 503 has over 24,000 members and 13,000 posts. Members of this forum discuss web design, graphic design, scripting languages, business, and marketing. Popular topics include web design, HTML reference and CSS, client & server-side scripting, and SEO.
Web Design Forum
Web Design Forum has over 9,000 members and 67,000 posts. Members of this forum discuss web and graphic design, promotion, software, profits, and services. Popular topics include web design, website reviews, and SEO.
WebDeveloper.com Forums
Members of WebDeveloper.com Forums discuss client-side programming, server-side programming, and website management.
Webwide
Webwide has over 1,700 members and 6,600 posts. Members discuss web design, programming, tools of the trade, and business & marketing. Popular topics include web, graphic, UI, and UX Design.
WordPress.org Support Forums
WordPress.org Support Forums has over 200,000 members. They discuss installing, troubleshooting, designing, developing WordPress websites.
Q&A About Web Design & Development
Similar to forums, Q&A networks let members ask and answer questions about a particular topic. The following are sites where you can talk about web design and development at all experience levels.
Quora
Quora is a community for people to ask questions about anything imaginable. Popular topics include web design (3.7 million followers) and web development (2.7 million followers). Users can customize their profiles and publish posts to topic-specific spaces.
Reddit is more than just a Q&A network – it’s a place for people to share content, ask questions, host live AMA (ask me anything) sessions, and more. Popular subreddits include web development (580,000+ members), web design (491,000+ members), WordPress (114,000+ members), PHP (127,000+ members), and CSS (74,000+ members).
Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow is a community for people who code. Popular tags for web developers include Javascript, PHP, HTML, CSS, and ASP.NET. Users can customize their profile and participate in other communities with the Stack Exchange network for webmasters, graphic designers, and additional interests.
Slack Workspaces for Web Designers & Developers
Slack is an online communications tool that businesses use to keep teams connected with channels, private messaging, and voice & video chat. Slack workspaces were created for web designers and developers to share information and resources on a less public platform.
To get the most from your Slack experience, customize your profile in each Slack workspace you join. Set your preferences within each workspace to get alerts to discussions that contain specific keywords.
Bootstrap
Bootstrap is a Slack community with over 35,000 designers and developers who use Bootstrap, a popular frontend open-source toolkit. Members discuss different versions of the platform as well as general and random web topics.
Designer Hangout
Designer Hangout is an invitation-only Slack community with over 18,000 UX designers. Members discuss user experience design in over 1 million messages throughout the community’s channels.
LaraChat
LaraChat is a Slack community with over 31,000 web artisans who use the Laravel PHP framework. Members discuss APIs, coding, databases, and frameworks within 47 channels.
Launch
Launch is a Slack community with over 24,000 entrepreneurs, designers, developers, & makers. Members discuss code, design, marketing, and technology.
Bonus: Social Media Groups
Two of the top social media networks – Facebook and LinkedIn – allow users to join groups to discuss specific topics. You can search for web design and web development groups using each network’s search box.
On Facebook, you can search for web design and development groups. Search results will show the activity level for the group by the number of posts per day.
When you click the Join button, you can choose to participate in the group with your Facebook personal profile or Facebook business page. Some groups may require you to read their rules and answer screening questions before administrators will accept your request.
On LinkedIn, you can search for web design and development groups. The search results will show the number of members in each group.
Click on the groups you want to join and then click on the group’s “request to join” button. Once an administrator has approved your request, you will be able to post in the group.
In Conclusion
As you can see, there are lots of active online communities for web designers and web developers. Join the forums and/or groups that look the most useful in improving your web design skills, enhancing your coding knowledge, and growing your professional network.
