February 2, 2026
Lost devs, found drama
Ask HN: Where do all the web devs talk?
Are web developers ghosting social? Fans say X is loud, Discord is hidden
TLDR: One coder asked where web developers hang out, and the crowd answered: fragmented chats on Discord and Slack, plus Reddit, Lemmy, Matrix, and yes, still X. The mood is spicy—layoffs and return-to-office are blamed for toxic vibes, while jokes roast 'xitter' and bots as everyone hunts for real conversation.
A longtime Twitter/X user asked HN (Hacker News) where web developers are chatting, because the native app crowd is easy to find, but web folks feel invisible. Cue the comment section bursting with theories: BlueSky is tumbleweeds, X is a bubble machine, and many devs simply went private. One standout vibe: community burnout. With layoffs and RTO (return-to-office) looming, some say public tech talk turned into a minefield.
User kittikitti went full dystopia, claiming people now “call your HR” over spicy takes and that dev spaces feel like a survival game. Meanwhile, politelemon threw shade that HN still links to “xitter,” while tommica made a grudging case for X: not deep, but great for discovering new stuff—like stumbling on cool tools from a random tweet. The drama: do you hate X but need it?
Alternatives poured in: Reddit, Lemmy (a decentralized Reddit-style network), Matrix for chat, and invite-only Discord and Slack rooms where the action hides behind closed doors. Translation: real talk moved to smaller, fragmented spaces you have to be invited to. And the jokes? Colecut summed up internet snark with “here’s a penny, bot.” Web devs didn’t vanish—they just got harder to spot, and the vibe got spicy.
Key Points
- •The author has used Twitter/X for about a decade and engages effectively with native app developer communities, notably React Native.
- •The author finds it difficult to connect with web developers on Twitter/X, despite a few prominent figures like Adam Wathan.
- •The author observes few up-and-coming web developers coding in public.
- •BlueSky was explored as an alternative but seemed sparsely active, possibly due to the author’s small account.
- •The author asks whether web dev conversations have moved to forums or real-time platforms like Slack and Discord, or if X remains primary.