We created crowd.dev with the belief that the future of business relies on thriving communities - particularly in the fast-growing open-source and developer space. Developers have increased buying power when it comes to the technologies their companies use, and the way to their hearts isn’t through paid ads or sales reps but through authentic community interactions. In other words, developer-focused companies (open-source, API, dev tools) need communities to grow. While crucial for every developer-first company, community building is complex and time-consuming work. The developer community tech stack is fragmented, and organizations are stuck managing endless platforms and working with incomplete data.

Today, the term “community” gets used to describe everything from social media followers to online learning groups to DAOs. There has been a lot of hype around community, but the ability to turn it into real value and growth is still nascent. We see the need for a platform focussing solely on developer communities. “One-size-fits-all” doesn’t make sense when communities are different in terms of their members’ motivations, the platforms that they live on, or the business objectives that they should fulfill.

Furthermore, we believe that an essential tool for open-source companies, as community management is, should be open-source itself.

Since the beginning of 2022, several hundred companies have joined our closed beta, including some of the fastest growing open-source companies in the world, like Meilisearch, CrowdSec, or Dragonfly.

Starting today, crowd.dev is also an open-source project.

We’re looking forward to any feedback!