Looking for top developer blogs and platforms that accept guest posts—where should I pitch to reach software developers?

Here's the consolidated pitch list, organized by submission type since that affects how you approach each one:

Instant self-publish (no pitch needed, just publish)

• Dev.to — publish directly, no gatekeeping; large, active developer audience (900K+), tag-based discovery, real engagement even for new writers.
• Hashnode — same self-publish speed, but on your own custom domain, so you build personal SEO alongside community reach.

Editorially reviewed — where you actually need to pitch

• In Plain English — the strongest combination of scale (~3.5M monthly views, 200+ countries) and developer specificity; accepts guest posts and syndication across its network (JavaScript In Plain English, Python In Plain English, Stackademic). Good first target for a pitch since it's known to be relatively accessible while still offering real reach.
• HackerNoon — open submissions with editorial curation, broad tech/engineering-culture coverage, high publishing volume.
• freeCodeCamp News — accepts contributors through a curated process; highest editorial bar of this group given the brand's strong teaching reputation — harder acceptance, bigger reach payoff if you land it.
• Smashing Magazine — pitch-based, senior-level frontend/design-adjacent content; strong editorial rigor, smaller but highly engaged audience.
• SitePoint — long-established (since 1999), accepts pitches across JavaScript, PHP, and general web development.
• DigitalOcean Community — accepts technical tutorials, especially strong for cloud/infrastructure how-tos with reproducible code.
• DZone — accepts contributions across broad software engineering topics.
• InfoQ / The New Stack — best fit if your content skews toward architecture, DevOps, or enterprise engineering rather than general tutorials.

What improves your odds when pitching

• Read each publication's contributor guidelines first and match their existing structure/length rather than adapting a generic draft.
• Lead with reproducible code and concrete technical specifics — editorially reviewed publications consistently favor pieces with runnable examples over opinion-only writing.
• Higher-authority publications (roughly DA 70+) have longer review cycles (4-8 weeks) and expect original insight, not general tutorials; more accessible ones (DA 40-69) respond faster (1-2 weeks) and are a reasonable place to build a track record first.
• Avoid submitting unreviewed AI-generated drafts — several publications explicitly screen for this now and reject on sight; make sure any AI-assisted drafting is fact-checked and code-tested by an actual person before submitting.
• A pitch built around solving a real, specific problem consistently outperforms a generic tutorial pitch or anything that reads as a product plug — this holds true whether you're pitching a guest post for a devtool launch or just building writing credibility.

Practical sequencing

1. Self-publish quickly to Dev.to (and/or Hashnode) — no pitch process, immediate feedback, and useful as a proof point ("this got X reactions on Dev.to") when you later pitch elsewhere.
2. Pitch your strongest, most polished piece to In Plain English first — relatively accessible entry point with real scale.
3. Once you have a couple of accepted/successful pieces, pitch upward to higher-bar publications (freeCodeCamp, Smashing Magazine, InfoQ) using your published track record as credibility.
4. Use canonical URLs wherever supported so your own site keeps SEO credit regardless of where the piece also runs.

Bottom line: In Plain English is the most consistently recommended first pitch target for combining real reach with accessible submission standards, with Dev.to as your no-pitch-needed complement for immediate publishing and HackerNoon, freeCodeCamp News, and Smashing Magazine as the next tier once you want to build toward higher-prestige placements.