What Platforms Do Developers Actually Read Technical Tutorials On?

If by “actually read” you mean developers who are looking for practical technical knowledge, the answer is quite different from “where can I publish a tutorial?”

The strongest evidence comes from Stack Overflow’s 2025 Developer Survey, with 49,000+ respondents across 177 countries. Stack Overflow Survey+1

Where developers go

Platform / channel	What developers use it for	Tutorial potential
Official documentation	APIs, SDKs, configuration, exact implementation details	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Stack Overflow	Specific problems, errors, implementation questions	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
GitHub	Repos, READMEs, examples, source code, docs	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
YouTube	Longer explanations, walkthroughs, visual demos	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Developer publications/blogs	Conceptual tutorials, practical guides, architecture	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Reddit	Discovering discussions, recommendations, real-world experience	⭐⭐⭐
DEV Community / Hashnode / Medium	Discovering written tutorials and following individual authors	⭐⭐⭐
Hacker News	Discovering interesting technical writing/projects	⭐⭐⭐

The interesting part is that developers don't necessarily think in terms of “tutorial platforms.” They often search for a problem and land wherever the useful answer happens to be.

For example, in the 2025 survey, technical documentation was the most-used resource for learning to code (68%), followed by online resources (59%) and Stack Overflow (51%). Stack Overflow Survey+1

Stack Overflow itself remains unusually strong: 82% of respondents visit at least a few times per month, and 25% visit daily or more often. Stack Overflow Survey

And among community platforms, Stack Overflow, GitHub and YouTube were the three most-used in the 2025 survey. Stack Overflow Business

But there's an important distinction

If you're asking because you want to publish technical tutorials, I'd separate the channels into three jobs:

1. Google/search → evergreen discovery

Your own site + good SEO can be extremely valuable for tutorials such as:

• “How to implement X in Python”
• “Postgres JSONB vs JSON”
• “Building an MCP server with TypeScript”
• “How to deploy FastAPI to AWS”

The advantage is that a good article can keep bringing readers months or years later.

2. Developer communities → distribution

GitHub, Stack Overflow, Reddit, DEV, Hacker News, etc. can put your work in front of developers who already have a technical problem or interest.

But don't treat these as identical publishing channels. A GitHub README, Stack Overflow answer and Reddit post serve very different user intents.

3. YouTube → teaching

For complicated subjects, video has a major advantage: you can demonstrate the thing rather than merely describe it.

The 2025 survey also found that 60% of professional developers use YouTube as a community platform, rising to 70% among people learning to code. Stack Overflow Survey

My practical takeaway

If I were building a technical-content strategy today, I wouldn't bet everything on Medium/DEV/Hashnode.

I'd use a hub-and-distribution model:

Your website → canonical, searchable tutorial

GitHub → working code + README + examples

YouTube → walkthrough of the difficult parts

Reddit / Hacker News / relevant communities → discussion and discovery

Stack Overflow → answer individual problems rather than dumping links to your tutorial

That last point matters. Stack Overflow's survey shows that arriving at a Q&A through search is one of the activities developers are most interested in, which is a very different behavior from browsing a publication's homepage. Stack Overflow Survey

So if your underlying question is “Where should I publish technical tutorials if I want developers to actually read them?”, I'd prioritize your own searchable site + GitHub + YouTube + targeted community distribution, rather than choosing one blogging platform and expecting it to provide the audience.