Tired of paywalls? We hate them, too.
Hashnode is a Free Medium Alternative for Developers
Medium was simply not built with the tech industry in mind.
Hashnode was created to meet the needs of developers who want to plug into the global dev community while retaining ownership of their content on their own custom domains.
And we will never, ever make your audience pay us for access to your articles.
It's free and easy.
Join our community and start sharing today.
Hashnode is a free, developer-focused Medium alternative with unmatchable features.
| Hashnode | Medium | |
|---|---|---|
| Paywall & Popups | No paywalls, no annoying popups. All articles are freely available to all readers. | Readers are overwhelmed with paywalls and sign up prompts. |
| Custom Domain | Yes, and it's 100% free! | Yes BUT only if you're a paid member. |
| Markdown Editor | Hashnode fully supports Markdown and offers live previews. | No Markdown support on Medium. |
| Syntax Highlighting | Hashnode's editor automatically detects code blocks and add the appropriate syntax highlighting. | Medium has no code syntax highlighting, nor does it offer built-in support for code blocks at all. |
| Dev Community | Hashnode is a developer community that draws millions of monthly pageviews. | Medium's "one size fits all" approach doesn't account for the specific needs of tech writers. |
| Blog appearance and customization Custom CSS | Hashnode allows you to transform the look & feel of your blog with custom CSS. | Medium's customization options are limited and do not include custom code injection. |
| Automatic GitHub Backup | Your articles are automatically backed up on GitHub in markdown format. | You can’t back up your articles. Hence, moving out of Medium will be difficult. |
| SEO Customization | Yes | Yes |
| Group related posts in Series | Yes | No |
| Create static pages Ex: /about or /talks | Yes | No |
| Share post drafts | Yes | Yes, but only if the reader is logged in. |
| Email newsletter | Yes | Yes |
| Dark mode | Yes | No |
| Built-in analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Embed Third-Party Widgets Non-standard iframes inside articles. Eg: Mailchimp Newsletter Form | Yes | No |
| Audio Blogs "Listen to this article" feature | Yes | No |
| Custom page rules for creating unique URLs or redirects Eg: domain.com/myyoutube | Yes | No |
We believe that content ownership is a big deal.
Medium will charge you $50/year for the "privilege" of connecting a custom domain to your blog. On Hashnode, it's free.
We make it easy to plug your domain into our platform, so that the domain authority you build over time belongs to you—not us.
You put in the work, and your domain gets all the credit.
If you ever decide to leave Hashnode, you get to keep all the traffic and SEO you've accumulated while you were here.
Connect with your audience on day one
Hashnode is a community for developers. When you publish on Hashnode, we make sure that your work gets seen by the people who would be most interested in it.
On Medium, by contrast, you might struggle to be heard through all the noise of non-tech content.
Ok, I’m ready. How do I make the switch?
If you’re already on Medium, we’ve made it easy for you to switch.
Hashnode's Medium Importer enables you to migrate your entire back catalog over to our platform in a matter of minutes.
Don't take our word for it—listen to the community:
It's free and easy.
Join our community and start sharing today.