With this list of 10 best web development blogs, with a treat of best YouTube channels and podcasts, you’ll be able to stay up to date with the latest web standards on all fronts — front end, back end, as well as UX/UI design, and every other branch pertaining to the web development services.
Your experience doesn’t matter; if you’re a code newbie looking for new skills or you’re a veteran in the coding world looking for latest news, new standards or solutions to unconventional problems, this list is still for you. And even if you’re neither, and you simply want to discover all the things web development is about, stay on this page and read on!
Top 9 blogs for web developers.
1. A List Apart
Main Topics: Code, Content, Design, Industry & Business, Process, User Experience
Audience: Front end Developers, Project Managers, UX/UI Designers, Graphic Designers, Content Creators
A List Apart is a webzine that’s been active for 23 years now, with a focus on web design and development, web content and its meaning, best practices and standards of modern web. Most of the content consists of opinion articles, ranging from future trends to environmental impact of IT and career advice. That’s why this site is wonderful for people who are not involved directly with web development — they can prepare themselves for better teamwork, understand common practices and be able to spot frauds during recruitment.
The articles are of the highest quality. They do invite writers to submit their pieces, but they’re all diligently checked over, reviewed, and edited. It’s not easy to submit a guest post, but they promise that it’s very rewarding. So you can expect to find articles from other IT professionals, keen on sharing their coding expertise.
A List Apart doesn’t stop at blogging. They also organise An Event Apart, a conference in San Francisco (which you can also join online) that’s known for being informative, educational, as well as inspirational. For some, it’s an event you can’t miss, especially since the invited speakers are well–known industry leaders.
And if you’re looking for knowledge condensed in one place, check out their book: A Book Apart, for those who design, write, and code.
2. Codrops
Main Topics: Tutorials, Resources, Code, Design, User Experience
Audience: Front end Developers, UX/UI Designers
Codrops is a fantastic source for front end developers, full of inspiration, useful tutorials, free resources that we all love, and articles with practical advice.
Their tutorials are long and comprehensive, and easy to follow through. They have plenty of embedded images, experimental videos, and lines of code shown in action. So if you want to learn fancy tricks, from creating infinite circular galleries to kinetic typography and glitch effects, this is your go–to site. Just like when you need inspiration: Codrops regularly posts Inspirational Websites Roundup, UI Interactions & Animations Roundup, and many others to spark your creativity.
If you’re not experienced enough to jump straight into tutorials and want to start with the CSS basics, there’s a CSS Reference library with the most important properties and information for you. All for free!
And if you want to know what’s happening in the tech world, check out their Collective, bundles of posts highlighting the latest news and resources.
For non–coding people, it’s a good site to see what can be done, and what the possibilities are.
3. CSS Author
Main Topics: Resources, Design, Content, User Experience
Audience: Front end Developers, UX/UI Designers, Graphic Designers, Content Creators
CSS Author is a front end coding blog that’s a goldmine of resources for web developers and web designers alike, with occasional publications useful for graphic designers and content writers as well. It has a staggering amount of “freebies”: you can find mockups, icons, and templates for WordPress and CMS, such as Magento or Drupal, etc. They’re all available for personal and commercial use.
This site acts as a good place to find free libraries, plugins, bootstraps, and tools for developers working with HTML, CSS, Java Script, jQuery, PHP.
4. CSS–Tricks
Main Topics: Tutorials, Resources, Code, User Experience
Audience: Front end Developers, UX/UI Designers
CSS–Tricks is a site you can count on to be constantly posting, sometimes even several times a day. They focus on CSS, HTML, and Java Script in the form of tutorials, guides, tricks, and articles. They range from animation, typography, accessibility, web performance, serverless, and many more. And if you’d rather watch a video than read — there’s more than 200 video posts to choose from.
When it comes to resources, there’s an Almanac with CSS Selectors and CSS Properties with lots of examples and demos. If you’d like some concrete knowledge in one place, the author of the site, Chris Coyier, has two books that are available to MVP Supporters.
5. David Walsh
Main Topics: Tips and Guides, Code, Mobile Development, User Experience
Audience: Full–Stack Developers, UX/UI Designers, Content Creators
David Walsh is a personal blog, run by a professional senior full stack engineer
working for MetaMask, who also used to work for Mozilla for eight years. So you can be sure that the guy knows what he’s talking about.
Besides tips and guides mostly on JavaScript (React, Node.js, jQuery), HTML5, CSS3, you can also find sneak peeks into a life in a web development industry, some career advice, and even interviews with other experienced developers. He’s a firm believer that practice triumphs over theory, and that experiments are a worthy pursuit. This approach has resulted in almost 83,000 followers on Twitter.
If you want to discover what a successful web developer needs to make an impact, following David’s blog is a good choice. Especially since new articles just keep on coming, even though the blog has been up for more than a decade.
There’s also some advice on technical SEO, so Content Creators should definitely take a closer look.
6. Dev.to
Main Topics: Tutorials, Code, Graphic Design, Content, User Experience, Industry & Business, Career Advice
Audience: Full–Stack Developers, UX/UI Designers, Graphic Designers, Content Creators, Project Managers
Dev.to isn’t really a blog and more of a community of software developers, but we couldn’t not mention it.
On the contrary to all the previous blogs, anyone can contribute to dev.to. All the posts published on the feed are tagged for easier navigation, and it’s easy to notice the popularity of Java Script, React.Js, Python, CSS, HTML, Node.js, PHP, Vue.js, and Ruby. There’s also a lot of content for beginners, as well as posts centered around career, testing, machine learning, and security, among others.
If you like podcasts, dev.to has hundreds of them, along with videos in the form of practical tutorials, guides, tips, and useful tricks. You can also find full blog posts that are often cross shared in places like Medium or Hacker Noon. And if you have trouble understanding a concept, you can ask the community to explain it to you “like you’re five years old”. It works wonders and is great even for non–tech people.
7. Joel on Software
Main Topics: Software Development, Project Management, Industry & Business, Career Advice
Audience: Software developers, Tech Leads, Project Managers, Recruiters, CEOs, Startup Founders
Joel on Software is another personal blog of an accomplished software engineer, Joel Spolsky, a creator of the project management software Trello and a Stack Exchange network. He shares his perspective not only on software development itself, but also on business, project management, recruitment, and getting started in the tech field, served with practical advice on career.
When it comes to the blog, which has been online for over a decade, it has more than 1000 useful articles. Anyone can find valuable content for themselves, from developers and tech leads to project managers, CEOs, and recruiters. Part of that knowledge has been captured into five books, available on Amazon.
8. SitePoint
Main Topics: Code, Web Application Development, Graphic Design, User Experience, Industry
Audience: Full–Stack Developers, UI/UX Designers, Entrepreneurs
SitePoint is bursting with books, online courses, and tech talks on topics of Java Script, HTML, CSS, PHP, Python, WordPress, Design & UX, App Development. The library is curated by the experts in web design and web development, so you can trust their input.
This web development blog focuses on a much wider range of subjects. You can learn more about the next wave of web technologies, such as Deno, Eleventy, Gatsby, Rust, WebAssembly, and many others. Reading the blog also ensures that you’re staying up to date with the future of the web and the state of the technology industry.
Not only web developers will benefit from paying attention to this blog, but designers as well. If you want to master Adobe XD, Figma or Sketch, along with any other similar programs, check out their materials. And even those that only want to polish their skills with Notion, Airtable, Obsidian, and other productivity tools, should also take a look.
It’s also a good place for people looking for a web development job or who want to advance their already prospering career. You can find articles full of advice for juniors and seniors alike, along with current job listings for remote positions.
And lastly, if you have questions that are still left unanswered after perusing the blog’s content, you can easily ask the community.
9. Smashing Magazine
Main Topics: Code, Mobile App Development, User Experience, Graphic Design
Audience: Full–Stack Developers, Mobile Developers, UX/UI Designers, Graphic Designers
Smashing Magazine is an online magazine of the highest quality, geared towards professional web designers and developers, offering them practical and useful content to improve their skills.
Their goal is to support the virtual community of the coding world with news on the latest web technologies, from app development, responsive web design to accessibility and usability, among many others.
New articles are published several times a week on a wide variety of topics, to keep front end developers, designers, animators, and illustrators more than satisfied. And of course, you can find articles to keep up with the latest trends and opinion articles as food for thought, along with productivity tips
Besides the articles, you can also jump right into guides, books, and online workshops. Not all of them are for free — to access them, you need to buy a membership. There are three levels: for $3, $5 and $9 a month or $30, $50 and $90 a year.
Don’t forget to check out this site’s podcasts. “The Smashing Podcast” runs around 1 hour each, so be prepared to gain a lot of new insight.
Smashing Magazine also takes care to post current job openings and present–day conferences.
Searching For Knowledge Beyond Blogs
Nowadays, blogging sites are not the only source of knowledge that’s worthy of our notice. Several times we’ve mentioned videos and podcasts, that’s why it would have been remiss of us not to list our favourites.
Youtube Channels
freeCodeCamp
FreeCodeCamp is a non–profit organization, supported by donors, with a mission to help people become developers for free. Besides a youtube channel, they run their own site with even more resources, and they also organize study group sessions around the world. They even offer certifications to give you an easier start in the industry.
FreeCodeCamp is perfect for self–learners. You can find there long and comprehensive courses for beginners on Python, SQL, Java Script, C++, C, Penetration Testing, HTML, Data Structure, React, HTML5, CSS3, Django, PHP, APIs, Laravel, and many more. Some of them even last for 15 hours.
TraversyMedia
Traversy Media is perfect for people who already know some basics and wish to learn something new in a quick manner without delving too deeply into each concept. Offered courses last from 20 minutes to 2 hours, with the more comprehensive ones available on Udemy. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Async.js, Laravel, Rust, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and many more — they’re all waiting to be learned and mastered while building projects from scratch.
The Net Ninja
If you prefer your courses divided into small, digestible parts, look up The Net Ninja. It’s perfect for beginners who want to learn bits and pieces on the run or in between other tasks. The overall tone is light and fun, due to the enthusiastic nature of the host, who is also very thorough and methodical in his approach.
You can choose what to learn next from over 1000 tutorials, that delve into Java Script, Firebase, Flutter, HTML & CSS, Laravel, MongoDB, Node.js, PHP, React, Vue.js, and many more. You can find both beginner and advanced material, so better keep a close eye on this channel.
Fireship
If you’re even more pressed for time, look up Fireship, a channel created by Jeff Delaney on the topic of building web applications of highest quality fast. His longest series is called “100 Seconds of Code”, which is straight to the point while being very informative. It’s perfect for those who want to grasp various concepts quickly before delving into them, or for those who simply want a reminder.
Besides that, you can find out more about development tools, pro tips, productivity tips, 15–25 minutes beginner guides, both for front end and back end, from Java Script to API and cloud infrastructure.
Coding Tech
If you’d like to take a step back from tutorials and to find out what’s happening during tech conferences without attending any, go to Coding Tech. They partner with many different conferences around the world and have their explicit permission to publish videos on youtube. Among their partners are ConFoo, JavaScriptLA, Pixels Camp, PyData, React Amsterdam, You Gotta Love Frontend, and many others. So if you want to stay on top of trends in the tech world, gain some valuable career tips while developing your hard and soft skills, subscribe without further delay.
Podcasts
JavaScript Talks / Conferences as Podcasts
JavaScript Talks was created with accessibility in mind. To bring conferences to those, who cannot attend them themselves, who can’t watch the videos due to visual impairment, or who simply don’t have the time to sit down and press play. It’s also a solution to those who lack a proper internet connection for one reason or another.
Thanks to this initiative, many people around the world can get access to Java Script conference talks, discover what’s new and, of course, to learn.
JS Party: JavaScript, CSS, Web Development
JS Party is a weekly podcast with a heavy focus on Java Script, but including as well Go, Ruby, Python, Node.js, and others. Besides talking about all things code, they also have episodes on developer’s culture, startups, sustainability, web development tools, and many others.
This podcast is well known for being informative (each episode lasts for an hour), yet at the same time, entertaining. With lots of banter involved.
React Talks
Interested in React? Then React Talks are perfect for you, with over 100 episodes, 1 hour long each. Every episode has a new guest invited to share their experience and expertise with React, from starting their career to leading some exciting projects to analyzing the newest and upcoming trends. If you like hearing stories concerning the web development world, listen to this one.
Syntax — Tasty Web Development Treats
Syntax is a podcast created by Full–Stack Developers Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski. It’s updated several times a month and each episode tends to last anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes. It’s well known for being fun, knowledgeable, and suited for both beginners and more experienced developers, improving their soft and hard skills.
Besides talking about their own experience as developers and dishing out career and portfolio tips, they explain Java Script and its frameworks, additionally venturing into HTML, CSS, Deno, development tools, freelancing, and many more.
Web Rush
Web Rush is another weekly JavaScript–centric podcast, run by John Papa, Ward Bell, Craig Shoemaker, and Dan Wahlin. They invite guests to share their stories of web development, challenges they’ve faced and the solutions they came up with. It’s full of practical advice and hands–on approach, making people excited to experiment on their own.
So if you’re curious about Google Maps behind the scenes, developing apps and themes for Shopify, or how to get started as a developer, check out this podcast.
Key Takeaways
Following a web development blog — still a necessity
Minimal commitment in website design won’t cut it. You need to stay up to date, which may seem like a challenge in the field that just keeps growing and changing. And if you’re not a web developer, but a graphic designer or a content creator, or an owner of your own website, it’s good to be aware of what’s happening on that front. This way you’ll create better content, by knowing what’s possible, what are the restrictions of web design, and what doesn’t work well in the long run.
And if you’re at the point of your coding journey where you can call yourself a professional, consider setting up your own web development blog or at least contributing to one. It’s a great way of giving back to the community and helping out those who are just starting. If you’re worried about creating competition for yourself, don’t — keep in mind the ongoing shortage of IT professionals that threatens the entire field and contribute to a better world instead.