Please note: this is an OLD edition. You can find a NEWER edition here: Top 100 Blogs for Developers (Q1 2009).
What defines the popularity of a blog? The ranking by Google? Traffic statistics? Feed subscriptions? Feedback from readers? Links from other sites and blogs? The answer is of course... All of them!
But, isn't it a lot of work to find and check all statistics for all blogs? Well, the answer to that is... Yes! So be glad that I did it for you!
This is the new edition of the Top 100 Blogs for Developers. My list is based on a weighed average of each blog's Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati Authority, RSSMicro FeedRank, Google hits, and blog comments. (I also intended to include ego size, but I figured that would give my own blog an unfair advantage.)
Please, don't scroll down yet! First, some important comments:
- The previous (and first) edition was called Top 100 Blogs for Development Managers. This created some confusion as most blogs in the list are clearly meant to be read by developers. So I simplified the name of the list. BUT... I want to make it clear that the list is meant to cover software development in a broad sense, which includes project management, process improvement, agile development, requirements, design, coding and testing. (The stuff every manager should be interested in.) This list is not meant for blogs that deal exclusively with Ubuntu 8, Silverlight 3, Jabberwocky 5, or any other specific technologies. Sorry guys, I don't read those.
- Despite some feeble attempts, I am not omnipotent and all-knowing. This means there are blogs out there that I (still) don't know about. I must rely on people sending me URL's, or I must stumble upon them myself. Of the 23 new blogs appearing in this edition, most didn't participate last time, because they were unknown to me.
- I disqualified some blogs because their authors failed to publish new content, or they didn't publish anything related to software development. The lazy bastards. I show no mercy.
- The calculation method for this edition was significantly improved. And I also included a new statistic that didn't yet exist last time (FeedRank). This means that comparing these results with those of the previous edition is not entirely fair. In fact, the results are now almost actually reliable! (Note for list-fanatics like me: you can find a complete description of my ranking method on the page How to Make a Top Blog List.)
Oh, and another thing: I tracked the time I spent creating this thing. It added up to a staggering four full days of researching blogs, checking statistics, and performing calculations. I even created an OPML version of this list for you! Don't get me wrong, I liked (almost) every minute of it. But, given the fact that I'm giving these results away for free, I hope you now feel motivated enough to a) subscribe to my blog; b) follow me on Twitter; or c) submit this article to Digg, Reddit, DZone, or whatever.
Enjoy reading! Or download the OPML version version (for import in RSS readers)!
| TT | LT | Blog | Author |
| 1 | 1 | Joel on Software | Joel Spolsky |
| 2 | 4 | Paul Graham: Essays | Paul Graham |
| 3 | 2 | Coding Horror | Jeff Atwood |
| 4 | 6 | Rough Type | Nicholas Carr |
| 5 | 7 | Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen | Scott Hanselman |
| 6 | 8 | Martin Fowler's Bliki | Martin Fowler |
| 7 | 11 | Bokardo: Social Design | Joshua Porter |
| 8 | 10 | Stevey's Blog Rants | Steve Yegge |
| 9 | 13 | Lambda the Ultimate | (various) |
| 10 | 9 | Rands in Repose | Michael Lopp |
| 11 | -- | The Daily WTF | (various) |
| 12 | 12 | Eric.Weblog() | Eric Sink |
| 13 | -- | Raible Designs | Matt Raible |
| 14 | -- | Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life | Dare Obasanjo |
| 15 | 18 | UIE Brain Sparks | Jared Spool |
| 16 | 15 | PragDave | Dave Thomas |
| 17 | -- | Jon Udell | Jon Udell |
| 18 | 17 | The Berkun Blog | Scott Berkun |
| 19 | 21 | Stack Overflow | Jeff Atwood |
| 20 | 34 | Artima Weblogs | (various) |
| 21 | 14 | Otaku, Cedric's Weblog | Cedric |
| 22 | 20 | J.D. Meier's Blog | J.D. Meier |
| 23 | -- | ThoughtBlogs | (various) |
| 24 | -- | Shanine.com / omar / | Omar Shanine |
| 25 | 16 | High Scalability | (various) |
| 26 | 77 | 10x Software Development | Steve McConnell |
| 27 | 24 | CodeBetter.Com | (various) |
| 28 | 28 | Object Mentor Blog | (various) |
| 29 | 23 | secretGeek | Leon Bambrick |
| 30 | 37 | Dr. Dobb's CodeTalk | (various) |
| 31 | -- | PHP::Impact ( [str Blog] ) | Federico Cargnelutti |
| 32 | 41 | Curious Cat | John Hunter |
| 33 | 31 | Google Testing Blog | (various) |
| 34 | -- | Enterprise Architecture: From Incite comes Insight... | James McGovern |
| 35 | 26 | Gray's Matter | Justice Gray |
| 36 | 32 | Alistair Cockburn | Alistair Cockburn |
| 37 | 65 | NOOP.NL: Managing Software Development | Jurgen Appelo |
| 38 | -- | Good coders code, great reuse | Peteris Krumins |
| 39 | 30 | Managing Product Development | Johanna Rothman |
| 40 | 35 | It's Just a Bunch of Stuff That Happens | Eric Burke |
| 41 | -- | Regular Geek | Rob Diana |
| 42 | 46 | Object Technology | Jeff Sutherland |
| 43 | 57 | Project Shrink | Bas de Baar |
| 44 | 25 | Interoperability Happens | Ted Neward |
| 45 | -- | StevenHarman.net | Steven Harman |
| 46 | 45 | James Shore: The Art of Agile | James Shore |
| 47 | 27 | Mike Cohn's Blog: Succeeding with Agile | Mike Cohn |
| 48 | 52 | Pure Danger Tech | Alex Miller |
| 49 | -- | Reforming Project Management | Hal Macomber |
| 50 | 47 | Better Projects | Craig Brown |
| 51 | 39 | {Codesqueeze} | Max Pool |
| 52 | 43 | Agile Management Blog | David Anderson |
| 53 | 55 | The Braidy Tester | Micahel |
| 54 | 36 | { |one, step, back| } | Jim Weirich |
| 55 | 74 | Implementing Scrum | Mike Vizdos |
| 56 | 33 | Tyner Blain | Scott Sehlhorst |
| 57 | -- | Agile Testing | Grig Gheorghiu |
| 58 | -- | Coding the Architecture | (various) |
| 59 | 42 | Knowing.NET | Larry O'Brien |
| 60 | 38 | Petzold Book Blog | Charles Petzold |
| 61 | 29 | James Bach’s Blog | James Bach |
| 62 | 73 | The Third Bit | Esan |
| 63 | 59 | Agile Advice | (various) |
| 64 | 53 | Elegant Code | (various) |
| 65 | 48 | Evolving Web | Jim Benson |
| 66 | -- | Software by Rob | Rob Walling |
| 67 | 40 | Signal vs. Noise | (various) |
| 68 | 44 | /\ndy | Andy Hunt |
| 69 | 81 | All About Agile | Kelly Waters |
| 70 | -- | Crazeegeekchick.com | Dana Coffey |
| 71 | 49 | Meme Agora | Neal Ford |
| 72 | 70 | Herding Cats | Glen Alleman |
| 73 | -- | My Secret Life as a Spaghetti Coder | Sammy Larbi |
| 74 | -- | Jeffrey Palermo (.com) | Jeffrey Palermo |
| 75 | 68 | Lean Software Engineering | Corey Ladas |
| 76 | 50 | Agility@Scale | Scott W. Ambler |
| 77 | 87 | Agile Software Development | (various) |
| 78 | -- | Ruminations of a Programmer | Debasish Ghosh |
| 79 | 51 | David Chelimsky | David Chelimsky |
| 80 | -- | PMThink! | (various) |
| 81 | 60 | LeadingAnswers | Mike Griffiths |
| 82 | 86 | Aligning Technology, Strategy, People & Projects | Eric Brown |
| 83 | 92 | Focused Performance | Frank Patrick |
| 84 | 85 | Chris Spagnuolo's EdgeHopper | Chris Spagnuolo |
| 85 | 63 | Word Aligned | Thomas Guest |
| 86 | 84 | The Cutter Blog | (various) |
| 87 | 72 | Agile Developer Venkat's Blog | Venkat Subramaniam |
| 88 | 75 | Collaborative Software Testing | Jonathan Kohl |
| 89 | 64 | Testing Hotlist Update | Bret Pettichord |
| 90 | -- | Jeff Patton's Holistic Product Design & Development | Jeff Patton |
| 91 | 83 | Agile Commons | (various) |
| 92 | 88 | Clarke Ching - More Chilli Please | Clarke Ching |
| 93 | 76 | Test Obsessed | Elisabeth Hendrickson |
| 94 | -- | Little Tutorials | Daniel Pietraru |
| 95 | 79 | Creative Chaos | Matthew Heusser |
| 96 | 62 | Bit-Player | Brian Hayes |
| 97 | 69 | Exploration Through Example | Brian Marick |
| 98 | -- | Ytechie | Jason Young |
| 99 | 91 | Silk and Spinach | Kevin Rutherford |
| 100 | 82 | Project Management 2.0 | Andrew Filev |
Legend |
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Notes from a Tool User | Mark Levison | |
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The Mendicant Bug | Jason Adams | |
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Raven's Brain | Raven Young | |
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HTMList.com | (various) | |
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Caffeinated Coder | Russell Ball | |
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Tester Tested! | Pradeep Soundararajan | |
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You'd think with all my video game experience... | Jason Yip | |
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Effective Software Development | Dave Nicolette | |
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Agile Chronicles | (various) | |
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Agile CMMI Blog | Hillel Glazer | |
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Agile Thoughts | Tobias Mayer | |
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Insights You Can Use | Esther Derby | |
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Stephans Blog | Stephan Schmidt | |
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Musings of a Software Development Manager | Ed Gibbs | |
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Leading Agile | Mike Cottmeyer | |
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Kibitzing and Commentary | Dan Appleman | |
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Software Project Management | Pawel Brodzinski | |
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Technology Architecture & Projects | Robert McIlree | |
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Cthulhu and Other Crazies | Swizec | |
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Corporate Coder | Eric Landes | |
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You Want IT When? | Bill Miller | |
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Scaling Software Agility | Dean Leffingwell | |
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PierG | Piergiorgio Grossi | |
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AvailAgility | Karl Scotland | |
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Quality through Innovation | Adam Goucher | |
Wait! I almost forgot: if you want to receive a full Top 200 version of this list (twice as big!), including statistics and all, send me an email. (Some blog authors might want to find out if they ended up at positions 101-200.) I also appreciate any references to blogs that I might have missed, so I can include them in the next edition in three months.
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