My Top 10 DevRel Tool Categories, and Why You Should Care About Them

A list of essential developer relations tools that you will need in the early stages of building and growing a successful DevRel team

Recently, several people have asked me what a typical developer relations tool stack should look like. My guess is that due to the diversity of people, products, and preferences within the industry, if you ask ten different DevRel leaders, you’ll get at least eleven completely different answers 😁

DALL·E 3: Cartoon style representation where a developer relations superhero, with a gleaming emblem, stands proudly in the midst. Ten varied developer relations tools, each with a unique look, surround the superhero. The image contains no textual elements.

This post contains my (first) take on the top ten DevRel tooling categories, with example tools for each category. This will mostly be relevant to startups and scale-ups, as the adoption of tooling (and associated cognitive overhead!) generally grows alongside a successful organisation. Trust me when I say that most enterprise organizations often have more tools than they need!

When forming a DevRel team, always remember the KISS principle (“keep it simple, stupid”) and start with the smallest set of tools required to hit your goals.

DevRel Tooling: From Content to Collaboration

Let’s explore a typical developer relations tool stack, ignoring general-purpose work tooling such as email, Slack, Google Docs, etc. I’ve added links to some of my favourites:

1. Content Creation & Management:

   • Purpose: DevRel teams frequently create content such as tutorials, blog posts, documentation, videos, and more to educate and engage the developer community.

   • Examples: GitHub (for code samples), Hugo or Jekyll (for blogging), Camtasia or OBS (for video content), Notion (for content planning).

2. Documentation & Knowledge Base:

   • Purpose: Provide clear, searchable, and comprehensive documentation and resources for developers to get started and troubleshoot issues quickly.

   • Examples: Read the Docs, Confluence, MkDocs, Docusaurus.

3. Community Platforms & Forums:

   • Purpose: Engaging directly with the developer community is a core aspect of DevRel. These platforms allow discussions, Q&A sessions, feedback collection, and community-building.

   • Examples: Discord, Discourse, Dev.to, Stack Overflow, Reddit.

4. Event Management & Engagement:

   • Purpose: DevRel teams often host, sponsor, or participate in events ranging from webinars to large conferences. These tools help in planning, promoting, and running these events.

   • Examples: Eventbrite, Meetup.com, Hopin, Crowdcast.

5. Feedback & Issue Tracking:

   • Purpose: Capturing, prioritizing, and addressing feedback from the developer community. It's crucial for iterative improvement and ensuring the community's concerns are acknowledged.

   • Examples: GitHub Issues, Trello, UserVoice, JIRA.

6. Social Media & Content Distribution:

   • Purpose: Amplifying content reach, monitoring brand mentions, and engaging with the community on different social platforms.

   • Examples: Typefully (for threads and scheduling), Buffer, Hootsuite.

7. Automation & Integration Tools:

   • Purpose: Automate repetitive tasks, streamline workflows, and integrate different tools for seamless operations.

   • Examples: Zapier, IFTTT, GitHub Actions.

8. Analytics, Monitoring & Feedback Tools:

   • Purpose: To gauge the effectiveness of DevRel initiatives, it's essential to have tools that provide insights into content performance, community engagement, and gather feedback directly from developers.

   • Examples: Google Analytics (for web content), Hotjar (for user behavior tracking), Typeform or SurveyMonkey (for feedback collection).

9. CRM & Relationship Management:

   • Purpose: To manage and maintain relationships with key developers, influencers, and partners. This also aids in tracking engagements and segmenting the community for targeted outreach — this is particularly important if you’re following a product-led growth (PLG) go-to-market motion.

   • Examples: Common Room, Orbit, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive.

10. Learning & Upskilling Platforms:

    • Purpose: DevRel teams must stay updated with the latest technologies, best practices, and trends to communicate effectively with the developer community.

    • Examples: O’Reilly, Udemy, Coursera, Pluralsight, Feedly (for tracking news and articles).

As I completed my list (with a little help from ChatGPT), I thought of at least another five categories, but I’ll leave this for a future post!

Want to know more about building an effective DevRel tool stack?

I hope this post has helped to shed some light on the tooling categories that I believe are essential for DevRel teams to get stuff done.

Please comment below and let me know if you want more related content!

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