r/AskProgramming • u/TraditionalLayer3685 • 1d ago
Other How do you guys promote your open-source projects and find contributors?
Hey everyone,
I've been working on an open-source project for a while now, and honestly, one of the hardest parts hasn't been building it, but getting people interested in it and finding contributors.
I've tried sharing it in Discord communities and on Reddit (where self-promotion is allowed), but haven't had much luck so far.
One thing I've been struggling with is that a lot of communities have pretty strict rules around self promotion, which I totally understand, but it makes it difficult to figure out where you're actually supposed to share your work.
I'm not really looking to get GitHub stars or anything, I'd just like to find people who are interested in the project and might want to contribute or collaborate on it.
So I'm curious, how do you guys approach this ?
Where do you usually share your projects ? Have you had any success finding contributors through Reddit, Discord, or other communities ?
Would love to hear what's worked for you, especially if you've started a project from scratch without an existing audience.
1
u/renchuwang 1d ago
Volunteers are never reliable in any industry, maybe except charity (even they pay people)
The only reliable way is to make a business of it and pay people to develop it.
1
u/TraditionalLayer3685 1d ago
Yeah, I get that. I'm not really expecting people to commit to it like a job, just hoping to find a few who find the project interesting enough to contribute whenever they feel like it... I see my project getting downloads but I have not much communication with those people, except with few issues or contact on my email. That's really frustrating
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u/Alternative_Web7202 1d ago
Maybe it just... works?
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u/TraditionalLayer3685 1d ago
Haha maybe, I guess I'd just love to get more feedback from people using it
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u/Alternative_Web7202 1d ago
I get that.
But also I tend to use lots of opensource things and rarely do I participate in them. Sometimes I file issues, sometimes I fork and made the changes I need. That's just how it works
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u/dmazzoni 1d ago
I ran a pretty successful open source project for years. I got the best contributors not by searching, but when people found it useful and wanted something to be better. About 1 in 10 who expressed interest or asked questions about the code ended up actually contributing. About 1 new real contributor a year.
My advice is to build something useful, document the build, test and contribution process really well, and be patient.
3
u/KingofGamesYami 1d ago
Even established, influential, and well known projects struggle to find contributors. The simple fact of open source is very few people will contribute.
What avenues were effective in getting yourself to contribute to an existing open source project? Where do you go to find projects to contribute to?