Email remains one of the most reliable channels to reach developers. Algorithmic feeds reorganise, social platforms restrict link distribution, search engines change ranking, but a subscribed inbox is a stable, direct connection. Most successful DevRel programs operate at least one newsletter.
Beehiiv
- Founded. 2021 by Tyler Denk (formerly Morning Brew).
- Strengths. Growth-focused features; native ad network; referral system; integrated landing pages and websites; analytics.
- Used by. Modern operator-style newsletters; many DevRel and developer-marketing newsletters launched after 2022.
Substack
- Founded. 2017.
- Strengths. Zero-setup publishing; direct subscriber monetisation; built-in discovery; long-form post format.
- Used by. Many individual technical writers and analysts (Stratechery-style outlets); some DevRel personalities.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
- Founded. 2013 by Nathan Barry.
- Renamed. ConvertKit → Kit in 2024.
- Strengths. Creator economy focused; automation/sequence workflows; commerce features for selling courses, ebooks, subscriptions.
- Used by. Many individual developer-creators selling courses and content.
SparkLoop
- Founded. 2019.
- Premise. Newsletter referral and recommendation network. Allows newsletters to recommend each other to subscribers and pay-per-subscriber for paid acquisition.
- Strengths. Compounding growth via cross-newsletter promotion; Upscribe paid-recommendation network.
- Used by. Most growth-focused newsletters by 2024 to 2026.
Ghost
- Founded. 2013 (Kickstarter-funded).
- Open source. Yes; self-hostable. Also hosted as Ghost(Pro).
- Strengths. Blogging + newsletters integrated; full content ownership; strong default design; Stripe integration for paid subscriptions.
- Used by. Independent technical writers, membership publications, and developer-product blogs.
Buttondown
- Founded. 2017.
- Indie / developer-friendly newsletter platform.
- Strengths. Simple, Markdown-friendly, developer-aesthetic; supports automation, paid subscriptions.
Mailchimp, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), Mailjet
- Mature general-purpose email-marketing platforms. Used by many companies for transactional and marketing email; less feature-tuned for the newsletter use case specifically.
SendGrid, Postmark, Mailgun, Resend
- Transactional email infrastructure more than newsletter platforms; relevant when the DevRel team wants to send programmatic email (drip onboarding sequences, lifecycle email).
- Resend is particularly developer-friendly and built specifically for this market; founded 2022; popular among modern startups.
DevRel-specific notable newsletters
A representative (not exhaustive) selection of newsletters in the DevRel-and-developer-marketing space:
- DevRel Weekly. Mary Thengvall.
- DevRel.Agency newsletter. Phil Leggetter’s agency.
- DeveloperRelations.com newsletter. Hoopy / Matthew Revell.
- Console.dev. Open-source developer tools weekly.
- TLDR Newsletter. Daily tech digest.
- Pragmatic Engineer. Gergely Orosz; one of the largest paid tech newsletters.
- Latent Space. swyx; AI engineering.
- Bytes. JavaScript newsletter associated with ui.dev and now Fireship.
- rendezvous with cassidoo. Cassidy Williams’s weekly developer newsletter.
- JavaScript Weekly, Node Weekly, Python Weekly, etc. Cooperpress family.
- Sentry, Datadog, Cloudflare, Vercel, etc. Most large dev-product companies operate a flagship developer newsletter.
DevRel newsletter strategy
A few operating recommendations:
- Use a cadence the team can maintain. A predictable schedule lets readers know when to expect the next issue.
- Name the author where possible. A recognisable writer can build continuity across issues and answer for the recommendations they make.
- Use curation when it serves the audience. A useful set of community links can require less labour than an original article while still giving subscribers a reason to open the issue.
- Use cross-promotion deliberately. SparkLoop and similar tools can connect non-competing developer newsletters with overlapping audiences.
- Measure beyond open rates. Track click-through to substantive content and downstream activation such as signups or trials.