Hashnode
The developer blogging platform — your own domain, community discovery, and a headless mode via GraphQL.
About
Hashnode is a blogging platform built for developers and technical writers (founded 2015, San Francisco). The pitch: publish on a free hashnode.dev subdomain or map your own custom domain for free, keep full ownership with one-click exports, and get discovered through the Hashnode community feed plus strong SEO from day one. The editor is Markdown-first with syntax highlighting, LaTeX math, tables, and embeds; every post can auto-backup to a private GitHub repo, and a built-in newsletter service is included.
The free tier covers individuals generously. Hashnode Pro is $5/month per publication ($50/year): custom domain on Pro publications, GraphQL API and headless CMS mode, AI writing tools, webhooks, GitHub backup, and bulk Markdown import. Team/enterprise collaboration features are listed around $199/mo in third-party directories. Honest limits: it is a blogging platform first — complex multi-content-type modeling is not its game — and reach still partly depends on the Hashnode network. No published performance benchmarks found, though the provider cites a Vercel case study on blog speed (provider-claimed).
What it can do
- Free blog on your own custom domain with SSL
- Markdown editor with code blocks, LaTeX, and embeds
- Community feed discovery plus SEO from day one
- Built-in newsletter service
- Automatic GitHub backup of every post
- GraphQL API and headless CMS mode (Pro)
- Team publications with roles and shared analytics
Setup
Sign up at hashnode.com, pick a username, and start writing — map a custom domain in settings whenever you want.
Prerequisites
Just an account; a custom domain if you want your own URL (mapping itself is free).
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (VERIFIED tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: free custom-domain blogging, Pro pricing ($5/mo per publication, $50/yr), and GraphQL headless mode corroborated across four sources including Hashnode's own LinkedIn page; founding year 2015 from directory listings. Strengths: genuinely free individual tier with no lock-in, developer-focused editor, exportable content. Docked for: (1) proprietary platform — your reach partly depends on their network and roadmap; (2) team/enterprise pricing is steep relative to the free individual tier. License: proprietary SaaS.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 8.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 9.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 2.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 8.0/10
- · Founded 2015, SF; free blog on hashnode.dev or free custom-domain mapping; one-click exports; GitHub auto-backup.
- · Pro $5/mo per publication ($50/yr): GraphQL API + headless mode, AI tools, webhooks, bulk Markdown import.
- · Team/enterprise features ~$199/mo in directories; blogging-first, not a general content-modeling CMS; no published benchmarks.
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.