15 of the Best Developers To Follow Online [2022]

The way you code is a combination of every developer, book and repository you’ve ever learned from. To get better, improve your input. It’s that simple. Follow top-notch devs and you’ll become one yourself.

So for your consideration, if you want to murder your YouTube recommendations and see nothing but bubble sorts and Next.js videos on the home page, here are 15 of the best developers making educational or informative content on earth, today!

While You Are at It, Check Out These Amazing Tips & Tricks for React Developers

Best Developers To Follow Online

1. Coding Garden 

Coding Garden (hosted by CJ) has playlists for days. He has tutorials that will get you up to speed on dozens of highly sought-after front-end and back-end web dev technologies. We put him first because in addition to all that good learning material, what sets Coding Garden apart is that he’s a prolific live streamer. Live streams take you through how problems are solved. You see the process. You learn how to think. You’re right there with CJ as he succeeds and fails.

These streams are extremely valuable for any junior developer who wants to start calling themselves intermediate, and it’s a great way to escape tutorial purgatory. CJ streams so often and with so many different people there’s something new to learn each and every day. 

2. Net Ninja

Net Ninja’s teaching style is phenomenal. He releases entire playlists that are of higher quality than most paid courses. He takes the time to go beyond the “here’s what you do, rote memorization approach” and touches on the “why you need to do it”.

It makes concepts easy to grasp and you gain fundamental insight into current web technologies. We dare say that you have to check out his high production value videos. They have gorgeous diagrams and are narrated in that smoothing British voice you can’t help but trust.

We’d recommend his GraphQL course. It is one of the few that takes the time to explain what the graph is doing behind the screen. Once you know what’s happening, he builds on that knowledge by referring back to it while you’re learning how to write models, schemas and queries. This is what it takes to speed run eureka moments and it sure beats reading the dry, often outdated documentation. Net Ninja is easily one of the best teachers on the whole internet. Well worth a follow.

3. Code with Ania Kubów

Ania’s YouTube tutorials are great, and her Twitter’s worth a follow too. If you’ve never heard of this goddess of web and software development, what are you doing? She’s a freeCodeCamp mentor, with a knack for making complex topics approachable by wrapping them up as fun lessons in which you create games. 

She makes our list because her videos cover cutting-edge web dev tech and walk you through interesting projects. Ania takes on everything from Web3 to WebSockets and teaches vital skills which you might not need to get your first web dev job, but you’ll certainly need to progress in your career. Her recent video on how to hash passwords and store them in a database is the only thing you ever need to see to achieve proficiency. So worthy of a follow.

4. Thenewboston

Thenewboston is a consistently excellent source of Python, React, Solidity, Node and C++ knowledge. His recent Solidity course is easily one of the best ways to learn Web3, and his older React and Python stuff was the smooth landing into web development, which millions of developers needed. If you want to follow him on Linkedin, his name is Bucky Roberts.

5. Ben Awad

Ben Awad’s coding tutorials are jet fuel for the fires of understanding. Also, in his own dweeby way, the man is hilarious. Ben’s content is packed with gems that will improve how you develop apps and software. He talks a lot about the trials and tribulations of running your own start-up as a technical founder, and Ben is easily one of the most well-known programming personalities.

He’s likely the most popular TikTok coder. He’s the brains behind the short-lived VSTinder, which exactly like it sounds was VSCode + Tinder. We strongly recommend you follow his channel if you want to learn TypeScript, gain a deeper understanding of React Hooks, or level up your stack with some GraphQL. 

6. Hussein Nasser

By all definitions, Hussein Nasser is an insanely high performer. He is an Esri award-winning senior GIS solution architect. If you’re interested, GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems. All you really need to take away from that is that Hussein is a really smart guy. He has courses on Python, Vanilla JavaScript, and a hero to zero university quality backend course that covers all concepts and builds on them with practical knowledge. Not to mention that Hussein’s teaching style is careful, patient and unburdened by his superior intellect. He’s a genius but he still explains hard concepts nice and simple, which makes his content very approachable. 

7. Fireship.io 

As you’ve likely guessed fireship.io mainly focuses on Firebase development. Firebase is a serverless platform on top of Google’s CMS. You can write functions that live in the cloud as an alternative to a server. It’s cool. You should check it out if you haven’t already. Not every tutorial on Fireship is about Firebase, they have amazing content on cryptography, creating NFT series on Solana, GO, Framer Motion, WebRTC, and more. The one thing that all their lessons have in common is they cover topics in their entirety. You can start a video knowing nothing and by the end, you will have learned a marketable skill and know enough to work the rest out as you go. We highly recommend fireship.io

8. Faraday Academy

You might know Faraday Academy as Coding with Gwen. New name, same great teaching style. Gwendolyn Faraday should be your go-to resource for leveling up your Vue.js know-how. She’s also got plenty of videos on Django and APIs which are extremely valuable. Another noteworthy aspect of Faraday Academy is the straight-shooting advice Gwen gives for dealing with imposter syndrome, difficult personalities, and other interpersonal dev challenges. This is so important. Developers, especially backend developers, aren’t the most competent social beings. If workplace-related social angst keeps you up at night, brushing up on these soft skills is as vital for your career as staying abreast with the latest tech stack. Thanks, Gwen. 

9. Corey Schafer

For Python and SQL there’s no one better. Corey Schafer’s straight-to-the-point approach works! He has a lesson on everything you’ll ever want to do in Python. Everything from data structures you’ll need for old-fashioned coding interviews to practical skills like consuming obscure APIs or building a full-stack site with Django and or Flask. His Twitter is mainly dog videos which are wholesome and we love it, but YouTube is really where it all happens for Corey, so you really should follow his channel.

10. Codewithmosh

Mosh does these “learn X technology in Y time” tutorials that really deliver on their promises.

If you are just starting out learning to code, Mosh is your guy. Do you know how most really smart people are bad teachers because they assume everyone is on the same level as they are? Mosh Hamedani is the opposite of that.

He starts at the beginning and carefully builds your competency. His YouTube is a funnel for his paid courses, which is why he goes to such extreme effort to animate them and explain what you’re making visually before you make it, but he gives away a lot of free content, so can’t complain. His lessons are also very reasonably priced too, just saying. 

11. Abdul Bari

Abdul is giving away an M.A. in computer science worth of knowledge without the $50 – $120k worth of student debt that normally comes with it. If you want a foundational understanding or to learn some Java give Abdul a follow. It’s dense stuff like pointer arithmetic, binary trees, and recursion, but to satisfy your intellectual curiosity and start calling yourself a software “engineer” this channel is the business. As an aside, Abdul’s C++ course on Udemy is the crack.  

12. The Cherno

The Cherno is the online personality of Yan Chernikov, a software and game developer. If you’re a game developer or game engine developer, this channel is certainly worth a follow. Yan is currently developing his own game engine called the Hazel engine with a focus on education. In 2012, Yan released an 80 part series on game programming which is relevant to this day. It’s designed to be an introduction for complete game dev newbies. It is simple, easy to follow and rewarding. Finish it and you will know game development.

13. Tech with Tim

Tim teaches Python, C++, React, Linux, game development and more. If you want to learn some practical mathematics and how to apply it to build games, apps and software, Tim is your guy. His high-effort Python videos dive into everything from how to build a Slack bot to everyday dev tasks. He’s also a machine learning guru, which is a hard topic to find approachable content on. Highly recommended and well worth a follow.  

14. Jason Lengstorf 

Jason Lengstorf is the VP of Developer Experience at Netlify and the host of Learn With Jason, a live streaming channel with a wide array of interesting and talented guests. Every Tuesday and Thursday Jason streams an episode. You’ll be introduced to all kinds of people and that alone is a good enough reason to follow Jason and tune into his videos.

The channel style format of the content where you never really know what you’re going to get forces you outside of your bubble of comfort too which is important for expanding your skillset. You’ll learn things you didn’t even know existed. 

15. JavaScript Mastery

JavaScript Mastery takes on the latest and greatest tech stacks. If you want to learn how to build a Chakra UI site with Gatsby (and trust us you definitely do), JavaScript Mastery is ahead of the curve in this regard. Their start to finish project style of teaching takes a lot of commitment but the learning outcomes are worth it. If you follow along, you’ll get some excellent boilerplate and have a foundation that you can extend into a fully-fledged app. It’s very 3rd party library orientated, which we think is indicative of how devs work in real teams, and that makes it valuable. 

Keep Learning To Become a Better Web Developer

Like anything in life, development requires a persistent and continuous learning effort. Luckily, the web is a great source of quality content created by passionate people — content that can easily be on par with professional university courses.  

Take advantage of the work these amazing people do, and start learning development, or continue honing and improving your web development. 
And, should you feel comfortable enough, why not try your skills in developing useful and converting apps on Common Ninja’s Developer Platform?