Dev Community Statistics Research
Tags: showdev, programming, python, webdev
Published: 2023-04-25 13:13:01

Hello community! Since Dev Community has an API, and it is not restricted in use, I was curious to see how the site felt at all. I calculated some statistics, which I want to share with you.

### Data processing
Let's start small, from the article/latest endpoint I collected 497039 articles. Some of them were broken, I deleted them all where id, slug, path, published_at is null, leaving 497001. Very cool! Almost half a million! Surprisingly, all is well, but there will be some anomalies, about which follow.

### Date related statistics
The data is current as of April 25, 2023 12:00 PM.
The copywrite states that it is effective as of 2016, but the API has returned several articles from 1970, 2001 and 2004, 2014, I will consider all articles hereafter. 
Let's see how many articles were published in each year.
#### Articles per year
The data is sorted by articles count descending.

| **Year** | **Articles Count** |
|--------- |-------------------:|
| 2020     | 121944             |
| 2022     | 121291             |
| 2021     | 119619             |
| 2019     | 57923              |
| 2023     | 46241              |
| 2018     | 19578              |
| 2017     | 9032               |
| 2016     | 659                |
| 2015     | 309                |
| 2014     | 151                |
| 2013     | 141                |
| 2011     | 35                 |
| 2012     | 34                 |
| 2010     | 33                 |
| 2009     | 5                  |
| 2001     | 2                  |
| 1970     | 2                  |
| 2004     | 1                  |
| 2000     | 1                  |

As you can see, it turned out to be the most popular years. The community has shown great growth over the years!

#### Number of articles per day
We see good growth from 2017 to 2019 and just a monster jump from 2019 to 2021.

![Number of articles per day](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/hq5ff5ncv0fzt5jxhr12.png)


If you look in more detail, from the end of 2022 the number of articles per day begins to grow again.

![Articles per day from 2019](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ye4rao8v63afnovkxpjt.png)


#### Articles per year
The share of articles by year looks like this, dominated by 2020, 2021, 2022.

![Articles per year pie chart](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/5asioqv6w3tvyjq45a04.png)

If you prefer a histogram, then please

![Articles per year hist](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/lqpopww1zpj2zb5dgojk.png)

#### Articles per month
Number of articles by month for each year. 2023 has every chance of breaking the record!

![Article per month for each year from 2017](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ohrmalygxp0c53jnxz5h.png)



Next, it was interesting to assess which months saw the most activity. 

| **Month** | **Count** |
|---------- |----------:|
| March     | 48658     |
| January   | 48565     |
| April     | 44862     |
| February  | 42934     |
| December  | 42016     |
| October   | 40147     |
| November  | 39586     |
| August    | 39242     |
| July      | 38678     |
| September | 37851     |
| May       | 37665     |
| June      | 36797     |

March, January, April and February. Now you know which month has the most competition)

#### Articles per weekday
The number by day of the week turned out to be almost in the original order, wow) Monday is a hard day - you need to handle the most articles.


![Articles per weekday](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/z6n6q9ams4fabnl2ll59.png)

Table variant

| **Weekday** | **Count** |
|------------|----------:|
| Monday      | 82978     |
| Tuesday     | 79608     |
| Wednesday   | 77961     |
| Thursday    | 76446     |
| Friday      | 71795     |
| Sunday      | 56069     |
| Saturday    | 52144     |

### Tags
Total number of used tags is 1381472 and 54657 (3.96%) of them are unique.

![Top tags](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4iybzq8bhmdidk04ij2t.png)

I'll leave the table so you can quickly go to the page.

| **tag**      | **count** | **link**                      |
|-------------|----------:|------------------------------|
| javascript   | 90636     | https://dev.to/t/javascript   |
| webdev       | 82029     | https://dev.to/t/webdev       |
| beginners    | 62249     | https://dev.to/t/beginners    |
| programming  | 43246     | https://dev.to/t/programming  |
| tutorial     | 40505     | https://dev.to/t/tutorial     |
| react        | 34798     | https://dev.to/t/react        |
| python       | 24961     | https://dev.to/t/python       |
| productivity | 20388     | https://dev.to/t/productivity |
| css          | 18667     | https://dev.to/t/css          |
| discuss      | 18421     | https://dev.to/t/discuss      |
| devops       | 17198     | https://dev.to/t/devops       |
| career       | 16623     | https://dev.to/t/career       |
| node         | 15599     | https://dev.to/t/node         |
| opensource   | 14281     | https://dev.to/t/opensource   |
| html         | 13795     | https://dev.to/t/html         |
| codenewbie   | 13793     | https://dev.to/t/codenewbie   |
| aws          | 13541     | https://dev.to/t/aws          |
| typescript   | 12582     | https://dev.to/t/typescript   |
| github       | 10340     | https://dev.to/t/github       |
| java         | 10254     | https://dev.to/t/java         |
| testing      | 9714      | https://dev.to/t/testing      |
| showdev      | 9291      | https://dev.to/t/showdev      |
| security     | 8217      | https://dev.to/t/security     |
| php          | 7835      | https://dev.to/t/php          |
| docker       | 7374      | https://dev.to/t/docker       |
| linux        | 7184      | https://dev.to/t/linux        |
| database     | 7042      | https://dev.to/t/database     |
| angular      | 6856      | https://dev.to/t/angular      |
| cloud        | 6712      | https://dev.to/t/cloud        |
| vue          | 6580      | https://dev.to/t/vue          |
| git          | 6506      | https://dev.to/t/git          |
| ruby         | 6371      | https://dev.to/t/ruby         |


![Tags cloud](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9m8jijl4a4519wolcsbf.png)

### Authors
It's time to congratulate the most active authors. 16 most active ones.

### Authors with most articles

| **User name**       | **Articles count** | **Url**                            |
|---------------------|--------------------|------------------------------------|
| excelgeek           | 1577               | https://dev.to/excelgeek           |
| ben                 | 1349               | https://dev.to/ben                 |
| chiki1601           | 1027               | https://dev.to/chiki1601           |
| aumayeung           | 981                | https://dev.to/aumayeung           |
| dailydevtips1       | 969                | https://dev.to/dailydevtips1       |
| dailydeveloperjokes | 963                | https://dev.to/dailydeveloperjokes |
| bnevilleoneill      | 822                | https://dev.to/bnevilleoneill      |
| theabbie            | 818                | https://dev.to/theabbie            |
| dwane               | 743                | https://dev.to/dwane               |
| thepracticaldev     | 718                | https://dev.to/thepracticaldev     |
| asayerio_techblog   | 660                | https://dev.to/asayerio_techblog   |
| melvin2016          | 650                | https://dev.to/melvin2016          |
| loizenai            | 534                | https://dev.to/loizenai            |
| apium_hub           | 461                | https://dev.to/apium_hub           |
| tinydevops          | 450                | https://dev.to/tinydevops          |
| sureshmohan         | 448                | https://dev.to/sureshmohan         |


Some stats

| ****  | **Count**          |
|-------|--------------------|
| count | 110533.0           |
| mean  | 4.496403788913718  |
| std   | 15.862431807521824 |
| min   | 1.0                |
| 10%   | 1.0                |
| 25%   | 1.0                |
| 50%   | 1.0                |
| 75%   | 3.0                |
| 90%   | 9.0                |
| 95%   | 16.0               |
| 99%   | 48.0               |
| max   | 1577.0             |

There are 110533 authors and each author has written an average of 4 articles. However, a large spread, of course, against 1577 ;) Only a quarter of the authors wrote at least 3 articles. To be in the top 5% (Or write more articles than 95% of the authors) of authors by number of articles, you need to write at least 16, and to be in the top 1% already 48.

#### Most Discussed
There's a monopoly of @thepracticaldev and @ben, so if you take the unique ones, you get the following.

##### Here top 32 articles by comments count.

| **** | **Article title**                                                   | **Comments count** | **Author name**          | **Published date** | **Url**                                                                                      |
|------|---------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------|--------------------------|--------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 0    | Welcome Thread - v45                                                | 1192               | dev.to staff             | Oct 16 2019        | https://dev.to/thepracticaldev/welcome-thread-v45-4fn3                                       |
| 1    | Can I see your desktop home screen                                  | 449                | Saurabh Sharma           | Feb 21 2018        | https://dev.to/itsjzt/can-i-see-your-desktop-home-screen--4ffb                               |
| 2    | "What are you ""old enough to remember"" in software development?"  | 387                | Ben Halpern              | May 23 2019        | https://dev.to/ben/what-are-you-old-enough-to-remember-in-software-development-2e28          |
| 3    | 17 Compelling Reasons To Start Ditching TypeScript Now.             | 360                | Mahmoud Harmouch         | Jan 02 2023        | https://dev.to/wiseai/17-compelling-reasons-to-start-ditching-typescript-now-249b            |
| 4    | Stop Using React                                                    | 359                | ender minyard            | Sep 15 2020        | https://dev.to/ender_minyard/why-you-should-stop-using-react-g7c                             |
| 5    | Useful resources for programmers.                                   | 358                | Sahil Rajput             | Nov 19 2018        | https://dev.to/sahilrajput/useful-websites-for-programmers-36k                               |
| 6    | Resume Review                                                       | 357                | Kim Arnett              | Dec 12 2018        | https://dev.to/kaydacode/resume-review-1oei                                                  |
| 7    | How to Build a Full Stack NFT Marketplace - V2 (2022)               | 340                | Nader Dabit              | Jul 06 2021        | https://dev.to/edge-and-node/building-scalable-full-stack-apps-on-ethereum-with-polygon-2cfb |
| 8    | Portfolio Advice Thread                                             | 339                | Ali Spittel              | Nov 15 2018        | https://dev.to/aspittel/portfolio-advice-thread-56g9                                         |
| 9    | Why You Shouldn't Use A Web Framework                               | 337                | David Wickes             | Jul 26 2018        | https://dev.to/gypsydave5/why-you-shouldnt-use-a-web-framework-3g24                          |
| 10   | How is your portfolio built?                                        | 313                | Tim Smith                | Jul 10 2019        | https://dev.to/iam_timsmith/how-is-your-portfolio-built-49g9                                 |
| 11   | Stop Using .env Files Now!                                          | 313                | Gregory Gaines           | Sep 19 2022        | https://dev.to/gregorygaines/stop-using-env-files-now-kp0                                    |
| 12   | Is using Linux really productive?                                   | 305                | Dhruv garg               | Jul 05 2020        | https://dev.to/dhruvgarg79/is-using-linux-really-productive-37m3                             |
| 13   | Hi CodeLand! We're Microsoft and we want to empower you to do more. | 284                | "Nitya Narasimhan, Ph.D" | Jul 23 2020        | https://dev.to/azure/hi-codeland-we-re-microsoft-and-we-want-to-empower-you-to-do-more-50c8  |
| 14   | Show me your personal website/portfolio                             | 274                | TheOnlyBeardedBeast      | Jul 10 2020        | https://dev.to/theonlybeardedbeast/show-me-your-personal-website-portfolio-2fni              |


##### Top 16 authors by comments count

| **Place** | **Author username** | **Total comments count** | **Url**                           |
|-----------|---------------------|--------------------------|-----------------------------------|
| 1         | thepracticaldev     | 67831                    | https://dev.to/thepracticaldev    |
| 2         | ben                 | 45132                    | https://dev.to/ben                |
| 3         | @jess                | 10250                    | https://dev.to/jess               |
| 4         | @madza               | 8817                     | https://dev.to/madza              |
| 5         | @nickytonline        | 6547                     | https://dev.to/nickytonline       |
| 6         | @graciegregory       | 6310                     | https://dev.to/graciegregory      |
| 7         | @aspittel            | 4545                     | https://dev.to/aspittel           |
| 8         | @sarthology          | 3699                     | https://dev.to/sarthology         |
| 9         | dailydevtips1       | 3585                     | https://dev.to/dailydevtips1      |
| 10        | michaeltharrington  | 3343                     | https://dev.to/michaeltharrington |
| 11        | grahamthedev        | 2305                     | https://dev.to/grahamthedev       |
| 12        | peter               | 2161                     | https://dev.to/peter              |
| 13        | emmabostian         | 2124                     | https://dev.to/emmabostian        |
| 14        | sm0ke               | 2075                     | https://dev.to/sm0ke              |
| 15        | bytebodger          | 1996                     | https://dev.to/bytebodger         |
| 16        | deciduously         | 1840                     | https://dev.to/deciduously        |


By the way, there are 921071 comments in total. Top 4096 authors by comments you can find on Google Sheets.
1. Published version: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQATeCfUyIlbFeY35Xnv1pqRDOJsYNmQoVSbuxdBj005av7XVtUS0VaUMF78iuCAnlsZYhBcVfROX_f/pubhtml?gid=1707627826&single=true
2. Sheet version: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sLIWVI8CnJytm8yG0D250PkuymDqd4b9xQ0QPaUelbI/edit?usp=sharing


## Summary
If you have read to this point, then you at least enjoyed it) I would like to make a site that will track these statistics constantly, add a little more parameters and design the leaderboards.