Where to advertise small open-source projects

Question

I am searching for a good recourse where I can advertise my open source project. I have made a web-development framework which I want to make available to download, and I want to target a large audience.

It is an open source project so I make no money off of it, so I do not really want to pay for advertisement. I already pay for the server where the website runs, and I have spent a lot of time developing it.

I opened account on various search engines webmaster tools, so people can find it on there.

I have also made a video-sharing account where I uploaded a few tutorials. This can accumulate some traffic also.

Can someone recommend any more places to get your work spread.

Answer 1

There are 4 that I know of that let you host open source code:

1. http://bitbucket.org/
2. http://github.com/
3. http://www.codeplex.com/
4. http://sourceforge.net/
5. http://sharesource.org

These sites serve both as a place to host your code and as a way to advertise because they get so much traffic and you can include documentation which will make you show up more often in SEO results.

Also, checkout these sites for pure advertising:

• http://freshmeat.net/
• http://openshare.emotionull.com/
• http://sharesource.org

Answer 2

Stackoverflow.com uses spare banner views to display advertisements for open source projects. I would submit your project there and see if you can get it voted high enough that it will be seen on the site. The thread with votes for the current quarter is located here: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/53346/open-source-advertising-sidebar-2h-2010

Answer 3

Part of advertising for open source projects is usually in where you host the code (this can be separate from your project site). SourceForge, GitHub, Google Code, etc all have search and project listings and that is one way you can grow a community. If you're looking for community involvement, try posting on StackOverflow's open source advertising thread.

Beyond that, however, the best method of advertising (after having a useful project) is having a useful project site. Clear documentation, screenshots, demos, videos, testimonials, etc are all essential to having a successful project that's worth advertising. Encouraging your community is important as well. By providing ways for feedback, support, and contribution, you'll help grow your community. You can do that through having a bug tracker, public source control, forums, etc. A blog is also a very big deal. There are a ton of programming/tech/development related social media sites like dZone, yCombinator, Reddit's programming section, etc. that will allow you or your community to post updates. Provide widgets on some or all of your pages to facilitate sharing on various social media sites.

In short: Have a useful project, host the code at the right place, have a helpful website, grow your community, keep your community informed, and make it easy to share.

Answer 4

I'd consider Github. That will give you easy version control and a great way to get contributions back from other users.

Answer 5

There is a relatively new service called OpenHatch which aims to help projects get some publicity.

The focus is mostly on getting more eyeballs on bug trackers, but its still good exposure.

Having your project tracked by Ohloh is also not a bad idea.

Nothing (imho) is better than blog posts that you write telling the world how much fun you are having working on your new project, how excited you are and (very specifically) what problems you are solving by writing another framework.

Just like anything else, you have to work a bit to promote it. Give it some space in your signature on forums. Don't be afraid to suggest that others try it.

Finally, make sure to put up a proper (even if small) web site for your project. Its frustrating when people "just" host at github with a one line description of the project and no feature lists / about / roadmap / etc.

I've never had a free/open source project not attract at least a few people, usually more. As long as its actively developed, I'm sure people will find you.

Answer 6

Using some lateral thinking if you use Pivotal Tracker for maintaining your feature/bug development as a public project you will be able to describe where you are taking the project, get free hosting for your project plan and free publicity on the Pivotal Tracker site.