Every Free Marketing Channel for Developer Tools in 2026 (Ranked)

I just launched a developer tool with zero audience. Here is every free channel I tried, ranked by actual results. Tier 1: Works immediately Dev.to Articles Result: 80+ views in 6 hours Write tutorials, not announcements. Target keywords developers actually Google. Each article is a permanent search result. Best performing: "How AI Coding Agents Will Choose Your SaaS Boilerplate" (30 views) GitHub Gists Result: Indexed by Google within hours Create code snippets for common problems. Each gist links back to your project. Target: "prisma saas schema", "stripe webhook nextjs", "auth.js v5 setup". GitHub Issue Comments Result: Direct engagement with potential users Search for issues where people need what you built. Comment with genuinely helpful code references. Not spam — real value first. Tier 2: High potential, delayed payoff Awesome List PRs Result: 8 PRs pending to lists with 30K+ combined stars Find awesome lists in your niche. Fork, add your project, submit a PR. If merged, you get