What’s the overall summary?
Wellfound is great if you’re a startup hiring active job seekers who already want to work at startups. It’s a strong inbound channel — you post, they apply. But it’s limited to the small slice of the developer market that’s actively looking.
daily.dev Recruiter is different. We’re built on developer attention, not job intent. Developers come to daily.dev to stay sharp on tech news, tools, and trends. We use that engagement — what they read, follow, and explore — to match your roles to people who actually fit, then introduce you once they’ve opted in. It’s how you reach developers who’d never see your job post on any marketplace.
So what does daily.dev Recruiter do differently?
Wellfound works like a startup job board. daily.dev Recruiter works like a conversation starter.
Instead of waiting for applications, we identify developers already active around the technologies you hire for and surface your opportunity inside their feed — privately, contextually, and without interruption.
Every introduction is double opt-in, so when you meet a developer, they’ve already said yes. That means no cold outreach, no ghosting, and no spam — just high-intent conversations with qualified candidates you can’t reach anywhere else.
When Wellfound might still make sense
If your goal is to hire quickly for early-stage roles or you’re looking for founders, generalists, or startup-minded candidates already on the hunt, Wellfound is perfect for that.
But if you need senior engineers, specialists, or developers who are too busy building to browse job boards, daily.dev Recruiter is where you’ll actually find them.
How it feels for developers
On Wellfound, developers browse job posts when they’re ready to move.
On daily.dev, opportunities come to them naturally — inside the platform they already use daily to learn and grow. It’s frictionless, respectful, and designed for how developers actually engage with work and community.
TL;DR
Wellfound connects you to active startup job seekers.
daily.dev Recruiter connects you to the 90% of developers who never apply anywhere — but still want the right opportunity.