Thanks to its minimal approach, Medium is a safe haven for publishers and readers alike. Getting started on Medium is straightforward and anyone can easily set up a account to start writing or reading on topics that meet their interests. However, if you are looking for other platforms, we have you covered. In this article, we have picked the 15 best Medium alternatives you can use to replace the service for your writing or reading needs.
Best Medium Alternatives You Can Use (2022)
Medium is home to both readers and publishers, but both of these audiences have different needs from the platform. Therefore, we have added separate sections featuring websites like Medium for readers and publishers. You can switch to either of the sections depending on what you are looking for.
Medium Alternatives for Readers
1. Quora
As a reader, Quora is the closest equivalent you will find to Medium. Just like Medium, Quora is a community-driven platform for sourcing content. However, unlike Medium, which focuses more on long-form articles, Quora is a place where users can post questions and answers. If you are on Quora, you can post any question in your mind and get answers from other members.
One of the best things about Quora is that there are many well-known personalities and intellectual individuals on the platform. As a result, you tend to receive answers from people who know what they’re talking about. Of course, over the years, Quora has become very popular, which has degraded the quality of answers. However, if you carefully choose the topics and the people you follow, you won’t have to deal with sub-standard answers. Quora also offers a premium subscription it calls Quora+ that includes exclusive access to content from select participating creators and an ad-free experience.
Pros Cons Best Medium alternative for readers Content quality is not consistent Ask your questions Too much noise Get answers from experts
Platforms: Web, Android, and iOS
Pricing: Free; $6.99/month
Visit: Website
2. LinkedIn
As noted in our list of the best social media apps and sites, LinkedIn is an integral part to establish and nurture your professional network. Keeping the networking aspect aside, LinkedIn is also home to a variety of learning courses that you can enroll in to upskill and enhance your skills. You will also find LinkedIn’s own articles focused on topics such as workplace, job search, and careers. If a Medium alternative focused on career and self-improvement is what you are after, give LinkedIn a shot.
If you’re looking to build your personal brand and garner an audience, LinkedIn has you covered. When you publish articles on LinkedIn, the original content becomes part of your professional profile. Over the past few years, LinkedIn’s user base has grown, and there’s a solid chance that your personal brand could give you an edge over other candidates in your next job hunt or for finding a freelance gig.
Pros Cons Get educational content on career Feed can get cluttered soon Educational courses Grow professional network
Platforms: Web, Android, and iOS
Pricing: Free, Starts at $29.99 per month
Visit: Website
3. HubPages
At its heart, HubPages takes a similar approach to Medium for content generation and curation. Like Medium, the community creates the content and is a mix of both short and long articles. If you are not interested to contribute, you don’t have to. You can directly visit the website and read articles that interest you.
One key appeal of Hubpages is that most content generated here is from passionate writers that want to share their expertise in their areas of interest. Hence, you get to read a ton of exclusive content that you won’t find anywhere else.
With a vast library of content across arts, business, entertainment, politics, sports, and technology, HubPages has something for everyone. HubPages is useful once you know how to use the platform. If you are a writer, you can also earn money by using HubPages’ monetization programs. However, as mentioned on their website, don’t expect to make a full-time income here.
Pros Cons Community-focused Medium alternative Stern approval guidelines Vast content library Content monetization
Platforms: Web
Pricing: Free
Visit: Website
4. DEV Community
As the name suggests, DEV Community is possibly the best Medium alternative for developers. On this platform, you will find posts and discussions related to popular programming languages. You will also find videos, podcasts, job listings, and even mentors to guide you through your career. You can react to posts, add comments, and bookmark posts for later. Whether you’re a budding developer or a seasoned veteran, DEV Community has something for everyone.
Each Dev Community user gets their own profile, and everyone has the option to make new posts as long as they abide by the community guidelines. If you want your own custom domain and the ability to customize your blog’s appearance, however, I recommend looking at Hashnode instead.
Pros Cons Medium alternative for developers No custom domains Read and write development content Find mentors and interact in community
Platforms: Web, Android, and iOS
Pricing: Free
Visit: Website
5. Vocal Media
Vocal is a Medium alternative built with writers in mind. The platform wants to ensure writers get paid while helping them publish their best work. The company also offers a premium subscription for creators that promises more earnings per 1000 reads, a lower minimum withdrawal balance, and a lot more. As things currently stand, Vocal promises $3.80 per 1000 reads for regular users and $6 for Vocal+ members.
Vocal has a massive catalog of content ranging from tech, music, beauty, sports, confessions, true crime, nature, education, families, fiction, and more. The stories featured on Vocal are fresh and handpicked. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, check out Vocal from the link below.
Pros Cons Creator focused Not ideal for building personal brand Content monetization and moderation Broad content niches
Platforms: Web
Pricing: Free; $9.99 per month
Visit: Website
6. BeamStart
Beamstart is a Medium replacement for people interested in the intersection of startups, technology, investing, marketing, and crypto. The service aggregates trending content from all major publishers around the world. With Beamstart, you will never miss another startup story again. Apart from the startup world, Beam focuses more on technology and business industries.
While you can browse Beamstart without signing up for an account, creating a Beamstart account comes with the benefit of having a personalized feed with your preferred sources and interests. Although Beamstart is not a community-driven publishing platform like Medium, readers would love the simplicity to read relevant content that suits their interests.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Content aggregation | No original content |
| Quality sources | |
| Personalized feed |
Platforms: Web
Pricing: Free
Visit: Website
Medium Alternatives for Publishers
Although Medium has a lot of daily active users, it is not great for creating your personal brand and earning money. Furthermore, you don’t get to have your own domain, unless you already own a domain. Not to mention, linking your Medium account to your custom domain is a time-consuming process. Migrating your Medium content to other platforms is a hassle too. If you are looking for a Medium alternative for your publishing needs, these are your best options:
7. Substack
Over the past few years, Substack has established itself as a solid player in the publishing space. The key appeal of Substack is its ease of use and monetizability for independent writers. Rather than relying on advertisers or sponsorships, Substack’s business model leverages direct subscriptions of readers to pay writers, and the company takes a 10% cut excluding the credit card fees.
If you are a writer with an active follower base, converting them to paid Substack readers could be a lucrative business. Here, “the ad model demands that writers attract 40,000 page views every day to earn just $1,000 a month. With the Substack model, a steady base of 1,000 subscribers paying $5 each month earns you $60,000 per year,” says the company. You also have the option to publish articles for free or lock select articles behind the paywall for subscribers.
Pros Cons Ideal Medium alternative for writers Growing audience can be tough Content monetization Community-focused business model
Platforms: Web, iOS
Pricing: Free; Starts at $5/month
Visit: Website
8. WordPress
WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that needs no introduction. In fact, the company proudly claims that 43% of the web is built on WordPress. That’s a bold claim, and it goes on to show the influence WordPress has on the modern web. With extensive templates, a feature-rich editing interface, and countless plugins, WordPress has everything you will ever need when you are building a website. Used by professionals, WordPress is a solid Medium alternative if you’re willing to put in the effort to customize and maintain your website.
What I like the most about WordPress is its extensive theming system that you can use to customize based on your needs. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of customizing the website, you could opt for a professional-looking theme from WordPress’ theme library. There are both free and premium themes to choose from. Furthermore, you get integrations to almost all platforms you can think of, making this platform easier to scale and add more features to your website.
Pros Cons Leading Medium alternative for publishers Some themes are costly Extensive customization Manually setting up everything is time-consuming Premium themes
Platforms: Web, Android, and iOS
Pricing: Starts at $5/month (billed annually)
Visit: Website
9. Ghost
One of the biggest reasons to switch to Ghost from Medium is its extensive feature set. With Medium, you are stuck with features that come with the interface, and you can’t do anything to differentiate your content from the others. Ghost, on the other hand, is a full-blown content management system.
With Ghost, you can manage and extensively personalize and customize your website. Ghost comes with a full-fledged editor for effectively formatting posts than Medium. Moreover, Ghost is fully open to being themed and modified to suit your needs and your style.
I love how Ghost allows users to choose their branding, design, and the way their content is displayed. When you blog with Ghost, all your content is yours, and you are not entirely dependent on the platform. Ghost also has support for advertising, product placement, sign-up forms, and more, making content monetization a breeze.
If you want something that sits in between Medium and WordPress, I would recommend checking out Ghost. It’s one of the best platforms similar to Medium on this list.
Pros Cons Feature-rich Lacks many themes Publisher-friendly Easy to use
Platforms: Web
Pricing: Starts at $11/ month or $9/ month if billed yearly
Visit: Website
10. Notion
If you consider yourself a productivity freak, you must have heard of Notion. In case you haven’t, Notion is a project management and note-taking tool that has a wide range of use cases. One such use case is content publishing. With Notion’s user-friendly editor, you can turn any Notion page into a published website in seconds. You can then use the published site as a blog, portfolio, docs, or more. There’s also a rising trend among startups to use Notion websites for job listings.
What I like the most about publishing pages on Notion is the sheer simplicity it offers. With a couple of clicks, I can get a web link to any of my Notion pages to share with friends and peers. While it is convenient for quickly sharing pages, it’s not really practical to use Notion for building a loyal readership at scale. So if you wish to check out the best Notion alternatives, we have covered you in that aspect as well.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Easy to use | Can’t build personal brand |
| Effective collaboration | |
| Publish in seconds |
Platforms: Web, Android, and iOS
Pricing: Free; Starts at $4/month (billed annually)
Visit: Website
11. Write.as
After starting out as a minimalistic and distraction-free writing space for writers, Write.as has evolved to be a space for writers to seamlessly publish their blogs, journals, and newsletters. If you want a hassle-free platform to publish your posts using a minimal interface like Medium, Write.as is something you can consider.
Staying true to its roots, Write.as also offers an anonymous mode where you can publish without creating an account. Whether you want to publish your thoughts without leaving a trail or build a following, Write.as has you covered. However, the caveat with this platform is that it’s not as popular as the other options we have mentioned here.
Pros Cons Minimal and easy to use Pricey subscriptions for monthly plan Simple editor Lacks customization Anonymous mode
Platforms: Web
Pricing: Free; $6 per month billed yearly
Visit: Website
12. Telegra.ph
Another website that takes the same approach as Write.as is Telegra.ph. Medium alternative Telegra.ph is the anonymous publishing platform from Telegram, the popular messaging app of the same name. The website’s UI is as minimalistic as it gets. You get the title field, name field, and body. However, it is still a powerful editor. You have the option to upload images and even embed tweets and videos from YouTube and Vimeo here.
Posts you share on telegra.ph are published instantly, but do keep in mind that you will have to be on the same browser to make any edits in the future. You don’t get an account to sync your posts, making it ideal for sharing notes or text snippets than publishing posts for a target audience.
Pros Cons Anonymous mode Not for blogs Easy to use Publishes instantly
Platforms: Web
Pricing: Free
Visit: Website
13. Tumblr
Tumblr is a blogging platform for people who don’t want to spend any time and money on creating and maintaining their own websites. Do note that Tumblr functions a lot like Medium, meaning, you won’t be able to easily move your content and there is no way to monetize your writing. That said, it also has the benefit of being a popular platform where millions of people have the chance to discover your content.
Whether it’s stories, photos, GIFs, TV shows, links, quips, dumb jokes, or anything else, you can post it on Tumblr. I have found that Tumblr is best for short-form content. Using this along with your personal blog is beneficial to drive traffic to the latter. You also get extensive customization features to make your Tumblr page uniquely yours.
Pros Cons Feature-rich editor Customizing Tumblr page is time-consuming Highly customizable Ideal for readers and writers
Platforms: Web, Android, and iOS
Pricing: Free
Visit: Website
14. Squarespace
Squarespace is a website builder platform that allows users to build their own blogs and website without any technical knowledge. So, if you use this as an alternative to Medium, you can create your entire blog with branding and everything within an hour. Squarespace takes care of everything for you.
From hosting to templates and website performance, Squarespace takes away all the hurdles and lets you get started with writing content. The best part is that you don’t need website development skills. It’s easy to use and the drag-and-drop website builder lets you setup your professional-looking website without much effort. Unlike Medium, you will be the owner of your content and have several customization features.
I also love its content publishing interface. The editor is easy to use and allows you to use text, images, videos, and many other types of content blocks. Squarespace also has various third-party integrations to add Amazon product placement, insert affiliate links, and place ads to help you monetize your website. Overall, Squarespace is an all-in-one solution for all your publishing needs.
Pros Cons Easy to use Expensive Block editor Build website without coding
Platforms: Web, Android, and iOS
Pricing: Starts at $14/month (billed annually)
Visit: Website
15. Wix
Just like Squarespace, Wix is also a website builder platform that allows users to create their own blogs. The service comes with over 800 professionally designed templates and an intuitive and easy-to-use website builder. Their drag-and-drop tools are one of the easiest to get the hang of, allowing you to create your blog without coding. I also love the fact that blogs built with Wix are responsive, ensuring compatibility across multiple screen sizes including mobile devices.
Again, Wix is good for people who have a long-term vision for their blog and want to own the content they create. Unlike Medium, here, you can do your branding and decide how your website looks and behaves. You also have the opportunity to monetize your website if you want to. If you want to create a professional blog, Wix is the right place to start.
Pros Cons User-friendly interface Quite pricey Easy to set up websites Build a website without coding
Platforms: Web, Android, iOS
Pricing: Free, premium plans start at $16/month
Visit: Website
Read and Publish Content on These Medium Alternatives
That ends our list of the top 15 best Medium alternatives you can use to read and publish content online in 2022. While we can agree that Medium offers a unique value proposition and it is hard to find its exact alternative, we hope you find these Medium alternatives helpful. We have included the platforms and services that excel at things where Medium falters. Do let us know which platform seems the best for your publishing or reading needs in the comments section below.
