What Xitu does

Xitu (稀土), founded in Beijing in February 2015, operates Juejin (掘金), one of China's largest developer community platforms. The company is built around a content-sharing and learning community for software developers and engineers, combining a personalized technical content feed, social discussion threads via the Feidian (沸点) feature, open-source project discovery through Juejin Open Source Library (开源库), and structured paid learning products via Juejin Books (小册). The platform is accessible through a web interface at juejin.cn, native iOS and Android applications, and a Chrome/Edge browser extension, all self-serve. Core technology centers on a Vue.js server-side rendering architecture with full-site HTTPS, a content recommendation and hot-ranking algorithm, a technology tag system, and a contributor-driven translation pipeline on GitHub (the Juejin Translation Plan) with 20,000+ stars and 1,000+ contributors.

Xitu's business model is multi-stream. Consumer revenue comes from sales of paid mini-books (60,000+ copies sold by September 2018) and the company has indicated recurring/subscription-style revenue from the browser extension and premium content. Enterprise revenue is generated through the bd.juejin.cn business platform, which serves 100+ clients with developer talent recruitment and employer branding services. The company also benefits from ecosystem effects via sponsored developer events such as JTalk meetups and the Juejin Developer Conference. The company is privately held, headquartered in Wangjing SOHO (Beijing, Chaoyang District), was selected into Microsoft Accelerator Batch 10 in August 2017, and has raised approximately $3.85M across three disclosed rounds from 2015-2017 led by or including Future Capital Discovery Fund, Peeli Ventures, AngelCrunch, GeekFounders, and Zenmen. Co-founder Ming Yin serves as CEO alongside co-founder Bian Jiang.

Name

Xitu

Legal name

稀土 (Xitu)

Website

https://xitu.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Xitu (稀土) operates Juejin (掘金), a Chinese developer community platform offering technical content, social discussion, open-source discovery, and paid mini-books to software developers, plus enterprise recruiting and employer branding services to 100+ tech clients.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Developer Community Platform

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Advertising (7310)

akta.pro primary industry

Web Content Management (WCM) & Experience Platforms (Content Services) (HDAEAGAK)

Keywords

• Developer community platform
• Technical content publishing
• Open source discovery
• Paid developer learning
• Tech recruitment services

Headquarters

HQ city

Beijing

HQ country

China

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Browser Extension & Premium Content Sales: Revenue began in July 2016 through the browser extension product. Further revenue streams include sales of 掘金小册 (Juejin Mini-Books), a paid technical learning platform launched in November 2017, which sold over 60,000 copies by September 2018. The platform also serves over 100 enterprise clients (bd.juejin.cn) for talent recruitment and employer branding services.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Xitu operates Juejin (掘金), a Chinese-language developer community platform where software developers publish and consume technical articles, tutorials, and code resources. It monetizes through a paid technical mini-book (掘金小册) learning program, a collaborative translation initiative, and B2B employer-branding and recruitment services for 100+ enterprise clients via bd.juejin.cn.

Product overview

Xitu operates the Juejin platform as a unified ecosystem of interconnected products serving developers. The core platform is the Juejin Community (掘金社区), a content-sharing and learning platform for developers. Supporting modules include Juejin Books (掘金小册) for structured technical learning, the Juejin Translation Plan for bringing international content to Chinese developers, and Feidian (沸点) for short-form social discussions. The platform is accessible via Web (掘金网页版), Mobile App (iOS/Android), and Browser Extension, with additional features like Open Source Library for discovering development tools.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Juejin Books (掘金小册): A small-format, high-concentration, systematic technical learning platform with earnings.
• Juejin Pins (掘金沸点)
• Juejin Translation Program (掘金翻译计划)
• Juejin Open Source Library (掘金开源库)
• JTalk

Products and services

• Juejin Community Platform (掘金社区) A free Chinese-language developer community platform where software developers publish, discover, and bookmark technical articles, tutorials, and code resources, with a personalized content feed.
• Juejin Books (掘金小册) A paid technical learning product on the Juejin platform offering long-form mini-books (e-books) on specific development topics to individual software developers.
• Juejin Translation Plan (掘金翻译计划) A community-driven translation program that produces Chinese-language versions of foreign technical articles for Juejin's developer readership.
• Enterprise Recruitment & Employer Branding Services (bd.juejin.cn) A B2B offering that gives enterprise clients access to Juejin's developer audience for job postings, employer-branding content, and software developer recruitment.
• Juejin Mobile App Official mobile application for the Juejin developer community platform, providing developers with on-the-go access to technical articles, the Feidian social feed, and platform features.
• Juejin Browser Extension Chrome browser extension for the Juejin platform that surfaces community content and platform features within the browser; it was also the source of the company's earliest revenue starting in July 2016.

Quantifiable outcome

• Average user session duration exceeds 4 minutes per visit (as of February 2019)
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered minor.

• Beijing GDG (北京GDG)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerGoogle Developer Group Beijing chapter partnership for co-organizing developer events, workshops, and community activities.
• AngelCrunch (天使汇)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerStartup funding platform partnership supporting early-stage tech startup ecosystem engagement and visibility.
• Alibaba D2 (阿里D2)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerAlibaba frontend technology forum partnership for co-hosting technical events and knowledge sharing.
• iMooc (慕课网)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerMOOC and online education platform partnership for course content collaboration and cross-promotion in the developer learning space.
• OSChina (开源中国社区)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOpen-source China community partnership for open-source project promotion, GitHub mirroring, and developer community collaboration.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• CSDN: CSDN is China's longest-running and largest software developer community, offering technical articles, blogs, forums, and learning resources to Chinese developers. It directly competes with Juejin for Chinese developer mindshare and content contributions.
• OSChina (\u5f00\u6e90\u4e2d\u56fd): OSChina is a leading Chinese open-source technology community offering news, blogs, forums, and open-source project hosting. It overlaps directly with Juejin's open-source library discovery and developer discussion features.
• SegmentFault (\u601d\u5426): SegmentFault is a Chinese developer Q&A and community platform similar in scope to Stack Overflow, focused on technical discussions and knowledge sharing among Chinese developers. It competes with Juejin's Q&A and article discussion capabilities.
• Stack Overflow: Stack Overflow is the global leader in developer Q&A and community knowledge sharing. While serving a global rather than Chinese audience, it is a direct product peer for technical content consumption, contribution, and community-driven answers.
• Hashnode: Hashnode is a developer blogging and community platform that enables engineers to publish technical content and build personal brands. It mirrors Juejin's content publishing and community engagement features for a global developer audience.
• Dev.to: Dev.to is a global developer community and publishing platform focused on technical articles and peer discussion. It shares Juejin's content-feed-first approach to developer knowledge sharing and community building.
• 51CTO: 51CTO is a Chinese IT education and technical community platform targeting IT professionals and developers. It overlaps with Juejin in technical content publishing, community features, and paid learning products.

Emerging players

• Zhihu (\u77e5\u4e4e): Zhihu is a broad Chinese knowledge-sharing platform with a large technical content vertical. While not exclusively for developers, its technical topic coverage and Q&A format partially overlap with Juejin's content and discussion features.
• iMooc (\u6155\u8bfe\u7f51): iMooc is a leading Chinese online learning platform focused on programming and IT skills, with courses, articles, and developer community features. It directly partners with Juejin and competes on paid developer learning content.

Broad incumbents

• InfoQ China: InfoQ China is a tech media outlet serving Chinese software engineers with articles, videos, and conferences. It competes with Juejin for high-quality technical content production and developer mindshare in China.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xweibo.com/xitucircle
• GitHubgithub.com/xitu

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors7 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Xitu