Name

Hackaday

Legal name

Hackaday

Website

https://hackaday.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2004

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Pasadena

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Advertising: Website generates revenue through display advertising and sponsored content on hackaday.com
2. Event Sponsorships: Major events like Superconference and Hackaday Europe are sponsored by companies like DigiKey, who provide products, workshops, and onsite technical support

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Hackaday publishes daily editorial content covering hardware hacks, embedded systems, security research, retrocomputing, and DIY electronics projects. The company operates hackaday.com as its main editorial site and hackaday.io as a project hosting and collaboration platform for the maker community, supplemented by a weekly podcast, themed contests, and in-person conferences.

Product overview

Hackaday operates a portfolio of hardware hacking and maker-focused products: the core editorial website (Hackaday.com) publishes daily engineering articles and news, while the companion project platform Hackaday.io hosts community projects and contests. Supporting products include the Hackaday Podcast (weekly audio program available on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, and RSS), recurring editorial columns (Linux-Fu, This Week in Security, Hackaday Links, etc.), and the Hackaday Prize competition series featuring themed challenges like the Green Powered Challenge and Component Abuse Challenge. The company also hosts in-person events including the annual Superconference in Pasadena and the inaugural Hackaday Europe 2026 in Lecco, Italy.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Hackaday.io: Project collaboration platform for makers and engineers to share hardware projects
• Hackaday Prize
• Hackaday Superconference
• Hackaday Europe
• Hackaday Podcast
• This Week in Security
• FLOSS Weekly

Products and services

• Hackaday.com The main editorial website publishing daily hardware hacks, engineering articles, security analysis, and technology news. Features blog posts, columns, and community content across categories including Arduino, Raspberry Pi, FPGA, robots, and green technology.
• Hackaday.io Project hosting and community platform where makers share hardware projects, participate in contests, and collaborate. Integrates with the main site for featured and trending project discovery.
• Hackaday Podcast Weekly audio program hosted by editors Elliot Williams, Tom Nardi, and Kristina Panos covering hardware hacking news, listener mail, project highlights, and technology commentary. Available via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, RSS, and YouTube.
• Hackaday Prize Annual engineering competition series challenging makers to build projects addressing specific themes. Includes sub-challenges such as the Green Powered Challenge and Component Abuse Challenge.
• Hackaday Superconference Annual in-person hardware conference featuring talks, workshops, and the Supercon badge challenge. Held in Pasadena, California.
• Hackaday Europe Regional European conference variant of Superconference, featuring workshops, lightning talks, and keynote speakers. Inaugural event in Lecco, Italy (May 2026).
• Hackaday Newsletter Weekly email newsletter delivered every Friday summarizing the best articles and projects from the past seven days, providing curated content delivery to subscribers.

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.

• element14minorGTM or Marketing PartnerHardware sponsor for Hackaday Europe 2026, providing support for the conference and workshops.
• ArduinominorGTM or Marketing PartnerHardware sponsor for Hackaday Europe 2026, supporting the maker conference with products.
• EspressifminorGTM or Marketing PartnerHardware sponsor for Hackaday Europe 2026, supporting the event with ESP32-related products and workshops.
• iFixitminorGTM or Marketing PartnerHardware sponsor for Hackaday Europe 2026, providing support for repair-themed content and workshops.
• DigiKeycoreGTM or Marketing PartnerPrimary sponsor for the 2025 Hackaday Superconference in Pasadena, providing products, workshops, and onsite technical support. Also sponsors multiple contests including Component Abuse Challenge and Green Powered Challenge with $150 shopping sprees as prizes.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Make: Magazine: Maker Media's Make: Magazine is the most direct peer to Hackaday, publishing project-driven content for the same hardware hacking and maker audience, including a competing Maker Faire event series. Both brands target engineers and hobbyists building physical projects, and both monetize via advertising, events, and community.
• Instructables: Instructables is a DIY project sharing platform owned by Autodesk that hosts step-by-step maker builds, many of which overlap with Hackaday's editorial categories (electronics, 3D printing, Arduino). Both rely on community-submitted projects and serve hobbyist and educational audiences.
• Hackster.io: Hackster.io is a project hosting and tutorial platform for hardware developers, directly comparable to Hackaday.io. Both surface community projects, host contests sponsored by component vendors (including Arduino and Espressif), and target engineers building embedded and IoT systems.
• EEVblog: EEVblog is a long-running electronics engineering video blog and forum covering teardowns, design reviews, and component deep-dives for the same hardware hacker and embedded engineer audience. It competes for the same reader/viewer attention as Hackaday's video and blog content.
• Element14 Community: Element14 (an Avnet brand) runs a community, design challenges, and roadtests for electronics engineers, with sponsor-funded challenges analogous to Hackaday's themed contests. Both platforms host hardware contests sponsored by component vendors and curate member project showcases.
• SparkFun Electronics: SparkFun combines an electronics components shop with extensive tutorials, project showcases, and a community blog. Its educational content and project galleries serve the same embedded systems and DIY electronics audience as Hackaday, with overlapping tutorial and project coverage.
• Arduino Project Hub: Arduino's Project Hub is a project hosting platform for makers building Arduino-based hardware, sponsored by the Arduino ecosystem. It overlaps directly with Hackaday.io's project hosting model and audience of embedded systems builders.
• Adafruit: Adafruit operates a deep learning system, daily blog, and weekly electronics show (Ask an Engineer, Show and Tell) for the same hardware hacker community, combined with a hardware store. Adafruit's editorial content directly competes for the same project-driven reader attention as Hackaday.

Broad incumbents

• Wired: Wired is a broad technology media publication that occasionally covers hardware hacking, maker culture, and security research, overlapping with Hackaday's wider editorial scope. While not focused on the maker niche, Wired competes for advertising dollars and security-conscious tech readers.
• Ars Technica: Ars Technica is a broad technology publication with deep hardware, security, and open source coverage that overlaps with Hackaday's This Week in Security and Linux-Fu columns. It competes for technical reader attention and security-focused advertising, though at a much broader tech audience.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/hackaday
• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/hackaday
• Facebookfacebook.com/136115233068429
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/hack-a-day

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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

M&A1 record

Investments

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

Frequently asked questions about Hackaday