Eng-Tips

What Eng-Tips does

Eng-Tips is an advertising-supported online community for engineering professionals, founded in 1998 and operated by Arrowfly, LLC. The platform serves practicing engineers, engineering students, and technical professionals across more than 20 disciplines including mechanical, civil, electrical, structural, chemical, and aerospace engineering, with 460,341 registered members generating 457,143 threads and 3,196,244 messages. The site positions itself as the largest engineering forum on the Internet and is the central product operated by Arrowfly.

The platform is built on XenForo forum software and offers discipline-organized discussion forums, a Media Gallery for sharing images and videos, a Resources repository of downloadable engineering tools, and member profile and advanced search functionality. Content covers technical problem-solving, code interpretation (ASME, API, ACI, AISC, ASTM, AWS, NFPA, IEEE), industry software support (ANSYS, AutoCAD, SAP2000, ETABS), and career advice. There is no native iOS or Android application; mobile access is provided through a Progressive Web App (PWA) install option.

The business model is community-led and free to end users, monetizing exclusively through programmatic display advertising. Distribution is driven by organic SEO on indexed discussion content, member referrals, and cross-promotion through newsletter partnerships with Engineering.com and Mouser (the electronics distributor). Arrowfly runs a lean operation of 1-10 employees with no disclosed funding, management team, or revenue figures, and no AI or machine learning features.

Name

Eng-Tips

Legal name

Arrowfly, LLC

Website

https://eng-tips.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1998

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Eng-Tips is an advertising-supported online forum for engineering professionals, operated by Arrowfly, LLC since 1998. It serves 460,341 members across 20+ engineering disciplines with technical discussion, code interpretation, and software support, monetized exclusively through programmatic display advertising.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Online Professional Community

NAICS

Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services (5416), Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services (541690)

SIC

Services-Engineering, Accounting, Research, Management (8700)

akta.pro primary industry

Instrumentation, Controls & Automation Engineering Consulting (BPAHAIAM)

akta.pro secondary industry

Group Work, Breakout & Collaborative Document/Workspace Tools (EDAFAGAE)

Keywords

• Online engineering forum
• Professional engineering community
• Technical discussion boards
• Engineering knowledge sharing
• Peer engineering support

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Advertising: The platform generates revenue through targeted advertising displayed across the forum pages. Multiple ad networks are visible in the source code including AdRoll, Bombora, Equativ, Experian, Eyeota, and others indicating a sophisticated programmatic advertising infrastructure.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Eng-Tips operates an online forum platform that hosts discipline-specific discussion boards for engineering professionals. The platform organizes forums across 20+ major engineering disciplines including mechanical, civil, electrical, chemical, structural, aerospace, and petroleum engineering, with sub-forums enabling deep specialization. Members register for free to post questions, share technical knowledge, discuss engineering codes and standards, and collaborate on problem-solving.

Product overview

Eng-Tips is a single unified platform centered on its forum product — the largest online community for engineering professionals. The platform includes discussion forums organized by over 40 engineering disciplines (including mechanical, civil, electrical, chemical, structural, aerospace, and more), a member directory, media gallery for sharing engineering-related images and videos, and a resources section for downloadable engineering tools and documents. The forum integrates search capabilities and member profile features to facilitate knowledge sharing across the engineering community.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Eng-Tips Forums The primary online forum platform for engineering professionals, featuring category-specific discussion boards organized by engineering disciplines (mechanical, civil, electrical, chemical, structural, aerospace, etc.), member profiles, and community engagement features. Self-described as the largest forum for Engineering Professionals on the Internet with over 460,000 registered members and 3.1 million+ posts.
• Eng-Tips Media Gallery

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• LinkedIn: LinkedIn hosts large engineering professional groups and is increasingly a destination for career and technical discussion among engineers — a much broader professional network that competes for the same user attention with deeper employer-recruiting monetization.

Direct peers

• Reddit: Reddit hosts r/engineering, r/AskEngineers, r/civilengineering, r/MechanicalEngineering and many other discipline-specific engineering communities — same user need (peer engineering Q&A) but on a broader community platform with different moderation and ad models.
• ResearchGate: Professional scientific and engineering network where researchers and engineers share work, ask questions, and build reputation — analogous community-driven knowledge platform for technical professionals, with deeper academic focus but similar self-organizing forums.
• Stack Overflow: Stack Exchange's flagship Q&A platform serves software developers and technical professionals — the closest analog to Eng-Tips' engineering professional community, with similar peer-to-peer question-answering and reputation mechanics, though focused on programming rather than broader engineering disciplines.

Others

• SAE International: Professional association for mobility and aerospace engineers that overlaps directly with Eng-Tips' aeronautics, automotive, and aerospace forums — society-based community with standards and member engagement versus Eng-Tips' open forum model.
• IEEE: World's largest technical professional organization serving electrical, electronics, and computer engineers — operates IEEE Collabratec, an online community for technical discussion that competes for the same electrical engineering user attention as Eng-Tips' electrical engineering forums.
• ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers): Major engineering professional society with member-only communities, codes & standards content, and discussion forums that overlap with Eng-Tips' mechanical/civil/structural engineering sub-forums — adjacent society-based community rather than open forum.
• Engineering.com: Engineering media publisher and newsletter partner that cross-promotes Eng-Tips — serves overlapping engineering professional audiences with editorial content and is a distribution ally rather than a direct competitor.

Emerging players

• Quora: General Q&A platform with active engineering and technical subtopics — overlaps in the user need (long-form peer answers to professional questions) and ad-supported model, but without Eng-Tips' deep vertical specialization in engineering disciplines.
• The Chemical Engineering Forum (cheresources.com): Long-running niche engineering forum focused on chemical engineering process design and unit operations — directly comparable discipline-specific community platform with similar peer-Q&A mechanics and ad-supported model, but smaller and narrower in scope.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/EngtipsNethawk
• Facebookfacebook.com/engtips

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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 Eng-Tips