What is the best way to promote an open source project?

[Croteau Mike]

Greetings, I have been working on various projects and would like to promote them to get some traction or to see if people can get some use from them. What is the best way to do this? These projects are on github, there is no general marketplace for regular applications/portals or libraries and frameworks. They only have a marketplace for third party apps that integrate with github. I love their service though.

Thank you in advance for your help.

[Junilu Lacar]

1. Make it useful to developers
2. Get some developers to use it.
3. If it's good, word will spread.

Considering writing a blog post about the project, its purpose and the problem that it solves, and examples of how it can be used.

[Tim Moores]

A web presence certainly helps - while hosting docs and what not on Github is a good first step, a separate dedicated web site helps, along with a blog, that you link to from various places.

Other helpful things include (semi-)regular updates, an easy way to get started, extensive documentation, a mailing list or forum for questions and discussions, and as Junilu said, spreading the word widely.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Tim Moores wrote:A web presence . . . an easy way to get started, extensive documentation . . .

Agree. Post a tutorial and add the “javadoc” documentation to the website.
[addition]A good name for your product would help a lot too. Then you can call the website https://myWonderfulProjectName.com or similar.

[Tim Holloway]

Make sure that all your project have good README.md files in them. If you have good documentation (and a few pictures won't hurt!) that's the single biggest way to catch people's attention. When I'm cruising  for a project, the ones that I look at most closely have clear "what I'm good for and how make me work" information right up top.

Definitely blog about them. And make sure you've set up support forums.

Finally, go out and promote yourself. Go to social mediia and casually mention/blatantly announce that you have Something Wonderful and that people should come and see. Focus on places where the people most interested hang out. And while you're at it, don't shoot yourself. Know the rules. For example, here on the Ranch, we generally allow a little self-promotion to slide if it's posted to a relevent forum. And, of course, it you want to speak more freely, our Blatant Advertising forum. Or you could buy a Tiny Ad™!