Upwork is one of the more popular platforms for finding and hiring developers for development teams and projects. It connects millions of freelancers to employers from all over the world and boasts online workers that specialize in a multitude of different skills. Upwork has grown its user base rapidly, and is well-known.
Today there are several competitors that have popped up, and seem to fill gaps that Upwork is having from such fast growth. Read on to learn more about reasons for choosing other recruitment and hiring platforms and what are the best Upwork alternatives.
Reasons to Look at Upwork Alternatives
While Upwork provides a fast solution for filling in freelance roles for projects, there are plenty of reasons to look for Upwork alternatives. You may want to explore them thoroughly before starting the hiring process. Here are 3 reasons why you may want to try an alternative solution to Upwork:
- The Bidding System is Frustrating: Freelancers can bid on your project with an hourly rate of fixed price, but the number of bids you get can be overwhelming. It also will take a lot of time and energy to filter through all of the bidder’s profiles to find the expert you are looking for.
- No Vetting or Security Measures: Upwork does not require any type of vetting of the freelancer’s skills, or background checks. It’s been reported that there is an uptick of scammers taking the money or ideas and running.
- Poor Customer Support: Many reviewers have complained about the platform's inability to address complex issues, and slow to give feedback. For instance, a common review is the Upwork support team didn't do anything when a freelancer made a massive charge on the client's account and did not pay the money back.
9 Best Sites Like Upwork in 2023 for Developers
Fortunately, Upwork isn't the only site to source and hire freelance developers. Many online platforms provide all the things this freelance bidding site lacks. Here are 10 of the best Upwork competitors you can use as a safe alternative.
Revelo
Revelo is a full-service hiring solution that helps you source, find, manage, and retain top-notch developer talent by nearshoring from Latin America. This platform matches you with the professionals who have the right skills and experience for the job.
All the developers on Revelo are pre-vetted, so you can rest assured that you'll get what you pay for without exception. If you don't think the chosen developer is a good fit, you can ask the Revelo team to find you a new candidate within two weeks at no extra cost.
Pros of Using Revelo:
- All developers on the platform have bee pre-vetted for English proficiency, experience, and technical knowledge.
- Large talent pool of senior-level developers trained in Python, React, Ruby on Rails, Node, and more.
- Service team is fast, and will match you with the best hiring candidates. They can fill your role within as little as 2 weeks.
- They make it easy to scale a tech team.
- Excellent white glove customer service, and a 14-day trial.
- Dedicated account manager to every company.
- Offers their freelancer’s benefits to retain top talent.
- Handles any HR, contracts, taxes, local compliance laws, and payroll for your company.
Cons of Using Revelo:
- Have to hire full-time employees, no options for part-time freelancers.
- Is only limited to hiring software developers and engineers.
Fiverr
Fiverr is another big name that calls itself the largest online marketplace for freelance services. It is a large platform and one of the top Upwork alternatives for finding different freelancers for your different projects. Fiverr is an open marketplace, so you can find just about any service you need, from voice acting to illustration to content creation to JavaScript development. You can also make an account for free and communicate with a freelancer before placing an order.
Pros of Using Fiverr:
- Lots of different categories for services to choose from.
- No bidding system, you can pay for the services from the freelancer’s profile.
- Provides a vetted certification for qualified candidates with Fiverr Pro Sellers.
- Affordable prices for gigs.
- You can communicate with freelancer before placing an order.
Cons of Using Fiverr:
- Most freelancers aren’t vetted.
- Not always the highest quality of work.
Turing
Turing is another platform that pre-vets their developer talent for you. Like Revelo, it comes with a risk-free two-week trial.
Turing uses its Intelligent Talent Cloud software to hire, vet, and match developers for your project. The software ensures that you get experienced developers within three days. Turing will also consider your time zone, so you'll be able to communicate with your freelancers in real-time.
Pros of Using Turing:
- Large pool of prevetted developers around the world, that had to pass more than 5 hours of rigorous interviews and tests to join.
- AI-powered technology to vet their freelancers, so less likely to have human-bias.
- Option to hire full-time employees or hire as freelancers.
- Their platform has over 100 types of backgrounds that are experts in, such as Swift, Java, Angular, Python, React Native.
Cons of Using Turing:
- Doesn’t offer a payroll system to easily pay your new hire.
- Very narrow skill set evaluation, and limited time-tracking system.
- No white-glove customer service process after hiring from their platform.
Upstack
Another alternative to Upwork is Upstack. This platform allows you to hire experienced freelance developers and expand your team. You can start with a risk-free 14-day trial before buying any plans. Unlike Upwork, Upstack doesn't focus on a large freelance marketplace but the best matching experience.
Pros of Using Upstack:
- All developers are vetted that apply to the platform with an 8-point hiring procedure to ensure personality, experience, and tech skills fit.
- Easy to scale developers on demand.
- Slack bot integration to manage tasks, deadlines, and freelancers from one place.
- Utilizes AI technology to match company with the best freelancers for needs.
- Has a comprehensive on-boarding process to get your new hire integrated into the role.
Cons of Using Upstack:
- Expensive to most budgets.
- There is a $399 deposit fee due at the beginning of the process.
- Small pool of candidates since they claim to be have the top 1% of talent.
- Not the fastest hiring solution.
Arc.dev
Arc.dev, also known as Codementor X, is a freelance platform that offers mentorship for companies and software engineers. It also helps companies find freelancers for their projects. The team operates from Mountain View, California, and Taipei, Taiwan.
Pros of Using Arc.dev:
- Offers a mentorship to companies that are hiring and freelance developers.
- Is both an educational and hiring platform.
- They offer developers code reviews, live classes, one-on-one help, and long term mentorship.
- Has one of the most difficult vetting process for it’s freelancers.
- Option to pay for additional services like pay for mentors to monitor and grow developer’s progress.
- Developers are in every tech stack and time zone.
- Quick staffing times - Onboard a contractor in 72 hours, hire full-time employee in 14 days.
Cons of Using Arc.dev:
- Small talent pool to choose from.
- Their services can end up being expensive to any budget.
- No dedicated account manager
- One extra full payment for hiring full-time developers.
Flexiple
Flexiple is a freelance platform you can use to hire pre-vetted designers and engineers. Like many other picks on this list, Flexiple will assign you the best freelancer for your project. This company is newer than the other alternatives to this list, and it’s small company size makes it easy to give feedback and get help from the CEO and C-level executives.
Pros of Using Flexiple:
- Clients can hire vetted freelance designers and developers.
- The platform reviews freelancers based on their portfolio and past work experience.
- Their freelancers have strong technical skills, worked on extensive projects, consistent, and good communication skills.
- Freelancers charge different rates depending on their experience, and no bidding system.
- Flexiple also has a matching system to help you find what your looking for.
Cons of Using Flexiple:
- Still relatively new platform, and have some kinks to smooth out.
- Small pool of talent of designers and developers.
- Freelancers are not in time-zone alignment with U.S. companies.
Gigster
Like the other sites on this list, Gigster is a platform that helps businesses hire freelancers for their projects. Gigster aims to provide scalable software development hiring services for companies that can't or don't want to hire a full-time dev or a team of developers. You can use it to find a software engineer of any skill and experience, from product managers to CTOs and iOS developers.
Pros of Using Gigster:
- Gigster's freelancers must pass rigorous tests and screenings.
- Clients get direct access to experts on-demand, and can talk to a UX designer or data scientist if they have any questions.
- Platform gives the ability to monitor the health and process of your project using key attributes like blockers, team happiness, bugs, and milestone tasks.
- Gigster sets you up with everything you need to install and use new software and train your team.
- They are fast to staff your tech talent needs in as little as 3-14 days.
- They give you complete ownership and licensing of anything your Gigster team builds, which is something Upwork has been shown to be a problem with their freelancers.
Cons of Using Gigster:
- Vast majority of the freelancers only work part-time.
- The AI-driven data it provides for estimations on costs and projects are not perfectly accurate.
- High cost of services in comparison to other alternatives.
- No dedicated account manager, it looks like they utilize part-time freelancers for these roles, and can have a high turnover rate.
Lemon.io
The colorfully-designed Lemon.io is a site that allows you to hire freelancers quickly and effortlessly. It's an out-of-the-box dev hiring solution that matches you with the best pick for your project within 24 hours. Most of the freelancers on this site are from Eastern Europe, which means you can expect very reasonable rates per hour.
Pros of Using Lemon.io:
- Like Revelo, Lemon.io does the vetting, hiring, and onboarding for clients.
- Reasonable rates in comparison to US-based developers on Upwork.
- They are also fast at matching. Can get your first match within 24 hours.
- Secure payment system.
Cons of Using Lemon.io:
- Small talent pool for a platform that boasts several areas of programming expertise.
- Might have a harder time being matched with less common tech.
- Need to make a security deposit before getting started on project.
- Developers are in Eastern Europe, so not time-zone aligned with U.S. times.
Gun.io
Gun.io is one of the most innovative Upwork alternative that matches clients with freelancers. Like Revelo, Lemon.io and most of the other platforms on this list, Gun.io counts developers who have gone through a vigorous vetting process.
Pros of Using Gun.io:
- All candidates have been vigorously screened and vetted for their skills.
- The platform has a refund guarantee, and the team will help you find a replacement freelancer if needed.
- The transactions are easy and secure, and run through Stripe Connect API, so everything you pay will go directly into your freelancer's bank account.
- Gun.io freelancers need to sign a Consultant Agreement that assigns intellectual property rights to client before the project starts.
Cons of Using Gun.io:
- Only offers individual developer freelancers, not able to scale with hiring teams.
- The platform is quote-based, so no set pricing structure.
- Depending on the project, it can run more expensive than other alternatives.
- Only freelancers on platform, no ability to hire full-time developers.
Further Reading: Freelancer Alternative to Upwork
Which Upwork Alternative Is Best For You?
Although Upwork is one of the most popular freelancing platforms on the web, it is far from a perfect hiring solution. Dealing with a frustrating bidding system, security problems, and poor customer support can cost you a lot of time, effort, and money in the long run. Therefore, going for Upwork alternatives like Revelo may be a better option for your business.
Unlike Upwork, which requires you to vet freelancers manually, Revelo handles all the tricky and time-consuming processes for you. We can offer a complete hiring experience (including onboarding and contracts) to help you find perfect remote developer for your tech projects and can help you scale your tech team quickly.
Growing your workforce is an essential but demanding side of the business. We help you take your company to the next level by hiring outstanding developers. Contact us for more information and start building your dev team today.
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