Freelance developers are a natural part of many businesses these days. Whether you want to make an e-commerce website, extend your in-house team with talented outsourced developers or just develop a short feature for an existing project, remote developers all around the world got you covered.

We have discussed reasons to hire remote IT professionals previously. According to data from Gartner, 80% of all B2B relationships are digital today. As a matter of fact, remote work and outsourced IT developers become more and more common. The same Gartner survey declares that about 88% of companies worldwide have introduced work from home since the pandemic. Combined with the talent shortage in various fields and employee preference to work from home, the picture starts to form. Remote and outsourced approach not only increase productivity and employee satisfaction but also allow companies to hire top IT talent from across the globe, while also saving money on things like the recruitment process.

Perhaps one of the most recognized marketplace for hiring developers is Fiverr. 

Fiverr is a digital freelancer platform introduced in 2010. At first, Fiverr has gained its popularity due to buyer protection (otherwise, protection from scams), something that other remote work platforms did not offer at that time. Moreover, as it stems from their name, Fiverr gigs were cheap, starting at only $5 per service.

However, many things have changed since 2010, so what are the pros and cons of using Fiverr today?

Fiverr pros to consider:

• Affordable service

Similarly to how it used to be before, most Fiverr gigs will cost you $5. This makes it one of the cheapest freelance platforms out there. Affordability is great for short gigs, simpler projects, and tighter budgets.

• Broad choice of developers

Fiverr has LOTS of gigs. The freelance platform has 3.42 million active buyers, 255,000 active sellers, and 500 different categories to choose from. This provides businesses with a wide selection of fresh and experienced professionals to pick from.

• Customer service for buyers

Your money is protected. In most of the disputes, Fiverr is on the buyer’s side. Their customer service is very responsive towards businesses and solo buyers with possible complaints. If you receive bad service, they will most likely issue a refund.

Fiverr cons to keep in mind:

• Low quality 

Quality comes with a price. As you must have guessed, Fiverr $5 gigs are often something that you might expect from service this cheap. Unfortunately, when it comes to IT and software development, lower-priced gigs can end up with unusable code or poor architecture design. In fast-paced projects which require services done well and on a tight deadline, using Fiverr might end up costly after all.

• Scams happen

With all the protections combined, at times you are just unlucky. Scams happen both on Fiverr and other platforms like Fiverr. In this case, the mere size of the platform, its large number of unchecked freelancers may end up in you getting little to no job done at all. In worst cases, people copy and steal others’ works too. It’s a good idea to double-check.

• Fake reviews

Fiverr reviews aren’t always truthful, which may end you up with a bad quality service too. After the possibility of being hired, some freelancers end up buying Fiverr reviews in order to get their pages and offers higher in the Fiverr search results.

Today, there are lots of companies worldwide that provide direct competition to Fiverr services. Some are more affordable, more secure, others provide a selection of top-notch Python developers or Java programmers for hire. This is what this article is about, other companies like Fiverr.

Here, you’ll discover Fiverr alternatives for hiring IT developers.

Best Fiverr Alternatives

UpWork

About: Founded at the dawn of the Internet in 1999, UpWork is one of the oldest and most trusted freelance platforms online. 

UpWork is one of the more popular platforms for outsourced IT talent, besides Fiverr. The company has 14 million registered freelancers, making it a bigger candidate pool than Fiverr. Periodic screenshots, a unique function, makes it easier to track progress. Though, for many, distinguishing good IT professionals among such a huge mass of people can still be quite challenging. Another thing to know - UpWork isn’t as cheap. Clients pay fees to UpWork, unlike Fiverr, where only the freelancer pays a fee.

Why choose it? Higher quality freelancers

Guru

About: Guru is another website with a long history. Established in 1999 as a freelance marketplace, it still provides the same services 23 years later. Unlike Fiverr, the majority of gigs offered on Guru are focused on IT, software, and web development services.

Guru is known for its availability of programmers for niche topics, experts in the field. For instance, here you can find experts in React mobile development or CRM Hubspot application developers to better fit your needs. The website has a good categorization, but many other services like Fiverr have that feature too. Though, for both sellers and buyers, at times Guru feels a bit disorganized and clattered. Moreover, it has quite an old-fashioned design.

Why choose it? Niche IT experts

Toptal

About: Toptal is a freelancer platform. Its unique selling point is that they only accept the top 3% of freelancers to their platform.

Toptal is known for their rigorous vetting process, where they access not only the skills but personality, motivation, communication, English levels of their applicants. The company helps oversee the freelance hiring process. Naturally, unlike Fiverr, this is a service that comes with a higher price tag. An average Toptal freelancer comes at $100+ per hour.

Why choose it? First-class service

PeoplePerHour

About: PeoplePerHour is a UK platform for finding all kinds of specialists.

Freelancers are interviewed before they are added to the platform. Compared to Fiverr or Fiverr alternatives, such approach helps to eliminate the guesswork from the remote developer search process. Let’s say you are looking to hire Ruby on Rails engineers, PeoplePerHour will guarantee that you find people who are proficient in the framework, and have some experience with it. The issues may come with the transparency of buyer fees.

Why choose it? Freelancer screening

Freelancer.com

About: Australian freelance marketplace website with a simple and convenient name for all the search engine results.

Another popular platform among the other best Fiverr alternatives with 32 million registered freelancers. The site has time tracking built-in, which is a great feature when purchasing software developer services. Freelancer.com runs higher in price as compared to Fiverr, but it also offers higher quality work.

Why choose it? Higher quality freelancers

Ideamotive

About: Ideamotive is a company that provides on-demand individual software development contractors and IT consultants for startups, scale-ups, and enterprises.

Ideamotive offers services like Fiverr, too. However, they have a different approach to outsourced IT work. It’s a tech talent marketplace which provides IT outsourcing services, while also applying vast cross-industry expertise. Ideamotive has UX design and web projects, but also complex health tech and engineering cases. They provide tech product teams on-demand, individual software development contractors, and uniquely offer IT consultants, such as ML consultants for hire. As compared to Fiverr, Ideamotive provides a higher quality service for a slightly higher price. Ideamotive’s unique talent pool has hundreds of tech veterans of on-site talent, off-site collaborators, and top software development companies from the CEE region.

Why choose it? High quality freelancers, the possibility of a long-term partnership, vast industry expertise

Upstack

About: Upstack is a platform focused on connecting businesses with IT, web, and software developers.

Upstack utilizes the new technologies to their best. It uses an AI system to match business with the candidate. The matching can take about 3 days. Unlike Fiverr, Upstack isn’t quite for gigs, but rather for long-term cooperation between companies and candidates. Also, Upstack is another higher rate company. Their freelancers come at a higher cost, comparable to those of Toptal.

Why choose it? Hand-picked freelancers

Turing

About: Turing is a platform specialized in outsourced web development.

Turing also utilizes AI. Unlike Upstack, they use AI for an HR pre-screening process. Later, candidates also get interviewed live. Turing is very safe thanks to their virtual sandbox, where the code remains until the job is complete. Turing claims to connect businesses to the top 1% of web developers, which, naturally, also comes with a higher cost.

Why choose it? Higher quality web developers

Zeerk

About: Zeerk is a freelance platform which offers lots of outsourced services, including those of software development.

Perhaps the most outstanding selling point of Zeerk is their pricing. Website services are even cheaper than Fiverr - all their gigs run from $4 to $200. When searching to hire long-term React Native consultants, better look somewhere else. As the website claims, Zeerk is best for micro-jobs and shorter freelance projects.

What choose it? Cheaper service

Codeable

About: Codeable is a website for finding WordPress web developers.

The company provides a good vetting process. However, unlike other Fiverr alternatives, Codeable talent pool is quite narrow, since they are selecting the among WordPress devs. Additionally, codeable freelancers can get quite costly, with hourly rates starting at about $60.

Why choose it? WordPress development pros

CloudPeeps

About: CloudPeeps is a freelance job board.

Since it is a job board, freelancers choose from the customer postings, not the other way around. The unique thing about CloudPeeps is that freelancers can create packages for businesses to pick from. For instance, you can purchase a package of 5 chatbot algorithms created by a single engineer. As compared to Fiverr, this board offers better talent but at a slightly higher price too. 

Why choose it? Bulk deals

Outsourcely

About: Outsourcely is another company focused on long-term cooperation between developers and buyers.

Outsourcely is quite similar to Fiverr, and is often described as one of the top Fiverr competitors. This is due to their relatively similar size and price range. According to reviews and personal experiences, however, Outsourcely seem to offer slightly higher experienced IT professionals with similar rates. The platform does not have commission fees, too, which is a plus. 

Why choose it? More experienced freelancers

Next steps

With so many Fiverr alternatives available, you might be baffled about making the best choice for your company or project. For someone looking for quick mediocre jobs at the lowest cost possible, they are available on almost all platforms and websites. Unique and luxury hiring experiences are available too, with platforms promising top-notch talent with strict screenings and 24/7 customer support.

However, let’s be frank, most of the clients are looking for refined software for a reasonable price. Quite important, that the talent you hire is a specialist in the field, while also with experience developing software in your specific industry. A healthcare app significantly differs from an education app, which, furthermore, is distinct from a custom wearable software.

The great alternative for outsourced services out there? Ideamotive. We understand nuance and deliver our clients a unique software, perfectly fitted for their needs.