---
title: "Stack Overflow is almost dead"
url: https://perrotta.dev/2025/05/stack-overflow-is-almost-dead/
last_updated: 2025-09-05
---


[Previously]({{< ref "2025-01-09-why-self-answer-questions-in-your-own-blog-instead-of-stack-overflow" >}}).

[Stack overflow is almost dead](https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/stack-overflow-is-almost-dead/)[^1] by Gergely Orosz:

> Four months ago, we asked Are LLMs making Stack Overflow irrelevant? Data at
> the time suggested that the answer is likely "yes:"
>
> [...]
>
> Since then, things at Stack Overflow went from bad to worse. The volume of
> questions asked has nearly dried up, new data shows:
>
> [...]
>
> This tallies with my memory of feeling that site moderators had gone on a
> power trip by closing legitimate questions. I stopped asking questions around
> this time because the site felt unwelcome.
>
> [...]
>
> ChatGPT is faster and it's trained on StackOverflow data, so the quality of
> answers is similar. Plus, ChatGPT is polite and answers all questions, in
> contrast to StackOverflow moderators.

A bit of politeness[^2] goes a long way, eh?

Where do you ask novel questions these days?

Stack Exchange is still my to-go site for that, but it's starting to feel like a
ghost town. Oftentimes I end up self-answering my own question, because no one
else does. Nonetheless, I'd rather post on my blog if I know the answer in
  advance. The reason to post on SE is when _I don't know_.

It feels to me the best place to ask specific questions these days is wherever
the project is developed. GitHub or GitLab issues, Discourse (BBS / forums),
Discord[^3], Slack...and so on. There's a lot of fragmentation. Perhaps that's
not too bad after all, but it incurs additional effort.

And where to ask general questions? Reddit[^3], the Fediverse™, social media,
project-agnostic chat platforms / communities...

Perhaps one day we'll just be able to tell our LLM agents to go out there in the
dark corners of the Web[^4] to ask a question for us.

[^1]: I am (nit)picky. Gergely did **not** capitalize "overflow". _This is plainly wrong_!!1! 🤷

[^2]: 🇨🇦

[^3]: Ewwww.

[^4]: Will the Web even be alive by then?