The best online communities for every hobby
The right community can accelerate your progress in a hobby by years. The wrong one can make you feel like a permanent outsider. This is a curated guide to the best Reddit subs, Discord servers, and forums — sorted by hobby and rated on beginner-friendliness.
Online hobby communities vary wildly in quality. Some are extraordinarily generous — full of experienced practitioners happy to answer beginner questions in detail. Others are gatekeeping, toxic, or so advanced that entry-level questions get ignored or mocked.
We've rated each community on three dimensions: activity (how frequently posts get responses), quality (how accurate and useful the responses are), and beginner-friendliness (whether novices are welcomed or tolerated).
Art & Drawing
Reddit
r/learnart
The most beginner-welcoming art community on Reddit. Frequent feedback threads, resource wikis, and a no-gatekeeping culture. Post your work at any level.
★ Best for beginners
850k members
Reddit
r/ArtFundamentals
Focused on foundational skills — gesture, form, perspective, colour theory. More structured than r/learnart, with a clear progression pathway based on the Draw A Box curriculum.
★ Excellent quality
240k members
Discord
Ctrl+Paint Discord
Community around Matt Kohr's free digital painting curriculum. Active feedback channels, study groups, and a progression system that keeps beginners accountable.
★ Excellent quality
Active
Programming & Tech
Reddit
r/learnprogramming
5.5M+ members, extremely active, and genuinely welcoming to absolute beginners. Well-maintained wiki covers where to start for every language and goal.
★ Best for beginners
5.5M members
Discord
The Programmer's Hangout
One of the largest programming Discord servers — language-specific channels, project feedback, and job hunting advice. Active 24 hours with thousands of online members.
★ Excellent quality
120k+ members
Forum
Stack Overflow
Not a community in the warm sense — but the best place to get accurate answers to specific programming problems. Learn to search before asking; most questions are already answered.
★ Unmatched for answers
50M+ questions
Guitar & Music
Reddit
r/guitarlessons
Focused on learning rather than showing off. Instructional content, technique questions, and gear advice for players of all levels. More structured than r/guitar.
★ Best for beginners
280k members
Reddit
r/guitar
The main guitar community — huge, active, and covers everything from gear GAS to technique to recording. More intermediate-skewed but beginners are welcome.
★ Very active
3.2M members
Forum
The Gear Page
The definitive forum for guitar gear — amps, pedals, pickups, and tone. Deep expertise, long-form discussion, and some of the most knowledgeable gear users on the internet.
★ Expert-level gear knowledge
Very active
Photography
Reddit
r/photocritique
Post photos for honest, structured feedback. More constructive than most photo communities — rules require substantive critique rather than empty praise. Excellent for learning.
★ Best for improvement
450k members
Reddit
r/AskPhotography
Q&A format — gear recommendations, technique questions, post-processing help. No question is too basic. One of the most genuinely helpful photography resources available.
★ Best for beginners
320k members
Forum
DPReview Forums
The legacy photography forum — deep archives, camera-specific subforums, and expertise that predates Reddit. Slower-paced than Reddit but often higher quality answers on technical questions.
★ Deep technical expertise
Legacy community
Gardening
Reddit
r/vegetablegardening
Active, friendly, and full of practical advice from real growers. Seasonal threads, regional advice, pest identification, and "what went wrong" posts that teach more than any book.
★ Best for beginners
800k members
Reddit
r/plantclinic
Post a photo of a sick plant and get a diagnosis. Remarkably accurate crowd-sourced plant health advice. Follow-up threads show what actually worked.
★ Uniquely useful
1.1M members
Knitting & Crochet
Reddit
r/knitting
Enormous community with a weekly help thread specifically for beginners. No question is too basic. Regular "progress posts" are supportive rather than competitive.
★ Excellent for beginners
1.4M members
Ravelry
Ravelry Forums
The dedicated knitting and crochet platform — pattern database, project tracking, and forums. The most comprehensive resource for fibre arts anywhere online.
★ Essential platform
10M+ members
Chess
Reddit
r/chess
Active community for all levels — game analysis, news, improvement questions, and the occasional meme. Weekly threads for beginners and openings discussion.
★ Very active
2.8M members
Discord
Chess.com Discord
Official Chess.com community — massive, active, and segmented by rating. Coaching requests, game review, and study groups. Beginner channels are welcoming.
★ Welcoming to beginners
200k+ members
Cooking & Baking
Reddit
r/AskCulinary
The science of cooking explained by knowledgeable home cooks and professionals. Technical questions answered accurately and thoroughly. Better than most cookbooks for understanding the "why."
★ Exceptional quality
620k members
Reddit
r/Cooking
General cooking community — recipes, tips, meal photos, and beginner questions. Friendlier than r/AskCulinary and broader in scope. Good for everyday cooking inspiration.
★ Welcoming community
3.1M members
Running
Reddit
r/running
3M+ members with a genuinely supportive culture. Weekly threads for beginners, training plans, race reports, and injury advice. The beginner question thread is answered quickly and kindly.
★ Best running community online
3M+ members
Reddit
r/C25K
Dedicated to the Couch to 5K programme — arguably the best online community for complete running beginners. Celebratory, supportive, and full of people at exactly the same stage as you.
★ Best for absolute beginners
280k members
Writing
Reddit
r/writing
Discussion of craft, process, and the writing life rather than critique. Good for motivation, writer's block strategies, and understanding the publishing landscape.
★ Good for craft discussion
2M members
Reddit
r/worldbuilding
For fiction writers who build worlds — maps, lore, magic systems, political structures. Extraordinarily creative community that will engage seriously with even the most ambitious ideas.
★ Unique community
1.5M members
How to actually get value from a community
Joining a community doesn't automatically produce learning or connection. Here's how to make it work:
01
Lurk first, then ask
Read the community for a week before posting. Understand the norms, the FAQ, and what's already been covered extensively. This makes your first post much better received.
02
Be specific in questions
"How do I get better at guitar?" gets ignored. "What exercises would help with my right-hand picking consistency?" gets answered thoroughly. Specificity signals seriousness.
03
Give as well as take
Even as a beginner you can answer the very newest beginners' questions — and you should. Communities that only consume eventually decline. Contributing is also how you build relationships.
04
Find the old threads
Reddit's search is poor but Google's site search isn't: site:reddit.com/r/knitting "casting on beginner" retrieves years of answered questions. Most beginner questions have exceptional prior answers buried in archives.
The right community changes everything. Progress in a hobby correlates strongly with feedback quality. A beginner who gets specific, constructive critique on their first attempts learns faster than one who only gets validation — or silence.
Suggest a community
Know a community that belongs on this list? We maintain a directory of hobby communities and update it quarterly with reader suggestions.
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