Upwork is still the biggest place to find a developer. It is also the noisiest. You post a job, get 60 proposals in a day, half of them written by AI, and spend the next week sorting out who can actually build what you need. On top of the rate, clients pay a 5% marketplace fee on the Basic plan (10% on Business Plus) plus a contract initiation fee.

None of that makes Upwork bad. For a small, well-defined task with a budget under a few thousand dollars, it is often the right call. But if you're hiring a developer for something that matters, there are better places to look, depending on what you need.

Here are 9 of them, what they cost, and who each one is for.

Paralect finds you a vetted full-stack developer who builds features end to end, from spec and design to code and tests, using AI coding tools like Claude Code. You send a short brief and get candidates with their hourly rate and a demo within 48 hours , instead of sorting through 60 proposals. Every developer in the network of 100+ has shipped production apps and passed an interview with our CTO.

Before you commit, the developer works 2 days on one of your own tasks for $7 . If you like the result, they join your Slack and send daily updates, like a member of your team.

We wrote a detailed Paralect vs Upwork comparison if you want to see how the two work side by side.

Toptal is the best-known vetted network. Developers go through language tests, live coding and a test project, and Toptal says it accepts the top 3% of applicants . You describe the role, a matcher sends you a few candidates, usually within a couple of days, and you interview them.

Arc is a remote hiring platform with freelance and full-time hiring in one place . Candidates are pre-vetted, and you can browse profiles yourself or get a shortlist. The talent pool leans towards Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia, so rates are usually lower than Toptal for comparable seniority.

Lemon.io is built for startups. It vets developers, mostly from Europe and Latin America, and matches you with one within a few days . No long sales process: you describe the stack and the task, they send a candidate, you talk and start.

Gun.io focuses on senior engineers, most of them based in the US . Every developer is vetted by engineers, and the platform handles contracts and payments.

Contra flips the fee model. Freelancers pay no commission , so the developer's rate is their real rate. It is more of a portfolio network than a vetted one: there are strong developers there, but you do the screening yourself, the same as on Upwork. Especially strong for landing pages, Webflow sites and no-code products.

Braintrust is a talent network where freelancers keep 100% of their rate . Developers are screened, and many come from larger tech companies, so the pool is strong for senior and enterprise work.

Wellfound , formerly AngelList Talent, is where startups hire full-time . It isn't a freelance marketplace at all, which is the point: if the work is ongoing, you probably want an employee, not a contractor billed by the hour. Candidates see salary and equity upfront, and many want to join early-stage companies specifically.

Andela places remote engineers, many from Africa and Latin America, on long-term engagements . It vets developers and handles payroll and compliance. It works best for companies adding several engineers to an existing team.

Start with what you're actually hiring for: