In the ever-evolving world of remote work and freelancing, Upwork has long been a household name. With its extensive marketplace connecting businesses with talented freelancers, Upwork has enabled countless professionals to find work and clients to hire the right talent. However, Upwork is not the only platform of its kind. There’s a world of alternatives and similar websites that offer a plethora of opportunities and options for both freelancers and businesses.

Whether you’re a seasoned freelancer looking to diversify your income sources or a business owner seeking a talented professional for your project, this guide is designed to provide you with a comprehensive overview of alternatives and websites like Upwork.

We’ll explore various platforms, each with its own unique features and offerings, to help you make informed choices and maximize your opportunities in the gig economy.

15 Best Websites Like Upwork

1. Toptal

Are you a software engineer who loves to design and play around with coding? Do you want to start your career as a freelance software developer?

If yes, then Toptal is a one-stop destination for you.

Toptal is a freelancing website that connects software developers and business consultants with clients who are looking for coders and developers. This platform is specifically made for designers, software developers, and financial consultants.

This means, as a freelance developer, you’ll get a better-quality job and payment for it.

Because of its strict screening process, Toptal only allows the top 3% of applicants per month to join the platform. This makes Toptal less competitive as compared to Upwork.com.

Also, the hourly rate of Toptal is good when compared to Upwork.com. The total hourly rate starts around $60, and with good knowledge and experience, you can get around $ 120 per hour.

Hence, you can earn a handsome amount of money from Toptal, but only for quality work.

Additional features of Toptal:

1. Top 3% talent

Toptal is best known for hiring the top 3% of talent. Each freelancer must pass a rigorous screening process and test in order to get their Toptal account created, thus ensuring that businesses get to hire the best talent across the world. That being said, both freelancers and businesses get good opportunities in their respective domains to make money.

2. Specialized services

Besides, Toptal also offers a wide range of specialized services in the domains of development, design, security, hosting, and a lot more.They have their own team of developers and designers who are specialized in front-end development, back-end development, website and mobile app development, website and app design services, and everything in between, making them a prominent mobile app development company in Dubai.

3. Free online and web-based tools

Another cool feature of Toptal is that they offer some free online and web-based tools for designers and developers to help them manage their projects easily and quickly. There are tools for developers, designers, and marketers as well. A few of them include Gitignore, sorting algorithms, checklists, JSON formatters, and a lot more.

2. Coding Ninja

Coding Ninja is another great alternative to Upwork, especially for coding lovers and developers. The website makes sure that freelancers have complete independence in selecting the project they want to work on. They also have a good support staff that clarifies all the questions and confusion that freelancers have. Also, there is complete transparency maintained between clients and freelancers.

Once you start the project, you are allowed to directly communicate with the client. This helps clients as well as freelancers communicate with each other smoothly. 

What’s more?

At Coding Ninja, you can also upskill and learn more about coding, developing, data science, programming, and everything related to computer science. They offer a wide range of certification courses with placement assistance to help you excel in your career and upgrade your knowledge.

Top features:

1. Community

Coding Ninja has its own community platform where you can register and network with like-minded people, ask your doubts in the forum, and get answers to all your queries from experienced people in the industry.

In this community, you will also be getting updates about all the upcoming events and scholarship tests conducted by Coding Ninjas to hone your skills. Details about webinars, video interviews with experts, workshops, and coding events are also mentioned from time to time.

2. Scholarship

If you want to avail of the coding scholarship from Conding Ninja, then you need to pass a test, and based on your marks, you’ll be offered some discounts and scholarships on your courses. The registration fee for the exam is zero, making it a win-win situation for you.

3. Affiliate

Do you want to make some money online? Are you interested in promoting Coding Ninja to your friends and colleagues? If yes, then you can also make money by promoting and selling courses at Coding Ninja’s.

Coding Ninja has an amazing affiliate program that you can sign up for for free and make money by promoting their courses. You can sign up, get your affiliate link, promote it on social media, your blog, website, or YouTube, and get a decent commission for every sale that you make. The commission range is between 10% and 30% on courses.

4. Practice

If you want to hone and brush up your skills in coding, then you can enroll in multiple quizzes and skill-testing exams on Coding Ninja. There is also an interview question guide, coding interview prep tests, and mock interviews to help you pass your coding job interview.

3. Freelancer

Freelancer is a crowdsourcing marketplace website that allows clients to post their jobs and find relevant freelancers to complete them. This website functions very similarly to Upwork.com, which makes it a perfect alternative to Upwork.

As a freelancer, it is very important to find the right quality of work. And I personally feel that, as a freelancer, you will get good-quality work from the clients.

There are around 6.7 million projects on freelancer.com, which will give you a good chance to grab enough quality work. Moreover, there are good-quality jobs for all types of skill sets. This gives freelancers a good chance to select and secure jobs that relate to their skill set.

Also, the registration process for freelancers is quite easy. There is no complex screening test involved. Anyone can open an account on freelancer.com.

Additional features of freelancer.com

1) Wide categories of jobs

On Freelancer.com, you will come across a wide range of job categories ranging from designing, developing, marketing, data entry, sales, education, writing and content, media, video rendering, tax, finance, and a lot more. This gives you ample choice to select the best freelancing gig as per your skill set and qualifications.

2. Preferred freeing program

You can also join the preferred freelancers and become part of an elite group of top talent. This means you can have access to recruiters, technical copilots, and premium enterprise projects. Preferred freelancers also get personal invites from the recruiter team to bid on specific projects, and they enjoy preferential treatment over other freelancers.

3. Contest 

As a freelancer, you can also start your own design contest and harness the power of amazing crowdsourcing. You need to post your contest by describing your requirements using the form. Freelancers will read about your contest and submit their ideas. You can provide feedback to freelancers and select your favorite idea. This will allow you to see 100 unique ideas based on what you need.

This program comes with a money-back guarantee option.

4. Safe and secured

Freelancer is a 100% safe and secure platform to use. You can be absolutely sure about Freelancer.com when it comes to data privacy and safety. You can pay with confidence and also get your money securely in over 39+ currencies through their hassle-free payment system. Also, their customer support team is up and ready 24 hours a day to assist you with any issues.

4. 99designs

If you are a graphic designer who wants to start a freelancing career, 99 Designs is the perfect place for you. 99Design is an Australian freelancing website that connects skilled graphic designers with clients who are looking for such designers. In fact, 99Designs is the world’s largest online marketplace for graphic designers.

99designs works slightly differently from other freelancing websites in terms of posting jobs and finding freelancers. 

The website works by conducting a design contest.

Design content is where you brief the entire community of designers about your design requirements. Designers then submit thousands of ideas and portfolios of their work according to your requirements, and then the client can choose the best designer as per their wants.

If you don’t want to run a design contest, you can also directly hire a freelance designer by walking through the multiple profiles and checking their reviews. You are also free to discuss the project details with the designer, pricing, and ideas. Also, your client gets the upper hand to release the payment when they are satisfied with the work.

What makes 99Design different from Upwork?

1. 1 to 1 project design

If you want to hire a freelance designer, this is the perfect option for you.

With this feature, you can find the ideal freelance graphics designer for your upcoming project or work. You can sneak through the profiles of individual designers, check their reviews, ratings, and previous work, and ask for portfolio work before finalizing anything. There are thousands of freelance designers registered on this portal.

2. Discover inspiration

There are millions of designs uploaded on 99Designs; you can walk through them and take inspiration for your upcoming project or get some ideas about your new design.

3. Design Studio

Design Studio is basically a brand agency of 99designs with an in-house team of brand strategists who will help you stand apart from the crowd and take your branding game to the next level. You can book a consultation with their team and brainstorm your branding needs.

4. Design Select

Proselect is a program that will allow you to expand your existing design team. With this feature, you can lend an arm to your existing team and scale up the production design capacity with a group of designers.

5. Fiverr

If you ask me, which is the best website like Upwork? 

I would simply say it’s “Fiverr.com.”

Fiverr is an award-winning freelancing website that helps freelancers find the right project according to their skills and talent. The business model of Fiverr is different from Upwork.

Unlike Upwork, Fiverr gives freelancers the upper hand to advertise their skills and look for the job they want, which makes it a more suitable platform for freelancers across the globe.

Fiverr also makes it easy for clients to find highly skilled freelancers for their projects with its intuitive search and filtering options, allowing clients to Clients can sort through criteria such as price, seller level, and language.

Also, Fiverr charges a very low fee as compared to Upwork, which allows freelancers to take most of the amount with them.

Features of Fiverr

1. Security

One of the best features that I love about Fiverr is their high-standard safety protocols. They leverage the power of anti-fraud and high-tech data security measures to keep all your transactions, data, and information safe.

2. Customer support

Fiverr customer support is also great, which makes them a top competitor to Upwork. They have created long guide posts, blogs, and video content on each of the topics, which they feel might be useful for freelancers and clients as well.

3. Forum and Community

Fiverr also runs a forum and community hub where you can meet other freelancers and business owners who are either struggling to use Fiverr as a platform to grow their businesses, or you can have general discussions on topics like freelancing, marketing, and technology.

4. Learning resources 

Do you know? You can also learn on Fiverr and upgrade your existing knowledge and skills. Fiverr also runs a learning portal on which you can enroll in paid courses in the domains of marketing, SEO, writing, content and copywriting, designing, and a lot more.

6. Guru

Guru.com is one of the oldest freelancing websites that allows businesses and entrepreneurs to find quality freelancers at a cheap rate. The website came into existence in 1998. Since then, it has been running strong.

Guru.com has more than 3 million expert freelancers on the board to get any kind of job done. It has freelancers who offer services in more than eight categories. This allows employers to hire a freelancer or Guru who has the right set of skills, knowledge, and experience.

Credibility, security, flexibility, support, and value are some of the top priorities of Guru, which makes it a top competitor of Upwork. They also offer multiple payment terms and flexible agreement options that allow clients and freelancers to work as per their conditions.

They have the lowest fee and commission in the industry, making it a better alternative to Upwork. Speaking about its safety, Guru offers safe payment protection and your choice of payment method for complete peace of mind and safe transactions.

A few top features of Guru:

1. Customer support

Guru offers exceptional customer support services. Their team is up and ready for 24*7, no matter what. You can count on them for any doubt, query, issue, or concern, no matter where you are located.

2. Easy to work and use

Guru is very simple and easy to use for both freelancers and clients. As a client, you need to post a job, hire freelancers, get your work done, and then make the payment. For freelancers, they have to create their profile first, optimize it, and apply for relevant projects that match their skills and experience.

3. Personalized Solutions 

Guru also offers personalized enterprise and agency-based solutions like turnkey operations, account management, and consolidated invoicing to simplify your billing process. These solutions are offered by their in-house team, not by individual freelancers.

7. People per hour

Recently, I came to know about another freelancing website, i.e., people per hour, which helps talented people to monetize their skills. People per hour have been in the freelancing world since 2007.

Since then, it has served over 1 million businesses and paid 100 million euros to freelancers. So, whether you are a business or freelancer, people per hour is an excellent starting point.

People per hour work on one goal, i.e., to connect clients with freelancers who can be hired on an hourly or project basis. I have personally tried this website to hire a freelancer for blogging work, and the quality was good.

I wanted some guest post services to be done on a highly authoritative website and got some amazing results from freelancers. 

The website has an easy-to-use interface, which allowed me to communicate effortlessly with freelancers. You also get a video call option, which is amazing.

One of the best things I liked about People Per Hour is its payment system. They escrow to hold your payment until the final work is done. This gives you a chance to review your work and then proceed with payment.

Other features of people per hour:

1. Trust and safety

Trust and safety are top priorities for People Per Hour. That’s why they leverage the latest technology and solutions to protect their clients’ payments, information, data, and privacy. They have a safe billing process where the funds are in Escrow, which safeguards the buyer from paying anything upfront.

2. Easy to use

The platform is very simple and easy to use. As a freelancer, you just have to register on People Per Hour, complete your profile, optimize it for better reach, and get it verified to grab some projects. Clients can do job postings or directly hire the freelancer for the work they want to get done.

8. Worknhire.com

If you are living in India and want to step into the freelancing world, work-from-home should be your first choice. Worknhire is India’s first online marketplace for freelancers and clients.

This is a website like Upwork that tries to fill up the gap between freelancers and clients by bringing them under one roof. It has a simple 3-step signup process for freelancers. You can join either as an individual or a company.

You can also join this website through Facebook, Google, or your LinkedIn account. 

Clients can post their jobs within a few clicks and set their own budget for their projects. Once the project is posted, clients will start receiving proposals from relevant freelancers.

Clients can compare the proposals and peek into the freelancer’s profile to select the best employee.

However, the website charges certain fees for posting jobs. INR 200 is charged for posting a job and an additional 200 for featuring the job. This makes it cost-intensive for some clients.

Top features of WorkNhire

1. Less competitive

The competition on WorkNhire is very low, which means freelancers can easily get work and make good money on this platform. However, the amount of work is quite low because there are only a few categories of jobs available in the domains of marketing, content writing, and SEO.

2. Easy to get work

Because there is less competition and a limited category of work, skilled and talented freelancers can easily get work in the marketing and SEO domains.

9. Truelancer

Hiring credible and trustworthy freelancers is a tough task, especially in a country like India where a lot of fake freelancing websites are being created every day. In such a situation, you need trustworthy freelancers to get your work done quickly.

But the question is, ” Where do you get such freelancers in India?”

You will find the answer to this question at truelancer.com.

Truelancer is an Indian freelancing website like Upwork that assists businesses in hiring freelancers or contractors who can help them complete their tasks and get the job done.

On this site, you can hunt for freelancers for writing, designing, accounting, legal work, taxation, development, app designing and programming, coding, and a lot of other categories of work.

There are more than 100 categories in which you can find freelancers for your upcoming project.

Features of True Lancer:

1. Normal fees

The fee that Truelancer charges is very nominal and allows both buyers and sellers to make the most of it.

Buyers fee: 

Seller fee: 

2. Profile Creation

Freelancers can create detailed profiles that showcase their skills, work history, portfolio, and client reviews. Clients can also create profiles to post jobs.

3. Search and Filters

Users can search for jobs or freelancers using various filters like category, skills, location, and budget range.

10. Rockerstop

When speaking about the best websites like Upwork, Rockerstop has to be on this list. This is yet another Indian website for freelancers that is ranked 3rd in India. If offers all kinds of freelancers with 100% authentic profiles to be hired. 

The website works in a very simple way. If you are hunting for freelancers, then you need to post your job requirements on the site by submitting your work details and a budget. Later, you need to verify your cell phone and fill in some details. This process is absolutely free, and your job will be posted after verification. Once your job details are online, you will start getting responses from freelancers across the world, and you can hire the best freelancer of your choice. 

For freelancers, they have to create their profile, fill in every detail that is asked, and optimize it for better ranking on the platform.

Once their profile is up and ready, they can start reaching out to employers and bid for the relevant project. If the employer is satisfied with your profile and work, you will be hired.

Top Features of Rockerstop:

1. Home Services

Rockerstop also offers a wide range of home services through which you can get someday work at home to get your home task done. These tasks can be like cleaning your home, dusting, salon services, repair services for electric items, and more.

2. Free job posting

Job postings on Rockerstop are 100% free, which means employers can hire freelancers free of charge. They do not have to spend a penny apart from paying to freelancing their fees.

3. Global Talent 

Rockerstop is the third-top-rated freelancing site in India. However, it has freelancers from all across the globe bidding and working on various projects. Employers can hire freelancers from Asian as well as Western countries to get their jobs done.

11. Outsource

Outsource is a small-scale freelancing portal and website similar to Upwork. It is on a mission to connect marketers with businesses that are seeking professional marketing services. On this platform, businesses can hire virtual assistants or freelancers on a part-time, hourly, or project basis, or for full-time purposes as well. Outsourcing goes one step further by vetting out unskilled freelancers. They set up interviews with freelancers, allowing the businesses to select the top candidates who have applied for the role.

Top Features:

1. Interview with the VA

Outsource will set up your interview with the best freelancers and virtual assistants that match your job description, skill set, and qualifications. You can then take the interview with the VA and decide whether to move ahead or not.

2. Experienced marketers

Applying as a virtual assistant or freelancer on this portal is quite difficult, as Outsource only approves the top and quality candidates that match their criteria and possess the relevant skills that businesses are looking out for. So, on this platform, businesses would only find experienced and qualified marketers.

12. Design Crowd

If you are looking for a website like Upwork in the domain of design, then Design Crowed has got your back covered. After 99Desings, this is the best freelance website for designers all across the globe.

It was started in 2008. In 2011, it acquired Brandstack, a logo marketplace where users are able to buy and sell logo templates online. Plus, it also acquired a community-based design contest website, Worth1000, to further expand its line of operations.

Overall, this is a good site where businesses can get any kind of design work done by the best in the market.

Features of DesignCrowd:

1. Top freelancers

There are more than 100,000 design freelancers registered on this site from all across the world. You can hire any of them by looking at their past projects, work profiles, reviews, and experience. You can also post a job and start getting proposals for your project.

2. Wide range of design services

From easy logo design to complex website design with a stunning user interface, Design Crowd can help you get the best work done for sure.

They offer a wide range of design services in more than 25 categories to select from.

3. Nominal pricing point

Pricing is absolutely normal and as per market standards, which makes it easy for freelancers and businesses to get the best services at a nominal cost.

13. Dribble

The next on this list of the best alternatives to Upwork is Dribble. Founded in 2009 by Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett, Dribble is a type of social networking website for designers. It is basically a design portal and a jobs and recruiting website. If you are on the hunt for top-class designers, then Dribble is the place to be. The platform charges zero fees for job placement and makes hiring as seamless and cost-effective as possible.

 Top features: 

 1. Global reach

Dribble has the number one job board for hiring top-class talent in a design domain. Millions of designers are registered on this platform from all across the world, with a proven track record of helping companies with all sorts of design-related work.

2. Take inspiration

If you are an aspiring designer or want to become one, then you can also take motivation and inspiration from Dribble’s design collection. This platform has millions of designs uploaded by top designers. You can look at their work and get some inspiration for your coming project.

3. Learn and share

Dribble is not just a design platform for businesses and designers. Budding designers who want to learn UX, UI, graphics design, and related topics can also be part of the Dribble community and learn from experts and like-minded people.

14. Constant content

Are you looking for some freelancing content writing jobs, or do you want to hire freelancing writers? If your answer to the above question is yes, then Constant Content is a better website than Upwork. On this website, you can buy and sell articles or hire content writers for your upcoming projects.

Writers who are looking for a quick side hustle can sell their writing work or join the platform as freelancers and make some money.

Top Features: 

1. Marketplace

As the name says, on Constant Content’s marketplace, you can buy ready-made or pre-created articles at your fingertips. You can browse through thousands of articles edited and written by professional writers and subject-matter experts.

If you are worried about plagiarism issues, then let me tell you that all the content is verified by Copyscape. Also, when you buy an article, you are buying its rights, and the content won’t be used elsewhere.

2. Writing services

If you are seeking more professional content writing services, then you can directly opt for the writing services of Constant Content. They have content writers from native English-speaking countries like the USA, UK, and Canada. You also don’t need to worry about the SEO of your content. You can simply tell the Constant Content team your requirements, and they will deliver the SEO-plus user-friendly content at your fingertips.

15. Iwriter

iWriter.com is an online content marketplace that connects writers and clients seeking written content. Launched in 2011, it has become a popular platform for outsourcing content creation. Clients can order articles, blog posts, ebooks, and more, while writers can browse available jobs and get paid for their work.

iWriter offers varying quality levels, from Standard to Elite Plus, catering to different budget and quality requirements. The platform provides a convenient and straightforward interface for managing content requests and deliveries. While it has garnered a mixed reputation for content quality and pricing, iWriter remains a viable option for those in need of written content on a budget.

FAQs about Alternatives and Websites Like Upwork: