Is hackaday.com legit or a scam?
Hackaday is a premier, long-standing technology and hardware hacking news site with a 20-year history of editorial excellence and no security red flags.
Analysis Summary
No threats detected
All checks passed. This site appears legitimate — but always stay alert for phishing even on trusted domains.
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site. See full visual analysis →
Visual Screenshot Analysis
We capture a fresh screenshot of the live page and ask a vision model to look for scam visual patterns — fake trust badges, countdown timers, overlay pop-ups, and visual clones of legitimate brands.
Visual red flags detected in the screenshot
The screenshot shows a fully-rendered, professional news site layout that aligns with the legitimate Hackaday brand, showing no visual indicators of a scam or phishing attempt.
What our vision model saw
5 signalsLayout matches the established design of the legitimate hackaday.com website
Content consists of technical security news and blog entries consistent with the brand
Navigation menu contains functional links to internal project and community pages
No deceptive urgency tactics, fake trust badges, or intrusive pop-ups are visible
High-quality typography and consistent branding elements are present
MT Intelligence
The domain has been registered for over 22 years, which is a primary indicator of a stable and legitimate business. Our antivirus network shows zero detections across 92 different engines, and the site is not present on any major browser blocklists. Visual analysis confirms the page matches the established Hackaday brand, featuring high-quality technical journalism rather than deceptive ads or phishing lures. The site is owned by a verifiable corporate entity, Supplyframe Inc., which is part of the global Siemens group. Global traffic rankings place it among the top websites worldwide, further confirming its status as a trusted resource.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for hackaday.com, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- Hackaday.com launched in September 2004 by Phillip Torrone; originally part of Engadget/Weblogs Inc., later independent and acquired by Supplyframe (2013).
- Owned by Supplyframe Inc. (Pasadena, CA), a Siemens company since 2021 acquisition; editor is Elliot Williams.
- Well-known hardware hacking, DIY projects, and tech news site; hosts Hackaday.io for open-source hardware projects; ranked #10 geek blog by Computerworld in 2007.
- Active social media presence (@hackaday on X since 2008, YouTube, Instagram); contact tips@hackaday.com; runs annual Hackaday Prize contests.
- No scam reports, malware complaints, or negative reviews found across web searches, Reddit, or review sites; site frequently covers scams as a topic (e.g., scam products, romance fraud).
- Domain age ~22 years (8054 days aligns with 2004 founding); registered via GoDaddy; no Trustpilot/ScamAdviser listings, consistent with legitimate media property.
- Editorial independence emphasized in staff posts; strong reputation in maker/DIY/electronics community with no red flags.
- Wikipediaopen
"In 2007, Computerworld ranked Hackaday #10 on their list of the top 15 geek blog sites."
- Hackaday.com (former editor post)open
"Hackaday has always trusted our writers to guide us by following their own interests... Hackaday is a truly independent voice and the trust our readers have in us is our most valuable asset."
- Reddit AMAopen
"I ran hackaday.com for 5 years. Now I don't. AMA."
Hackaday is owned by Supplyframe Inc. (headquartered in Pasadena, CA), which was acquired by Siemens in 2021. Supplyframe founded 2003, active subsidiary.
Antivirus Engines
Security Scans
Checked against the major public blocklists used by browsers and security tools — no hits.
Contact Verification
We fetched the page and looked for real-world contact details. Legitimate businesses almost always publish an email on their own domain, a phone number, and a postal address. Scam shops usually don't.
- No phone number listed on the page.
- Contact email on the site's own domain (tips@hackaday.com).
- Postal address visible on the page.
- Links to 10 social profiles.
Domain & Encryption
Redirect Chain
- 1301http://hackaday.com/
- 2200https://hackaday.com/
Server Reputation
Still, stay alert
No major threat indicators — but a clean scan does not guarantee every page is safe, and phishing emails routinely spoof real domains.
- Double-check the exact URL in your address bar
Confirm you are actually on hackaday.com and not a lookalike like h-ackaday.com.com or an IDN homoglyph.
- Use a password manager
Password managers only auto-fill on the exact domain they were saved for — they refuse to fill lookalike domains, which is the single best phishing defence.
- OpenDiscuss this site on the forum
If you have first-hand experience with this site — good or bad — share it with the MalwareTips community.
Reputation Sources
How this domain rates across independent threat-intelligence and blocklist providers.
Referenced Domains
Outbound domains this page links to or loads resources from. Each links to its own security scan.
Safety FAQ
Common questions about this site, answered directly from the scan data above — so the answers always reflect the latest verdict on this page.
- Our automated security review found no threat indicators on hackaday.com. The site appears legitimate based on the signals we checked, but always stay alert for phishing emails that spoof real domains.
- hackaday.com passed our automated security checks with a trust score of 97/100. No antivirus engines or major blacklists flagged the site at the time of the last scan.
- Yes. hackaday.com presents a valid TLSv1.3 certificate issued by Let's Encrypt · YE2, expiring in 86 days. Note that SSL only encrypts the connection — it does not guarantee that the site itself is trustworthy.
- hackaday.com is 22.1 years old, registered on 6/10/2004 through GoDaddy.com, LLC. Scam domains are often freshly registered — a site under 6 months old warrants extra caution.
- No. All 92 antivirus engines in our malware network report hackaday.com as clean.
- No. hackaday.com is not currently listed on the major browser blocklist feeds that modern browsers use.
- hackaday.com resolves to an IP operated by Automattic, Inc in US (usage type: Content Delivery Network). Hosting location alone doesn't make a site good or bad, but unusual geography for a brand's claimed country is one of many signals we weigh.
- Yes. hackaday.com sits in the global top-100k on Cloudflare Radar, which means it has substantial real-world traffic. That does not automatically make it safe, but established brands almost always rank here and throwaway scam domains almost never do.
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