11 ms·

ODesk vs Elance vs Freelancer vs Guru

176 points by weavorateam 13y ago

throwmeaway2525 13y ago
Is there any service that doesn't require installing spyware on your system? AFAIK they all force developers to install monitoring software, and then boast about this on their marketing pages targeting employers.
- loceng 13y ago
  And it's not actual effective in preventing fraud. The only real way would be having a live video stream + recording you can return to watch.
- weavorateam 13y ago
  Unless I am mistaken, it is not obligatory (at least on oDesk) to track time using their "spy" software. Instead you can report offline hours if you have previously agreed with the client.
  - john_horton 13y ago
    That's correct - when the client makes a hire, she can decide whether or not to allow offline hours.
  - RougeFemme 13y ago
    It's not required on Elance, either, thankfully.
- Implicated 13y ago
  Like others have said, the tracking software hasn't proven to be effective in stopping contractors who want to pad hours. The contracts who were doing this before are still doing it, and those who are offended by the practice have all but left.
loceng 13y ago
Re: ODesk - Screenshots count as video? That is completely irrational.My most recent experience was a contractor on there who was padding his hours hugely. Literally a 5 minute job he tried to spread across 5 hours.
- ninjac0der 13y ago
  ... and here is why I would never use odesk or these services as a coder.
uladzislau 13y ago
I tried all the sites except Guru as a hiring manager. From my experience, Odesk is the best option so far in terms of value - if you prefer to pay per hour. Freelancer is the cheapest per project option but full of low quality spammer applicants. You can find a good quality provider on Elance but be prepared to pay premium for that.
tocomment 13y ago
Is rentacoder still around? I had good experiences there.
- bdcravens 13y ago
  It rebranded as vWorker, and was acquired by Freelancer. I was quite surprised when I was checking out Freelancer, and it said I had been a member since 2001. (from rentacoder)
- kawsper 13y ago
  Vworker bought it, and added gamification such as achievements and XP.
  - SwaroopH 13y ago
    Nope, read the other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6350600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6350600
auctiontheory 13y ago
Speaking as an employer: All of these sites have good workers, and all of them have workers who will turn in shoddy work, hoping you won't notice. I've hired for more than a dozen projects and in no case did the contractor do the job right the first time - because they didn't care enough, not because they were incompetent. I've hired workers in the US, in India, in the UK, and elsewhere. Same sorts of issues crop up. (I was eventually very pleased with the results - it just wasn't as smooth as presented by Tim Ferriss or whoever.) Poor communication and missed deadlines are the rule. Also watch out for bait and switch: for graphics, for instance, the individual who produces a firm's portfolio may not be the same one who will work on your project. Identifying talent, and managing remote workers, is a skill that can only be developed with time and practice. It's much more than a question of picking the right marketplace. The reviews are not trustworthy. If possible, try to get recommendations for specific workers from people you personally know. Because the great workers are out there, among the masses.
- Swizec 13y ago
  As a remote freelancer: Communication and cost are the main problems. Usually clients have a hard time explaining exactly what they want and our visions might differ. When I turn in results, they are often different than what the client first imagined they'd be, but through iteration and conversation I can help the client clarify what they want or realise something else 90% of the time. Time is another big problem. When you want something done in X time, I will do my best to catch that time. Sometimes this means discussing with the client until the feature list is cut down to a deliverable size. Other times it means sacrificing future flexibility of the code. I always try to get the best balance between "speed - quality - price" for what the client needs, but it's easy to miss. Almost always, clients have an unreasonable expectation of what is possible. I'd say at least 70% of my job is helping the client decide what they even want me to build for them. Disclaimer: I have never worked through any of the sites listed in OP. My main source of clients are HN, my blog, twitter, and past clients.
  - RougeFemme 13y ago
    I've worked as a remote (U.S. based) independent freelancer through Elance and Odesk. I've had positive and negative experiences on both. They both do a decent job of minimizing the risk of non-payment on fixed-price projects, but, as you point out, one of the biggest challenges is nailing down the requirements. I understand that requirements can and will change but there have been times when I've spent an inordinate amount of time going back and forth with my point of contact (who often doesn't really know what the primary customer wants). There have been times when I've pulled the plug and just told the client we weren't a good fit. I've also learned when to recognize that the clients are looking for speed/volume vs. quality. I know there are often tradeoffs but some clients just really don't seem to care about quality; they are middlemen who just want to throw something over the fence to the client.
bdcravens 13y ago
I've done some work on these in the past, dating back to 2000. They've always been challenging if you're not in a market where you can lowball, so I presume most "senior" developers in premium markets avoid these sites. I'd love to hear thoughts about using these marketplaces to build up experience in languages you're not yet using in production.
- Iftheshoefits 13y ago
  It isn't worth the time or effort to do so. I tried it out (elance) a couple of years ago as a worker. My impression of it is that basically it's a place for two kinds of employer: 1) the "I have this idea, code it up for me for equity in my 'company'" employers who either don't actually have an idea of what they want (and will needle you to flesh out their idea more fully) or have a generic "let's build the next X" (where "X" is usually "Facebook") idea; 2) the lowballer who wants to pay $500 for a job that would take a proficient team weeks or months to do. As a "senior" level developer, I absolutely avoid these places. And I absolutely do not recommend anybody use them for work. There are far better ways to 'practice' with new languages that involve better compensation and better actual experience.
  - khalidmbajwa 13y ago
    Umm, no not really. I charge around 60$/hr on oDesk.Have closed to 5000 hours and can easily pull in upwards of 5K USD a month, which is an extra ordinary sum for someone sitting in a country in Pakistan where the conversion rate i 104 PKR to a USD.You can easily get well paying clients if you spend a little time building up your history, and are really good at what you do.
    - jnbiche 13y ago
      An exchange rate will tell you absolutely zero about one currencies relative worth to another. By your logic, someone in Japan, whose currency trades about 100 to 1 USD, would have about the same buying power as you per USD, when in fact, assuming you're both earning the same in USD, you would almost certainly have much, much more purchasing power. To accurately compare purchasing power among currencies, you need to use a metric like Purchase Power Parity (PPP): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity
helen842000 13y ago
On that article they suggest it costs $10 to post a job on elance, however I've never paid to post a job!
- vmialik 13y ago
  same here, I was trying to figure out why the figure is $10 there?
re1ser 13y ago
Bad side is that there are alot of scams and poor programmers, looking to snipe the job and squeeze money from employer in any way possible. From my personal opinion, atleast 80% of bidders do this (I'm working over Freelancer). Good side is that with little hassle, employers can find really great freelancers that know to do their job. Personally, as a programmer from 3rd world country, these sites provide alternative, and a great way of earning money. Here where I live, starting salaries for programmers are around 500$, and peak at 1800$, if you get job in Microsoft, both 8-10h/day fulltime jobs. The IT market here is practically non-existant, except few high profile companies that offer decent working conditions. With these sites, I have freedom to apply my working conditions, rules and price.
- omarchowdhury 13y ago
  Where are you from?
  - re1ser 13y ago
    from Serbia
khalidmbajwa 13y ago
I am a long time contractor on oDesk and owe a great deal to this site.I wanted to talk a little about the hate the hourly model with screenshots is getting. Here's the primary reason the video thing won't work. Most of the providers are from third world countries where internet while decent is rarely good enough to support uploads in such massive volume. I have a 4 Mbps DSL connection and while i get great downstream, the upstream maxes out at 20 KB/s. So yeah, that's out of the window. However, screenshots work extremely effectively. I have close to 5000 hours logged on oDesk and barring a one off incident where i forgot to shut the logging software down and ended up logging extra hours( I refunded the client) i have never had a buyer dispute my hours. Here's the thing, as an employer you have to be smart about it. When you post a job, only interview candidates with a good oDesk history,look at their past jobs, the buyer's feedback, their portfolio etc. Then talk to them over Skype, ask for code samples etc. If you reach out for the bottom of the pool ofcourse you will get burned, but a contractor with a good history (who might be charging higher)will never ever endanger his feedback history in such a cut throat marketplace where even a single 4.99 out of 5 can knock you off the first page of search results and costing you big time, all for a few extra bucks. This alone will weed out 99% of the dishonest providers. But you can still go and initially, for a week or so, monitor the contractor's work logs closely, you will know instantly if they are padding their hours since oDesk uploads around 5 to 6 screenshots per hour, along with mouse and keyboard activity reports. Just monitor them closely initially and then semi regularly afterwards and you will know what type of contractor you are dealing with. Once you have built trust and seen the contractor's work you can ease up. Finally,set tight milestones and demand regular daily updates and you will know what's going on. So yeah, don' be lazy, be a little more vigilant and you can find some really good contractors at great prices .All the top contractors i know only work hourly and IMHO Its a great model for the employer and for the contractor, a simple win win.
- pests 13y ago
  I became really embarrassed about the screenshots sometimes. If I looked up something online or accidentally left something visible with personal information on it I would sometimes delete those 10 minutes of work just to avoid it being seen.
mudil 13y ago
I used both Odesk and Freelancer to hire developers, and I urge everyone to look at my previous submission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5177951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5177951) about deplorable protections at Freelancer.com. In summary, my $2500 project was closed by the developer at his will, with no money returned and no way to even leave a feedback! Multiple attempts asking the company to allow me to even leave a feedback came to nothing. Freelancer is not to be trusted.
- mudil 13y ago
  BTW, Odesk is great!
- loceng 13y ago
  I've had problems with oDesk, and what they say they do to protect employers as part of their marketing isn't actually how they act in practice when issues arise. For example, blackmail by a contractor to them isn't considered a high risk activity, and therefore they won't remove the contractor for it..
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  Hello there. I replied to your issues with Freelancer on the previous thread.
  - mudil 13y ago
    Matt, All I wanted is to file a feedback. And after paying >$1000, not getting anything back, my project (the one that I started and paid for) was closed by a developer, and I can't even leave a feedback! So, what kind of protections do your customers get?
    - mattbarrie 13y ago
      We ban freelancers who do not provide the service. You can also leave feedback in the form of an "incomplete" report which is a very damaging form of feedback. Normal feedback cannot be left unless the project is paid in full.
leknarf 13y ago
I thought this was a great comparison of the popular talent marketplaces, but it skipped over the most important trait: the typical hourly or project rate. All of the services have good workers, but they've also all been participating in a race to the bottom. As a developer, it's hard to ask for more than $100/hr on a site where you're listed alongside those asking for $10/hr. Even if you are 10 times more productive, it's simply hard to explain why or how that's possible in a marketplace setting. After spending some time working as a consultant, I just launched a new marketplace for high-end contract work: http://getlambda.com/ http://getlambda.com/. We have a clear minimum ($100/hr) and personally interview everyone looking to participate (both clients and consultants).
- braum 13y ago
  We are currently looking for a front-end developer. Do you offer only programmers or would we be able to find a quality front-end developer?
  - leknarf 13y ago
    We do have quite a few front-end developers. In fact, I've been surprised at how many designer/developers (that is, designers who can implement their own designs) have signed up. That combination of skills was always in short supply when I've tried to hire for in-house teams. I guess they tend to prefer freelancing :) Please send me an email at andrew [at] getlambda.com and we'll see what we can do!
    - troels 13y ago
      I guess they tend to prefer freelancing That's my experience as well. FYI: Your "Get started" form looks botched to me (Chrome, Mac OS)
- mamcx 13y ago
  This look great. I start my first gig on odesk and I have find very hard to find the kind of work I want. I submit a request...
RafiqM 13y ago
This is my experience of oDesk, from someone who has spent 6 figures with them. A few years ago I contracted a developer from the largest agency on oDesk at the time, based in India. This developer had a masters degree, tons of experience, and had a daily rate significantly higher than the average. Things worked out so well that I increased the team to 7 people total from this same company. After about 8 months, the quality of work fell dramatically. I ended up cancelling the contracts a few months after that, and found out something shocking from the ex project manager: The developers I had hired had been switched out for junior level devs. Some of the developers I hired didn't even work for that company anymore. I had none of my original hires, and didn't know it. They had been communicating with me under the previous names and email addresses. I had wondered why they so often "forgot" things that I had told them 6 months ago. I was told this was a common practice in large agencies. The problem: Inadequate accountability, even with screenshots or videos. Is this problem specific to oDesk? No, not at all. But it's turned me off "per-hour" contracts altogether, and now I only outsource very small, highly scoped, pay-on-delivery projects.
- rwhitman 13y ago
  Yikes, thats an alarming story. The fact that they were deliberately asking junior developers to impersonate senior developers using the same email addresses etc is a really worrisome practice. I had a situation managing a team for a client a while back where developers suddenly turned awful, and I'm now suspicious this could have been the case. Do you know if this is widespread with other companies?
  - mtrimpe 13y ago
    From my experience working with a major Indian outsourcing company at a previous employer this seems common practice across the board. In fact the more tolerant managers experienced this transition very quickly and managers that stayed constantly vigilant managed to stave it off for a bit longer; but also not indefinitely. From my perspective it seemed to be that this extended bait-and-switch was what their business model was built on.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
gesman 13y ago
I used and loved rentacoder back then. The rule is to avoid Indians and Pakistanis as they were usually middlemen between really poor developers. I hired north american or european workers and it worked well and predictable.
maerF0x0 13y ago
<rant> Something being missed by this discussion (and many offshoring discussions) is that many consulting firms design maintenance costs into their business model. They undercut everyone with low prices for a poorly engineered product, knowing they can churn additional hours/sales in "upgrades", "maintenance" etc. When you pay me $60 an hour (or more) to design you a component of your system, it will be SOLID OO designs, quite reusable, DRY, tested (unit tested) and better in many other ways. Where as most of the code I've seen come from bad agencies basically do "class Main { function doItAll() { /* Here is the entire program */ } };" Which is why it will cost more in the long run. If you want something added or made similar, they'll copy and paste instead of inheriting or using traits or other language constructs to keep it DRY. If you want to know if the system has regression, they'll shrug, because they either do not test, or they just write the tests to pass the way the code currently works, not testing the component in general. If you're planning on closing business in 12 months, then maybe its not worth it to invest in a scalable, changeable infrastructure. If you're planning on being in business for a long time, then invest the capital to develop your business :D . ok </rant>
latortuga 13y ago
Longtime oDesker here, I've made mid 5 figures total. I recently received a notification from oDesk that I'm part of the top 5% of "successful freelancers" on oDesk which I interpreted to mean top 5% of earners. It honestly astounded me because my account has been basically inactive for the last 8 months and I've only worked on oDesk projects since a few months after I quit my job, roughly late 2011. I started working oDesk mostly to stave off having to dip too deeply into savings. In fact, I read a lot of helpful information on HN related to getting your foot in the door for freelancing online and it ended up working very well for me. If you're looking to get an established profile, the short version is: 1. Build things (i.e. small projects, clones, browse project listings for things that would take a few hours and just implement them) 2. Tell people (learn to write proposals well, show the employers that you know your stuff and can produce) Over time I slowly raised my rate and, surprise surprise, everyone who every wrote anything about raising your rate is right! The more the client is paying, the better they are. I ended up firing the client with the lowest rate because he was so bad and have done repeat work for my highest paying client. As far as the tracking software, it has been buggy at times (I'm on Linux, I imagine they spend more time on other platforms) but I don't really see the big deal about having it take a screenshot. If the client is micromanaging to the point where he's having you remove 10 minutes because facebook showed up in your screenshot, it's not worth the time. I do notice that it tends to take screenshots when switching apps. On oDesk, I get hired hourly, I provide work hourly. Just like any in-person project, online projects require you to have good communication skills - letting the client know when you're working, what you'll be doing, when you expect things to be done, technical tradeoffs, etc. None of this is unique to remote projects. Additionally, just like the real world, there are endless people posting jobs expecting the moon in exchange for peanuts. I used to regularly receive "invitations to interview" from people who posted projects and almost always they were someone with an idea, looking for a coder, willing to pay $1k to get their facebook clone off the ground. While my girlfriend was impressed that my skills were in such high demand, it's can be a bit of a game of roulette trying to find serious projects and employers willing to invest real money. In my experience, setting a high hourly rate on your profile mitigates this situation quite a bit. I also experimented with vworker and elance back in 2011, but neither of them ended up being a good fit. It turns out that when you're building your profile on a freelancing site, sticking to one site is pretty useful because you get feedback and projects to post about at the same time and alongside each other. Glowing feedback next to a completed project with 5 figures invested does good things for your profile. If you're looking to get started with oDesk or have any other questions about how it works, I'm always free for a chat. Email is in my profile.
mattbarrie 13y ago
Hi there. I'm the Chief Executive of Freelancer.com. This article is two years old but I'm happy to answer any questions any of you might have.
bravura 13y ago
vworker (formerly: rentacoder) was great while it lasted. Honest, talented engineers. When they got bought by freelancer, everything became way more scammy. It also became much more difficult to interview potential hires. Lame.
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  Hi there, if you have any specific feedback, I would be interested to hear it. Email me at matt@freelancer.com.
aptwebapps 13y ago
Maybe a 2011 in the title? Some of the stuff in the table is out-of-date. For example, oDesk no longer sends 1099s.
xerophtye 13y ago
Ok the article seems to pretty outdated. 2011!! it woudln't have mattered if the facts were still valid but a lot of things changed, including policies and features of these sites. Not to mention vlancer got taken over by freelancer.com So i'd advice people to keep this fact in mind when going through this, and not use this as the final word on the matter when comparing.
dubcanada 13y ago
This article is over 2 years old, not only is most of the "chart" out of date, it also cites facts which are no longer true. Why did this get posted?
bambax 13y ago
freelancer.com doesn't work with Ghostery turned on. Not a good sign.
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  Hi there, I'm the Chief Executive of Freelancer.com. I've never heard of Ghostery, why is it an issue?
  - bambax 13y ago
    It's an issue because I have Ghostery turned on at all times (www.ghostery.com) and when I visit Freelancer.com and click on either "Hire" or "Work", nothing happens -- the site appears to be broken. I have no idea, of course, of how many people use Ghostery and attempt to visit Freelancer.com, but I would guess the freelancer demography is over-represented in the total population of Ghostery users.
    - mattbarrie 13y ago
      Hi there. I will forward this onto engineering to take a look at.
dharma1 13y ago
can anyone recommend any good android/iOS devs on these sites?
sfjailbird 13y ago
I personally recommend everyone to not use Freelancer.com. I learned in this thread that they also bought vWorker, and I am not surprised to read that it has turned for the worse after being acquired. In short, they steal from both the freelancers and the outsourcers - stories aplenty about this [1]. I only know about these stories because I started looking into them after being bamboozled myself, luckily for only a small amount, which would have been larger had I not managed to cancel the additional payments Freelancer.com had booked against my credit card without permission. This was my experience as an outsourcer, apparently the freelancers have it far worse. Elance on the other hand has seen more than $20k of my business and will continue to in the foreseeable future. Have not had experience with the other services (there's a strong lock-in effect in this market because your job history itself becomes a valuable thing). [1] http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.freelancer.com http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.freelancer.com
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  Hi there, I'm the Chief Executive of Freelancer.com. This is ridiculous. If you have a specific example and can send me your username to matt@freelancer.com, I can get someone to look into your case for you.
  - sfjailbird 13y ago
    I have noticed that you guys tend to pop up when these thing surface. Perhaps you should dedicate your efforts to better customer service, so you wouldn't see these stories in the first place? As you can see I am far from the only one with a bad experience. Thanks for the offer to look into my case, but I have wasted enough time with it. Keep the 50 dollars. But the price is that I warn everyone that will listen. So, in the long run, better customer service would probably be worth it for you.
    - mattbarrie 13y ago
      We have more customer support agents than any of our competitors- we have over 220 people in our support centre. We also provide support in 10 languages, which no-one else does. If you have a specific issue I will be happy to look into it.
SlavD 13y ago
Freelancer.com is a massive SCAM - IMHO 1. you can only withdraw if you have more than $x in funds - I have had $7 left on the site and can't get it back! 2. their conflict resolution is non-existent or biased - a person clearly didn't deliver what I asked for in my job and they simply refused to help me deal with it 3. after I left honest but negative feedback the freelance worker contacted me and tried to bully me into changing it. after I refused he proposed that I withdraw my feedback and he will refund me for the job 4. after I have withdrawn my feedback and he didn't refund me - I tried to bring it back - but hey what do you know - freelancer.com doesn't allow you to bring back my original feedback unless both parties agree! 5. I contacted their support to try to resolve it - again no help there fortunately for me the job was only small $50 project, but I learned my lesson and will NEVER use this website again! after that I used both Elance and oDesk and I think both are good and professional
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  Hello Slav In answer to your questions. 1) You can get a refund for any amount in your account. Just contact support. 2) This is incorrect. We have a full dispute resolution team of paralegals. 3-5) Please let me know who this freelancer is by emailing me at matt@freelancer.com. This is a clear violation by them of our Terms of Service. Regards Matt
  - SlavD 13y ago
    I feel like I shouldn't have to 'jump through hoops' to get my money back - if it's such a non problem why do you even have minimum amounts for withdrawals? talking to your support / dispute resolution team is a waste of time - I felt like they're one of those $1/hr people who just don't care now it's a violation of your ToS but at the time when I described the situation to one of your support guys it was OK... I even told him that I'm not happy and that I'm being brushed off - I even mentioned that I'll write about it somewhere - but he didn't care about any of that - he ended our conversation with: "Thank you for contacting Freelancer.com, please don't hesitate to contact us again if you have any other questions or concerns." That's just a customer service FAIL at it's best! I'm glad that the time came and all of that gets described here It's time for you guys to wake up and stop treating your customers like cattle!
yawniek 13y ago
i got a diverse set of projects done through elance contractors in the last years. over all a good experience so far. usually i do a general chat through skype with those providing a useful application. since i am a programmer myself, this helps me to quickly figure out someones skill set. Agencies are usually complicated and a lot of information gets lost between workers there. I did a iOS app with an agency, the design, ux and code were horrible. Rebuilt the App with a single contractor from Lisbon for half the price. He quickly understood the application, provided clean code and simple but elegant design. So evaluation of the contractor is something you need to do with care. i prefer elance because it allows you to search for people based on their location easily. a feature which odesk is bad at. But still the main reason to use any such service is the legal frame, payment and escrow. ps. i'm currently hiring for a golang job
guillermovs 13y ago
I've tried most of the freelance marketplaces out there and IMHO there's a lot more that could be done. That's why we're developing http://www.socialance.com http://www.socialance.com If you have any suggestions or want to help, let me know: guillermo@socialance.com
yesplorer 13y ago
This article is from 2011 and I believe the convention is that the submitter should have indicated that in the title. This is relevant because since that time, freelance.com has acquired vWorker(formerly rentacoder) and hence a lot of things might have changed as well over 2 years period
mamcx 13y ago
I have accounts on odesk/freelancer and think that is necessary to have a pre-screening of jobs descriptions. For example, somebody ask for build a "search engine" and have a big budget... but still not clarify enough what mean to him "search engine". So the only option is apply to the job, and wait for the customer to talk about it. Then you wait days, weeks and nothing is answered back. Probably the user get scared? I think that give to potential customers somebody to talk about the project first, to properly describe it (understanding not a full spec, but enough to clarify things in a broad sense) will help a lot. Also, I wonder why this kind of sites not use their own developers to give this. So when a new customer wanna submit a project it pay, for example, US 50 for talk about it before submit or something like that.. (Like a community-driven-facebook-style-lets-talk-before-submit thing)

176 points by weavorateam 13y ago

Is there any service that doesn't require installing spyware on your system? AFAIK they all force developers to install monitoring software, and then boast about this on their marketing pages targeting employers.

loceng 13y ago
And it's not actual effective in preventing fraud. The only real way would be having a live video stream + recording you can return to watch.
weavorateam 13y ago
Unless I am mistaken, it is not obligatory (at least on oDesk) to track time using their "spy" software. Instead you can report offline hours if you have previously agreed with the client.
- john_horton 13y ago
  That's correct - when the client makes a hire, she can decide whether or not to allow offline hours.
- RougeFemme 13y ago
  It's not required on Elance, either, thankfully.
Implicated 13y ago
Like others have said, the tracking software hasn't proven to be effective in stopping contractors who want to pad hours. The contracts who were doing this before are still doing it, and those who are offended by the practice have all but left.

loceng 13y ago

Re: ODesk - Screenshots count as video? That is completely irrational.My most recent experience was a contractor on there who was padding his hours hugely. Literally a 5 minute job he tried to spread across 5 hours.

ninjac0der 13y ago
... and here is why I would never use odesk or these services as a coder.

uladzislau 13y ago

I tried all the sites except Guru as a hiring manager. From my experience, Odesk is the best option so far in terms of value - if you prefer to pay per hour. Freelancer is the cheapest per project option but full of low quality spammer applicants. You can find a good quality provider on Elance but be prepared to pay premium for that.

tocomment 13y ago

Is rentacoder still around? I had good experiences there.

bdcravens 13y ago
It rebranded as vWorker, and was acquired by Freelancer. I was quite surprised when I was checking out Freelancer, and it said I had been a member since 2001. (from rentacoder)
kawsper 13y ago
Vworker bought it, and added gamification such as achievements and XP.
- SwaroopH 13y ago
  Nope, read the other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6350600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6350600

auctiontheory 13y ago

Speaking as an employer: All of these sites have good workers, and all of them have workers who will turn in shoddy work, hoping you won't notice. I've hired for more than a dozen projects and in no case did the contractor do the job right the first time - because they didn't care enough, not because they were incompetent. I've hired workers in the US, in India, in the UK, and elsewhere. Same sorts of issues crop up. (I was eventually very pleased with the results - it just wasn't as smooth as presented by Tim Ferriss or whoever.) Poor communication and missed deadlines are the rule. Also watch out for bait and switch: for graphics, for instance, the individual who produces a firm's portfolio may not be the same one who will work on your project. Identifying talent, and managing remote workers, is a skill that can only be developed with time and practice. It's much more than a question of picking the right marketplace. The reviews are not trustworthy. If possible, try to get recommendations for specific workers from people you personally know. Because the great workers are out there, among the masses.

Swizec 13y ago
As a remote freelancer: Communication and cost are the main problems. Usually clients have a hard time explaining exactly what they want and our visions might differ. When I turn in results, they are often different than what the client first imagined they'd be, but through iteration and conversation I can help the client clarify what they want or realise something else 90% of the time. Time is another big problem. When you want something done in X time, I will do my best to catch that time. Sometimes this means discussing with the client until the feature list is cut down to a deliverable size. Other times it means sacrificing future flexibility of the code. I always try to get the best balance between "speed - quality - price" for what the client needs, but it's easy to miss. Almost always, clients have an unreasonable expectation of what is possible. I'd say at least 70% of my job is helping the client decide what they even want me to build for them. Disclaimer: I have never worked through any of the sites listed in OP. My main source of clients are HN, my blog, twitter, and past clients.
- RougeFemme 13y ago
  I've worked as a remote (U.S. based) independent freelancer through Elance and Odesk. I've had positive and negative experiences on both. They both do a decent job of minimizing the risk of non-payment on fixed-price projects, but, as you point out, one of the biggest challenges is nailing down the requirements. I understand that requirements can and will change but there have been times when I've spent an inordinate amount of time going back and forth with my point of contact (who often doesn't really know what the primary customer wants). There have been times when I've pulled the plug and just told the client we weren't a good fit. I've also learned when to recognize that the clients are looking for speed/volume vs. quality. I know there are often tradeoffs but some clients just really don't seem to care about quality; they are middlemen who just want to throw something over the fence to the client.

bdcravens 13y ago

I've done some work on these in the past, dating back to 2000. They've always been challenging if you're not in a market where you can lowball, so I presume most "senior" developers in premium markets avoid these sites. I'd love to hear thoughts about using these marketplaces to build up experience in languages you're not yet using in production.

Iftheshoefits 13y ago
It isn't worth the time or effort to do so. I tried it out (elance) a couple of years ago as a worker. My impression of it is that basically it's a place for two kinds of employer: 1) the "I have this idea, code it up for me for equity in my 'company'" employers who either don't actually have an idea of what they want (and will needle you to flesh out their idea more fully) or have a generic "let's build the next X" (where "X" is usually "Facebook") idea; 2) the lowballer who wants to pay $500 for a job that would take a proficient team weeks or months to do. As a "senior" level developer, I absolutely avoid these places. And I absolutely do not recommend anybody use them for work. There are far better ways to 'practice' with new languages that involve better compensation and better actual experience.
- khalidmbajwa 13y ago
  Umm, no not really. I charge around 60$/hr on oDesk.Have closed to 5000 hours and can easily pull in upwards of 5K USD a month, which is an extra ordinary sum for someone sitting in a country in Pakistan where the conversion rate i 104 PKR to a USD.You can easily get well paying clients if you spend a little time building up your history, and are really good at what you do.
  - jnbiche 13y ago
    An exchange rate will tell you absolutely zero about one currencies relative worth to another. By your logic, someone in Japan, whose currency trades about 100 to 1 USD, would have about the same buying power as you per USD, when in fact, assuming you're both earning the same in USD, you would almost certainly have much, much more purchasing power. To accurately compare purchasing power among currencies, you need to use a metric like Purchase Power Parity (PPP): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity

helen842000 13y ago

On that article they suggest it costs $10 to post a job on elance, however I've never paid to post a job!

vmialik 13y ago
same here, I was trying to figure out why the figure is $10 there?

re1ser 13y ago

Bad side is that there are alot of scams and poor programmers, looking to snipe the job and squeeze money from employer in any way possible. From my personal opinion, atleast 80% of bidders do this (I'm working over Freelancer). Good side is that with little hassle, employers can find really great freelancers that know to do their job. Personally, as a programmer from 3rd world country, these sites provide alternative, and a great way of earning money. Here where I live, starting salaries for programmers are around 500$, and peak at 1800$, if you get job in Microsoft, both 8-10h/day fulltime jobs. The IT market here is practically non-existant, except few high profile companies that offer decent working conditions. With these sites, I have freedom to apply my working conditions, rules and price.

omarchowdhury 13y ago
Where are you from?
- re1ser 13y ago
  from Serbia

khalidmbajwa 13y ago

I am a long time contractor on oDesk and owe a great deal to this site.I wanted to talk a little about the hate the hourly model with screenshots is getting. Here's the primary reason the video thing won't work. Most of the providers are from third world countries where internet while decent is rarely good enough to support uploads in such massive volume. I have a 4 Mbps DSL connection and while i get great downstream, the upstream maxes out at 20 KB/s. So yeah, that's out of the window. However, screenshots work extremely effectively. I have close to 5000 hours logged on oDesk and barring a one off incident where i forgot to shut the logging software down and ended up logging extra hours( I refunded the client) i have never had a buyer dispute my hours. Here's the thing, as an employer you have to be smart about it. When you post a job, only interview candidates with a good oDesk history,look at their past jobs, the buyer's feedback, their portfolio etc. Then talk to them over Skype, ask for code samples etc. If you reach out for the bottom of the pool ofcourse you will get burned, but a contractor with a good history (who might be charging higher)will never ever endanger his feedback history in such a cut throat marketplace where even a single 4.99 out of 5 can knock you off the first page of search results and costing you big time, all for a few extra bucks. This alone will weed out 99% of the dishonest providers. But you can still go and initially, for a week or so, monitor the contractor's work logs closely, you will know instantly if they are padding their hours since oDesk uploads around 5 to 6 screenshots per hour, along with mouse and keyboard activity reports. Just monitor them closely initially and then semi regularly afterwards and you will know what type of contractor you are dealing with. Once you have built trust and seen the contractor's work you can ease up. Finally,set tight milestones and demand regular daily updates and you will know what's going on. So yeah, don' be lazy, be a little more vigilant and you can find some really good contractors at great prices .All the top contractors i know only work hourly and IMHO Its a great model for the employer and for the contractor, a simple win win.

pests 13y ago
I became really embarrassed about the screenshots sometimes. If I looked up something online or accidentally left something visible with personal information on it I would sometimes delete those 10 minutes of work just to avoid it being seen.

mudil 13y ago

I used both Odesk and Freelancer to hire developers, and I urge everyone to look at my previous submission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5177951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5177951) about deplorable protections at Freelancer.com. In summary, my $2500 project was closed by the developer at his will, with no money returned and no way to even leave a feedback! Multiple attempts asking the company to allow me to even leave a feedback came to nothing. Freelancer is not to be trusted.

mudil 13y ago
BTW, Odesk is great!
loceng 13y ago
I've had problems with oDesk, and what they say they do to protect employers as part of their marketing isn't actually how they act in practice when issues arise. For example, blackmail by a contractor to them isn't considered a high risk activity, and therefore they won't remove the contractor for it..
mattbarrie 13y ago
Hello there. I replied to your issues with Freelancer on the previous thread.
- mudil 13y ago
  Matt, All I wanted is to file a feedback. And after paying >$1000, not getting anything back, my project (the one that I started and paid for) was closed by a developer, and I can't even leave a feedback! So, what kind of protections do your customers get?
  - mattbarrie 13y ago
    We ban freelancers who do not provide the service. You can also leave feedback in the form of an "incomplete" report which is a very damaging form of feedback. Normal feedback cannot be left unless the project is paid in full.

leknarf 13y ago

I thought this was a great comparison of the popular talent marketplaces, but it skipped over the most important trait: the typical hourly or project rate. All of the services have good workers, but they've also all been participating in a race to the bottom. As a developer, it's hard to ask for more than $100/hr on a site where you're listed alongside those asking for $10/hr. Even if you are 10 times more productive, it's simply hard to explain why or how that's possible in a marketplace setting. After spending some time working as a consultant, I just launched a new marketplace for high-end contract work: http://getlambda.com/ http://getlambda.com/. We have a clear minimum ($100/hr) and personally interview everyone looking to participate (both clients and consultants).

braum 13y ago
We are currently looking for a front-end developer. Do you offer only programmers or would we be able to find a quality front-end developer?
- leknarf 13y ago
  We do have quite a few front-end developers. In fact, I've been surprised at how many designer/developers (that is, designers who can implement their own designs) have signed up. That combination of skills was always in short supply when I've tried to hire for in-house teams. I guess they tend to prefer freelancing :) Please send me an email at andrew [at] getlambda.com and we'll see what we can do!
  - troels 13y ago
    I guess they tend to prefer freelancing That's my experience as well. FYI: Your "Get started" form looks botched to me (Chrome, Mac OS)
mamcx 13y ago
This look great. I start my first gig on odesk and I have find very hard to find the kind of work I want. I submit a request...

RafiqM 13y ago

This is my experience of oDesk, from someone who has spent 6 figures with them. A few years ago I contracted a developer from the largest agency on oDesk at the time, based in India. This developer had a masters degree, tons of experience, and had a daily rate significantly higher than the average. Things worked out so well that I increased the team to 7 people total from this same company. After about 8 months, the quality of work fell dramatically. I ended up cancelling the contracts a few months after that, and found out something shocking from the ex project manager: The developers I had hired had been switched out for junior level devs. Some of the developers I hired didn't even work for that company anymore. I had none of my original hires, and didn't know it. They had been communicating with me under the previous names and email addresses. I had wondered why they so often "forgot" things that I had told them 6 months ago. I was told this was a common practice in large agencies. The problem: Inadequate accountability, even with screenshots or videos. Is this problem specific to oDesk? No, not at all. But it's turned me off "per-hour" contracts altogether, and now I only outsource very small, highly scoped, pay-on-delivery projects.

rwhitman 13y ago
Yikes, thats an alarming story. The fact that they were deliberately asking junior developers to impersonate senior developers using the same email addresses etc is a really worrisome practice. I had a situation managing a team for a client a while back where developers suddenly turned awful, and I'm now suspicious this could have been the case. Do you know if this is widespread with other companies?
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  From my experience working with a major Indian outsourcing company at a previous employer this seems common practice across the board. In fact the more tolerant managers experienced this transition very quickly and managers that stayed constantly vigilant managed to stave it off for a bit longer; but also not indefinitely. From my perspective it seemed to be that this extended bait-and-switch was what their business model was built on.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

gesman 13y ago

I used and loved rentacoder back then. The rule is to avoid Indians and Pakistanis as they were usually middlemen between really poor developers. I hired north american or european workers and it worked well and predictable.

maerF0x0 13y ago

<rant> Something being missed by this discussion (and many offshoring discussions) is that many consulting firms design maintenance costs into their business model. They undercut everyone with low prices for a poorly engineered product, knowing they can churn additional hours/sales in "upgrades", "maintenance" etc. When you pay me $60 an hour (or more) to design you a component of your system, it will be SOLID OO designs, quite reusable, DRY, tested (unit tested) and better in many other ways. Where as most of the code I've seen come from bad agencies basically do "class Main { function doItAll() { /* Here is the entire program */ } };" Which is why it will cost more in the long run. If you want something added or made similar, they'll copy and paste instead of inheriting or using traits or other language constructs to keep it DRY. If you want to know if the system has regression, they'll shrug, because they either do not test, or they just write the tests to pass the way the code currently works, not testing the component in general. If you're planning on closing business in 12 months, then maybe its not worth it to invest in a scalable, changeable infrastructure. If you're planning on being in business for a long time, then invest the capital to develop your business :D . ok </rant>

latortuga 13y ago

Longtime oDesker here, I've made mid 5 figures total. I recently received a notification from oDesk that I'm part of the top 5% of "successful freelancers" on oDesk which I interpreted to mean top 5% of earners. It honestly astounded me because my account has been basically inactive for the last 8 months and I've only worked on oDesk projects since a few months after I quit my job, roughly late 2011. I started working oDesk mostly to stave off having to dip too deeply into savings. In fact, I read a lot of helpful information on HN related to getting your foot in the door for freelancing online and it ended up working very well for me. If you're looking to get an established profile, the short version is: 1. Build things (i.e. small projects, clones, browse project listings for things that would take a few hours and just implement them) 2. Tell people (learn to write proposals well, show the employers that you know your stuff and can produce) Over time I slowly raised my rate and, surprise surprise, everyone who every wrote anything about raising your rate is right! The more the client is paying, the better they are. I ended up firing the client with the lowest rate because he was so bad and have done repeat work for my highest paying client. As far as the tracking software, it has been buggy at times (I'm on Linux, I imagine they spend more time on other platforms) but I don't really see the big deal about having it take a screenshot. If the client is micromanaging to the point where he's having you remove 10 minutes because facebook showed up in your screenshot, it's not worth the time. I do notice that it tends to take screenshots when switching apps. On oDesk, I get hired hourly, I provide work hourly. Just like any in-person project, online projects require you to have good communication skills - letting the client know when you're working, what you'll be doing, when you expect things to be done, technical tradeoffs, etc. None of this is unique to remote projects. Additionally, just like the real world, there are endless people posting jobs expecting the moon in exchange for peanuts. I used to regularly receive "invitations to interview" from people who posted projects and almost always they were someone with an idea, looking for a coder, willing to pay $1k to get their facebook clone off the ground. While my girlfriend was impressed that my skills were in such high demand, it's can be a bit of a game of roulette trying to find serious projects and employers willing to invest real money. In my experience, setting a high hourly rate on your profile mitigates this situation quite a bit. I also experimented with vworker and elance back in 2011, but neither of them ended up being a good fit. It turns out that when you're building your profile on a freelancing site, sticking to one site is pretty useful because you get feedback and projects to post about at the same time and alongside each other. Glowing feedback next to a completed project with 5 figures invested does good things for your profile. If you're looking to get started with oDesk or have any other questions about how it works, I'm always free for a chat. Email is in my profile.

mattbarrie 13y ago

Hi there. I'm the Chief Executive of Freelancer.com. This article is two years old but I'm happy to answer any questions any of you might have.

bravura 13y ago

vworker (formerly: rentacoder) was great while it lasted. Honest, talented engineers. When they got bought by freelancer, everything became way more scammy. It also became much more difficult to interview potential hires. Lame.

mattbarrie 13y ago
Hi there, if you have any specific feedback, I would be interested to hear it. Email me at matt@freelancer.com.

aptwebapps 13y ago

Maybe a 2011 in the title? Some of the stuff in the table is out-of-date. For example, oDesk no longer sends 1099s.

xerophtye 13y ago

Ok the article seems to pretty outdated. 2011!! it woudln't have mattered if the facts were still valid but a lot of things changed, including policies and features of these sites. Not to mention vlancer got taken over by freelancer.com So i'd advice people to keep this fact in mind when going through this, and not use this as the final word on the matter when comparing.

dubcanada 13y ago

This article is over 2 years old, not only is most of the "chart" out of date, it also cites facts which are no longer true. Why did this get posted?

bambax 13y ago

freelancer.com doesn't work with Ghostery turned on. Not a good sign.

mattbarrie 13y ago
Hi there, I'm the Chief Executive of Freelancer.com. I've never heard of Ghostery, why is it an issue?
- bambax 13y ago
  It's an issue because I have Ghostery turned on at all times (www.ghostery.com) and when I visit Freelancer.com and click on either "Hire" or "Work", nothing happens -- the site appears to be broken. I have no idea, of course, of how many people use Ghostery and attempt to visit Freelancer.com, but I would guess the freelancer demography is over-represented in the total population of Ghostery users.
  - mattbarrie 13y ago
    Hi there. I will forward this onto engineering to take a look at.

dharma1 13y ago

can anyone recommend any good android/iOS devs on these sites?

sfjailbird 13y ago

I personally recommend everyone to not use Freelancer.com. I learned in this thread that they also bought vWorker, and I am not surprised to read that it has turned for the worse after being acquired. In short, they steal from both the freelancers and the outsourcers - stories aplenty about this [1]. I only know about these stories because I started looking into them after being bamboozled myself, luckily for only a small amount, which would have been larger had I not managed to cancel the additional payments Freelancer.com had booked against my credit card without permission. This was my experience as an outsourcer, apparently the freelancers have it far worse. Elance on the other hand has seen more than $20k of my business and will continue to in the foreseeable future. Have not had experience with the other services (there's a strong lock-in effect in this market because your job history itself becomes a valuable thing). [1] http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.freelancer.com http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.freelancer.com

mattbarrie 13y ago
Hi there, I'm the Chief Executive of Freelancer.com. This is ridiculous. If you have a specific example and can send me your username to matt@freelancer.com, I can get someone to look into your case for you.
- sfjailbird 13y ago
  I have noticed that you guys tend to pop up when these thing surface. Perhaps you should dedicate your efforts to better customer service, so you wouldn't see these stories in the first place? As you can see I am far from the only one with a bad experience. Thanks for the offer to look into my case, but I have wasted enough time with it. Keep the 50 dollars. But the price is that I warn everyone that will listen. So, in the long run, better customer service would probably be worth it for you.
  - mattbarrie 13y ago
    We have more customer support agents than any of our competitors- we have over 220 people in our support centre. We also provide support in 10 languages, which no-one else does. If you have a specific issue I will be happy to look into it.

SlavD 13y ago

Freelancer.com is a massive SCAM - IMHO 1. you can only withdraw if you have more than $x in funds - I have had $7 left on the site and can't get it back! 2. their conflict resolution is non-existent or biased - a person clearly didn't deliver what I asked for in my job and they simply refused to help me deal with it 3. after I left honest but negative feedback the freelance worker contacted me and tried to bully me into changing it. after I refused he proposed that I withdraw my feedback and he will refund me for the job 4. after I have withdrawn my feedback and he didn't refund me - I tried to bring it back - but hey what do you know - freelancer.com doesn't allow you to bring back my original feedback unless both parties agree! 5. I contacted their support to try to resolve it - again no help there fortunately for me the job was only small $50 project, but I learned my lesson and will NEVER use this website again! after that I used both Elance and oDesk and I think both are good and professional

mattbarrie 13y ago
Hello Slav In answer to your questions. 1) You can get a refund for any amount in your account. Just contact support. 2) This is incorrect. We have a full dispute resolution team of paralegals. 3-5) Please let me know who this freelancer is by emailing me at matt@freelancer.com. This is a clear violation by them of our Terms of Service. Regards Matt
- SlavD 13y ago
  I feel like I shouldn't have to 'jump through hoops' to get my money back - if it's such a non problem why do you even have minimum amounts for withdrawals? talking to your support / dispute resolution team is a waste of time - I felt like they're one of those $1/hr people who just don't care now it's a violation of your ToS but at the time when I described the situation to one of your support guys it was OK... I even told him that I'm not happy and that I'm being brushed off - I even mentioned that I'll write about it somewhere - but he didn't care about any of that - he ended our conversation with: "Thank you for contacting Freelancer.com, please don't hesitate to contact us again if you have any other questions or concerns." That's just a customer service FAIL at it's best! I'm glad that the time came and all of that gets described here It's time for you guys to wake up and stop treating your customers like cattle!

yawniek 13y ago

i got a diverse set of projects done through elance contractors in the last years. over all a good experience so far. usually i do a general chat through skype with those providing a useful application. since i am a programmer myself, this helps me to quickly figure out someones skill set. Agencies are usually complicated and a lot of information gets lost between workers there. I did a iOS app with an agency, the design, ux and code were horrible. Rebuilt the App with a single contractor from Lisbon for half the price. He quickly understood the application, provided clean code and simple but elegant design. So evaluation of the contractor is something you need to do with care. i prefer elance because it allows you to search for people based on their location easily. a feature which odesk is bad at. But still the main reason to use any such service is the legal frame, payment and escrow. ps. i'm currently hiring for a golang job

guillermovs 13y ago

I've tried most of the freelance marketplaces out there and IMHO there's a lot more that could be done. That's why we're developing http://www.socialance.com http://www.socialance.com If you have any suggestions or want to help, let me know: guillermo@socialance.com

yesplorer 13y ago

This article is from 2011 and I believe the convention is that the submitter should have indicated that in the title. This is relevant because since that time, freelance.com has acquired vWorker(formerly rentacoder) and hence a lot of things might have changed as well over 2 years period

mamcx 13y ago

I have accounts on odesk/freelancer and think that is necessary to have a pre-screening of jobs descriptions. For example, somebody ask for build a "search engine" and have a big budget... but still not clarify enough what mean to him "search engine". So the only option is apply to the job, and wait for the customer to talk about it. Then you wait days, weeks and nothing is answered back. Probably the user get scared? I think that give to potential customers somebody to talk about the project first, to properly describe it (understanding not a full spec, but enough to clarify things in a broad sense) will help a lot. Also, I wonder why this kind of sites not use their own developers to give this. So when a new customer wanna submit a project it pay, for example, US 50 for talk about it before submit or something like that.. (Like a community-driven-facebook-style-lets-talk-before-submit thing)