Comparison · verified 2026-08-21

The best engineering leadership communities, compared.

Picking a community is a geography and format question before it is a quality question. A Slack with 30k members, a London conference and a Tuesday room in Prague solve different problems. This page puts the main options side by side, using only what each community publishes about itself, with sources linked at the bottom. We run one of them, so read our row with that in mind; the other rows are their claims, verbatim.

The short answer

If you lead engineers in Central Europe, ELC is the only one of these seven with a room you can walk into every month. Everywhere else geography decides: CTO Craft and LeadDev for the UK, SFELC for the US, alphalist for DACH. Rands is free, global, and works alongside any of them.

Join ELC, freeFree to join, under a minute.

A large group of engineering leaders sitting on lounge chairs and sofas at an ELC meetup in a brick-walled venue lit by pendant lights, listening to a speaker.

Community	Where	Format	Published size	Cost to join	Partnership prices public?
ELC (Engineering Leaders Community)	Central Europe: Prague, Brno, Bratislava, Kraków	Monthly in-person meetups, annual conference, peer circles, Slack, mentoring	3,317 members in September 2026, counted in the member registry	Free	Published, EUR 0 to 32,000 a year
LeadDev	Global: conferences in New York, Berlin, London	Media platform plus large conferences (LDX3)	50k+ community, per their own commercial page	Content free, conference tickets paid	Not published, sales contact
CTO Craft	UK, remote-first	Slack community, Campus content platform, mentoring circles	18,000+ CTOs and tech leaders, per their homepage	Campus £399 a year, Circles £2,199 a year	Not published
SFELC	US, San Francisco	Events, peer groups, summit	No number published	Peer Groups $950 for a one-year commitment	Not published
alphalist	DACH: Germany, Austria, Switzerland	Vetted CTO Slack, bootcamps, podcast	No member count published	€299 a year, vetted application	Not published
Rands Leadership Slack	Global, online only	Slack community	30k+ members, per their welcome page	No fee, email application	Runs on donations, no partner program
Tech Execs	Czechia, Prague	Invite events, masterclass	200+ CTOs and tech C-level, 150+ VPs and Directors, 50+ Heads, per their homepage	By application	Not published, partnership deck on request

ELC (Engineering Leaders Community)

Where: Central Europe: Prague, Brno, Bratislava, Kraków
Format: Monthly in-person meetups, annual conference, peer circles, Slack, mentoring
Published size: 3,317 members in September 2026, counted in the member registry
Cost to join: Free
Partnership prices public?: Published, EUR 0 to 32,000 a year

LeadDev

Where: Global: conferences in New York, Berlin, London
Format: Media platform plus large conferences (LDX3)
Published size: 50k+ community, per their own commercial page
Cost to join: Content free, conference tickets paid
Partnership prices public?: Not published, sales contact

CTO Craft

Where: UK, remote-first
Format: Slack community, Campus content platform, mentoring circles
Published size: 18,000+ CTOs and tech leaders, per their homepage
Cost to join: Campus £399 a year, Circles £2,199 a year
Partnership prices public?: Not published

SFELC

Where: US, San Francisco
Format: Events, peer groups, summit
Published size: No number published
Cost to join: Peer Groups $950 for a one-year commitment
Partnership prices public?: Not published

alphalist

Where: DACH: Germany, Austria, Switzerland
Format: Vetted CTO Slack, bootcamps, podcast
Published size: No member count published
Cost to join: €299 a year, vetted application
Partnership prices public?: Not published

Rands Leadership Slack

Where: Global, online only
Format: Slack community
Published size: 30k+ members, per their welcome page
Cost to join: No fee, email application
Partnership prices public?: Runs on donations, no partner program

Tech Execs

Where: Czechia, Prague
Format: Invite events, masterclass
Published size: 200+ CTOs and tech C-level, 150+ VPs and Directors, 50+ Heads, per their homepage
Cost to join: By application
Partnership prices public?: Not published, partnership deck on request

Every non-ELC figure is that community's own published claim, read from their site on 2026-08-21. Sources at the bottom.

Which one is for you

You lead engineers in Prague, Brno, Bratislava or Kraków and you want the room every month.

Join ELC, free

You solved something the other 120 are still stuck on.

Propose a talk

Some questions don't belong in a room. Those need one person who has done the job before you. Marian's own mentoring practice, so read this the same way you read our row above.

Find your mentor

Which CTO community should you join?

Three of these seven filter for the title. alphalist vets CTOs across DACH at €299 a year, Tech Execs takes applications in Prague and aims at C-level, and SFELC sells $950 peer groups out of San Francisco. ELC does not filter: tech leads and CTOs sit in the same room, which is the point for anyone who wants to hire, be hired, or ask a question one rung up. A CTO-only room is quieter and more senior; a mixed one is where most of the hiring happens.

ELC vs LeadDev

LeadDev is the category's media leader: articles, talks and the LDX3 conferences in New York, Berlin and London, with a 50k+ community claim on their commercial page. What it is not is a room you can be in monthly, and it has no Central Europe presence. Choose LeadDev for content and a yearly conference trip. Choose ELC when you want the same 120+ local peers in person every month and a network that compounds between events. Many of our members read LeadDev too; the two barely overlap in what they do for you.

ELC vs CTO Craft

CTO Craft is the closest structural peer in Europe: a real community with a content platform, Campus at £399 a year, and paid mentoring circles at £2,199 a year, claiming 18,000+ CTOs and tech leaders. It is UK-centred and remote-first. ELC is free to join, in-person-first, and Central European: the room is the product, funded by company memberships with published prices instead of member fees. If you lead a team from London, start there. From Prague, Brno, Bratislava or Kraków, start here.

ELC vs SFELC

SFELC calls itself the world's largest engineering leadership community and runs events and $950-a-year peer groups out of San Francisco. It publishes no member count. The two organizations share a name lineage and a mission on different continents. If your team, your market and your next job are in the US, SFELC is your local room. In Central Europe, that room is ELC.

ELC vs alphalist

alphalist is a vetted, CTO-only community for the DACH region at €299 a year, with strong bootcamps and a good podcast. The vetting is the point: CTOs only, manifesto signed. ELC deliberately goes wider, from tech lead to CTO, because the tech leads of 2026 are the CTOs of 2030 and the ones hiring each other in between. German-speaking CTO working in DACH: alphalist earns its fee. Leading engineers in Central Europe at any level above senior: ELC, free.

ELC vs Rands Leadership Slack

Rands is the biggest free online room in the discipline, 30k+ members by their own count, and worth joining from anywhere on earth. It is also only a Slack: nobody buys you a beer, nobody introduces you to the CTO two tables over, and advice arrives from someone whose market and salary bands are not yours. Join Rands for reach. Join ELC for the handshake. The honest answer is both.

ELC vs Tech Execs

Tech Execs is the other Prague option: an application-based network claiming 200+ CTOs and tech C-level, 150+ VPs and Directors and 50+ Heads, with invite events and a €1,299 masterclass. It aims narrower and more executive; partnership terms come as a deck on request. ELC publishes what Tech Execs does not: an exact member count, 3,317 members in September 2026, a title census, prices for every package, and hiring outcomes. If you want a C-level dinner club, try both and compare the rooms. If you want a measurable community your company can hire from, the numbers are on the statistics page and the cost of reaching it is on the comparison of ways to reach engineering leaders in Czechia.

Sources

All rival facts read from their own sites on 2026-08-21: LeadDev commercial page (50k+ community), CTO Craft homepage (18,000+ members), Campus pricing, Circles pricing, SFELC Peer Groups, alphalist membership, Rands welcome page (30k+ members), Tech Execs homepage and masterclass page. ELC figures come from the statistics page, which names the counting method for each.

Frequently asked questions

What is an engineering leadership community?

A group of engineering managers, directors, VPs and CTOs who meet to compare notes on problems their companies cannot answer for them. Some run as online Slacks, some as paid content platforms, some as monthly in-person meetups. The format decides what you get out of it more than the size does.

Which CTO community should I join in Europe?

It depends on the filter you want. alphalist vets CTOs across DACH for €299 a year. Tech Execs takes applications in Prague and aims at C-level. SFELC runs $950 peer groups in San Francisco. ELC is free and puts tech leads and CTOs in one room across Central Europe.

What is the largest engineering leadership community in Central Europe?

ELC, with 3,300+ members across Prague, Brno, Bratislava and Kraków, counted in a live registry rather than claimed. The numbers, with methodology and verification dates, are on the statistics page.

Which engineering leadership communities are free to join?

ELC and Rands Leadership Slack. ELC is free because partners fund it; Rands runs on member donations. CTO Craft, SFELC and alphalist charge a yearly fee; LeadDev sells conference tickets.

Which community should I join if I am in Prague, Brno or Bratislava?

For rooms you can walk into monthly, ELC is the one built here. A global Slack like Rands or a paid platform like CTO Craft Campus works alongside it, not instead of it. Different tools.

How were the competitors on this page verified?

Each fact was read from the organization's own live website on 2026-08-21 and carries its source link in the Sources section. If a claim changed on their site since, tell us at weare@engineeringleaders.io and we will correct it.

Convinced the local room is the right tool? Membership is free and takes under a minute. Solved something the other 120 are still stuck on? The meetup stage is open. And when the question needs one person rather than a room, Marian mentors engineering leaders at marian.coach.