Bioinformatics and genomics resources on reddit

 
 

Although many people in this field turn to sites like SEQanswers and Biostars to get help with bioinformatics problems, there are a number of subreddits that are devoted to discussion of bioinformatics and genomics. Reddit isn't just a forum for asking questions though, and people also share lots of relevant links (to papers, resources, news etc.).

I first made this blog post in 2015, but I’ve decided to review and substantially update it by adding details of many subreddits that didn't exist back in 2015.

Here is a roundup of the state of bioinformatics/genomics subreddits in 2026, arranged in order of popularity:

1. bioinformatics

  • URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/bioinformatics/

  • Created: January 2008

  • Description: A subreddit to discuss the intersection of computers and biology. A subreddit dedicated to bioinformatics, computational genomics and systems biology.

  • Weekly visitors: 38K

  • Weekly contributions: 437

This is the most popular subreddit in this list (in terms of visitors and overall use). The posts are roughly split equally between sharing links of interest and asking questions.

The number of daily posts has essentially remained the same in 2026 compared to when I first wrote this post in 2015. In the past, people used to ask questions about how to get into bioinformatics as a career, but I note that there is now a whole new subreddit for that (more on that later).

There is a good set of rules for this subreddit to try to cut down on irrelevant posts.

2. bioinformatics careers

This didn’t exist when I first created this post and I guess a lot of the career-related questions were all being posted to r/bioinformatics so this seems a very worthy addition which is heavily used.

It’s a sign of the times that one of the rules for this subreddit is ‘No AI training job postings’.

3. genomics

  • URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/genomics/

  • Created: September 2008

  • Description: No current description, but back in 2015 it was ‘Genomics, genetics, DNA, health, and personalized medicine’

  • Weekly visitors: 1.4K

  • Weekly contributions: 6

A decade ago, I noted that this subreddit seemed to be declining in popularity. Well, it is still regularly used, but it’s quite low traffic. There are a lot of questions that get asked here.

4. learnbioinformatics

The intended role of this subreddit has obvious overlaps with the other subreddits, but there are a lot of relevant, on-topic posts. Note, there are no posted rules for this subreddit.

5. bioinformatics tools

A relatively new subreddit. I can see the logic of trying to keep software-related discussion on its own subreddit, but feels like most people will still be using r/bioinformatics for this.

There are no rules specified for this subreddit, which feels a missed opportunity.

6. genome

The last post was six years ago. This subreddit is deceased.

Other honourable mentions

There are a lot of other subreddits that touch on aspects of bioinformatics and genomics. Comment if you have any further suggestions.

  • r/DNA - 6.1K weekly visitors - DNA and genetic testing. The science of DNA. Not for paternity topics.

  • r/sequencing_com - 326 weekly visitors - for discussing Sequencing insights, tips, tricks, and features. Have a question regarding DNA testing, WGS or Sequencing? Ask it here!

  • r/ngs - 35 weekly visitors - Next Generation Sequencing describes modern technology to sequence DNA and RNA

  • r/genomicepidemiology - 6 weekly visitors - A forum for bioinformaticians, public health professionals, clinicians, policymakers, and students to discuss genomic epidemiology.

  • r/MicrobeGenome - 4 weekly visitors - This is a community for microbial genomics tutorials, tools, and discussion.