Stack Exchange
Network of Q&A sites based in New York City / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Stack Exchange is a network of question-and-answer (Q&A) websites on topics in diverse fields, each site covering a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are subject to a reputation award process. The reputation system allows the sites to be self-moderating.[6] As of March 2023, the three most actively-viewed sites in the network are Stack Overflow which focuses on computer programming, Unix & Linux, and Mathematics.[7]
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Type of business | Private |
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Type of site | Knowledge market Question and answer |
Headquarters | New York City, New York, U.S. |
Owner | Stack Exchange Inc.[1] |
Created by | |
URL | stackexchange![]() |
Commercial | Yes |
Registration | Yes |
Launched | September 2009; 13 years ago (2009-09)[2] (relaunched in January 2011)[3] |
Content license | User contributions under CC BY-SA 2.5, 3.0, and 4.0[4][5] |

All sites in the network are modeled after the initial site Stack Overflow which was created by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky in 2008. Further Q&A sites in the network are established, defined and eventually – if found relevant – brought to creation by registered users through a special site named Area 51.[8][9]
User contributions since May 2, 2018 are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International. Older content, contributed while the site used the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license or the earlier Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Unported license, remains licensed under the license in force at the time it was contributed.[5][4][10]
In June 2021, Prosus acquired Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion, which was the first complete acquisition of Prosus in educational technology.[11]