Codecademy: Is It the Best Place to Learn Coding On Yourself?

When the world reeled back from the aftereffects of Covid-19, many realized remote jobs in every field were becoming more prominent. People now prefer hybrid work cultures, if not totally remote. Everyone understands the benefits of working in relaxed environments while meeting goals and working during crunch times. With more support services for almost all businesses sprouting, more individuals are leaning toward learning cloud infrastructure and coding as a proper profession. Keeping that in mind, we have compiled all you need to know if you want to learn coding in your time and leisure with the help of Codecademy. 

Let’s start with a quick overview of everything Codecademy has to offer, and if you get tired, you can check out blackjack online gambling for plain and simple fun.

Quick summary

Let’s see quickly what you need to know about Codecademy in a summarized way, and then you can run the details to see if Codecademy is worth your time.

Features

• Over 15 major programming languages are offered as courses, including Python, Java, SQL, and many more.
• It provides a code-as-you-go approach where you learn at your ease on the spot and develops your skills.
• 60+ courses are free to give you a good head start.
• Codecademy provides official workspaces where you can practice your coding skills in a natural environment.
• Lively forums and events where you can interact with experienced coders and learn a lot from them.
• More avenues to explore if you want to branch out from coding and go into machine learning, business analytics, or web development.

Pros

• All the lessons are practical, helping you learn quickly and easily.
• Hands-on approach for better understanding of all the basics.
• Additional resources can enhance your learning.
• Well-structured teaching methods that are easy to follow.
• Everything is relevant in real life with a fantastic range of features.
• Coding from day one gives you a strong foundation.

Cons

• Seasoned programmers won’t find much here.
• Fewer video lessons leave more to text-based teaching.

Best for

Codecademy is best for new students who want to wet their toes before jumping in.

Overall

As it is best for beginners, the lessons are pretty structured and focused on newbies in the field of computer science, plus giving you ample support for real-life examples and tutorials. These provided approaches will boost your learning and move on to more expert learning.

What is Codecademy?

Codecademy is one of the fastest growing teaching websites regarding teaching and learning to code for beginners and those who want a shift in their careers. Other important aspects we have mentioned above, but you can always go for paid courses to access more courses if you are already done with the free ones. 

Zach and Ryan established Codecademy to help newcomers learn coding free of charge to get a feel of what coding is. Each year they expanded with more professional languages and targeted specific skills to cater to a more extensive and growing market. With this considerable expansion, Codecademy now has over 50 million subscribers from 190 countries to enjoy the coding world with excellent forums and support.

Who are the instructors?

There are no instructors per se on Codecademy, as all the teaching material is self-guided for every user to learn at their pace. But that’s not it; you will get additional material in the shape of work assignments and problems to solve that will enhance your learning. This additional learning will add hands-on experience to your education. All these are run by actual people making it a well-oiled machine. All this is possible with massive alumni and members that make each lesson engaging.

How does Codecademy work?

Codecademy provides a lot of free languages, which include the following:

• C++
• Python
• Java
• R
• JavaScript
• SQL
• HTML
• CSS

These languages are applied to some of the great branches of Computer Science like Machine Learning, Cybersecurity, Data Science, and Data Visualization for optimized learning. 

As mentioned above, the teaching method is like a code-as-you-go approach with additional resources that are real-life examples that you can apply to whatever you have learned.

We have already discussed the number of free courses available, but you can have more courses using Pro. There are two subscription options available: monthly and yearly. It provides a lot of valuable additions:

• A lot more courses that have more detailed information and guidance in them
• The detailed guide explains step by step to learn in a more leisurely manner
• You can practice it with real-life problems and scenarios while eventually getting certificates for achievements that won’t be available in the free version.

These certifications and enhanced courses can help you improve by building your CVs for excellent future references. 

How to open a Codecademy account?

It is a simple process of providing an email address and a password. Like all other web-based accounts, you will receive a confirmation verifying your account. You can also use social media accounts to use as a login method.

How much does Codecademy cost?

Let’s find out the money side of things at Codecademy.

Is Codecademy free?

Not entirely, but still, they have a lot to offer for free in terms of courses and content. You can find 60+ courses, programs, and amazing content for no price. You can sign up for free to reap these benefits. You can also benefit from the 7-day free trial to see what they offer.

Codecademy free vs. Pro

While we have already talked in detail about the free version of the tons above, let’s discuss the Pro version here to give you a more detailed picture of what you might get. 

Pro gives you a chance to bag certifications of your choice, more advanced courses, more step-by-step guides, and many more real-life examples. 

How much does Codecademy Pro cost?

• Monthly: $38.99
• Yearly: $239.88 costing you $18.99 per month

Codecademy vs. Udemy

Udemy is a big competitor of Codecademy and other similar teaching platforms. So let’s see how they go head-on-head with each other.

What Are Some Great Benefits of Learning to Code with Codecademy?

There is more than one great advantage to learning with Codecademy, summarized as follows to get you going much faster:

• Structured Curriculum – all the courses are specifically designed to keep their learners on track, helping you learn today instead of someday.
• Practice Smarter – the courses help instill all the learning with the help of up to 85 coding quizzes but are easy enough to feel comfortable with.
• One Day, One New Skill – you can complete a large portion of the courses in a single sitting of 11 hours, which you can take at your pace.
• The Human Touch – you will feel at home communicating with all the members worldwide, who love to answer any question you might have.

Benefit # 1 – Codecademy is Worth in Terms of Cost

You can explore many free courses and threads to see what you like and which line you would love to understand and undertake to build a great foundation. You can take classes as you like or pay for a monthly subscription when you know what you want. Then, of course, you can always get the 7-day trial to see what precisely the pro version offers you.

Benefit # 2 – Best for Beginners as it is Setup This Way

The starting setup annoys most new users in the world of computing and coding because they don’t know how they should set up apps and environments. On the other hand, languages like PHP, or Python, get used to installing all the packages of Ruby to start working.

Codecademy provides everything you need to learn in a virtual environment on your web browser. No setup, no installations required. How cool is that? All the training wheels are well-oiled machines.

Benefit # 3 – Tons of Languages and Topics Covered

One of the best parts about Codecademy is their expansive course content and variety of courses right there on their website. We have mentioned the languages and program thread they offer for you, just like other great platforms such as Coursera or edX. 

How is Codecademy Compared with Its Alternatives?

While Codecademy is pretty priced and full of well-structured and detailed courses, there are a lot of other similar platforms. Let’s discuss each of them to see how Codecademy fares.

Codecademy Pro vs. DataCamp

When it comes to different programming languages, Codecademy takes the lead as it has more to offer. Codecademy Pro is cheaper than DataCamp, which is $25 per month. In terms of quality, users have found them on the same level. 

Codecademy Pro vs. Pluralsight

Though Pluralsight is $25 per month, which costs a bit more, it has a whopping 2,500 courses, which is way more than Codecademy. What’s more, Pluralsight offers 7,000 courses for a premium price of $37, which you can use to teach your class and save a lot of money.

Codecademy Pro vs. edX

edX offers up to 3,500 courses, many of which are from universities such as Harvard and MIT. While most courses are free, you can buy each completed certificate for $100. edX also offers online complete degrees and professional classes with certifications though they cost a lot more. While Codecademy courses are more well structured, edX offers much more.

Codecademy Pro vs. LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn adds making connections and job market with their learning which Codecademy lacks. We already mentioned above that Codecademy is more for beginners to get comfortable with coding. You can pay for Codecademy Pro, which is cheaper, and later use all that you have learned and apply for jobs on LinkedIn.

The other way around, you can pay for LinkedIn premium, get a great library of learning resources and videos, and utilize their premium job-hunting facilities.

Ending Comments

Now that you have learned a lot about Codecademy and what it offers, you can make a calculated decision on choosing what you want. We have also mentioned a lot of great alternatives and how you can compare them to see which is best for you.

If you are a new learner in the world of coding, you can always start learning through all of these options, which offer free resources, and then when you have learned enough, you can make an informed decision to choose a path for you.