Pluralsight is a wonderful tool through which we can learn everything from programming, design, information security, to business management tools (to name a few). It has a plethora of various features, like online AI mentor and IQ assessments and. It offers good quality courses. To add to that the courses are taught by industry veterans and the price level is quite good too.
If you are a student or a working professional and wanted to learn to code online then you may try these sites like Pluralsight that offer free and paid courses online.
Best Free Pluralsight Alternatives
I have shared this list that consists of the best Pluralsight alternatives that are free to use:
Quick Overivew
Codecademy
Codecademy is a service designed to teach web programming. It contains various interactive tutorials that allow the user to learn step by step Html, Php or javascript through entertaining explanations and practice with examples.
Key Features
- Perform simple programming tasks in the computer room or New Technologies simultaneously between teacher and student.
- Monitoring of programming tasks. The tutor can follow the fulfillment of each completed tutorial in the profile of each student.
- You can do several courses at the same time. You have no limit. You register and do the exercises at your own pace.
- Codecademy allows us to access our social network accounts like Gmail, Twitter or Facebook
Highlights
In Codecademy we can access a course and go making sections as far as we want, stop and leave. Later we can go back to access and continue where we left off. The interface is very simple and intuitive, and thanks to the examples, which are very entertaining and fun, learning is very easy and comfortable.
Official Site: https://www.codecademy.com
Coursera
Coursera is a virtual education platform that offers courses on a wide variety of subjects in different languages, with English predominantly. It is a web tool developed by Stanford University and all its courses are intended for anyone interested, whatever their academic level.
Key Features
- All courses can be taken for free; Registration is also free and we can take all the courses we want at once.
- Being completely online courses (none will be face-to-face), we can choose at what times to fulfill a certain course.
- All the courses you will find are taught by renowned professors from renowned universities.
- Courses of the most diverse nature, from video game creation, acquisition of a foreign language, mathematics, logic; or, pedagogy, psychology, music, art history, and more.
Highlights
For the correct completion of the course, it is necessary to verify and access the website on the start date as well as view the videos and content offered by the tutor. Depending on the course, there may be a final test and after successful completion, a verification certificate is obtained.
Download: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.coursera.android
FreeCodeCamp
In this page to learn programming is taught through theoretical classes and the training is completed with practical exercises. In addition, freeCodeCamp has an active discussion community where you can receive real-time help from professionals, as well as have the opportunity to interact with more experienced developers.
Key Features
- You can learn on this platform are HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Dev Tools, Node.js, React and jQuery.
- It is a non-profit organization that helps busy people learn to program for free.
- Through videos, articles and a powerful interactive coding platform, one can go from level 0 to become a programmer in just a few months.
- Another option it offers is to join more than 1,000 study groups around the world.
Highlights
This application looks to create real-life relationships and build a community around programming education. It also gives you the platform and the opportunity to learn programming by participating in various challenges. You will have access to tutorials and programming courses to help you complete each challenge.
Download Link: https://www.freecodecamp.org/
Udemy
This tool is an online learning platform where the expert instructor can create and share paid courses and students can learn new skills. It is one of the best platforms specially designed for those who want to improve their skills. It has millions of users, and you can access it anytime, anywhere in the world.
Key Features
- Udemy offers more than 5,000 courses in one place, many of them free.
- All courses have a homogeneous design and interface designed to facilitate learning.
- Free hosting in a very simple way, following the steps of Plan, create content, Publish and Promote.
- The course will have a neat design, structure for content and an interface that facilitates learning. As a consequence, a better experience is provided for students.
Highlights
Udemy is an LMS platform that allows instructors to create online courses on various topics, allowing uploading materials such as PDF files, PowerPoint presentations, audio files, Zip files, as well as schedule live classes. As for the cost, most of them are free and the rest ranges from five to five hundred US dollars.
Official Site: https://www.udemy.com/
SitePoint
This application is a web-based platform that has a massive collection of books, courses, and articles for web developers. The platform presents various learning paths like HTML and CSS, Blockchain, JavaScript, UX and Web Performance, etc. It offers a step-by-step guide to deliver all basic skills to experts.
Key Features
- It has massive collections of e-books, videos, and courses that make it more attractive and useful.
- It has a blog service where many professionals from all over the world share their knowledge.
- It presents various learning paths like Blockchain, JavaScript, HTML and CSS, UX and Web Performance, etc.
- You have the freedom to choose a course to learn and start learning without any limitations.
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Highlights
This tool is without doubt one of the best platforms for those who want to become a good developer or web designer. The most interesting fact is that it has a blog service where many professionals from all over the world share their knowledge.
Download Link: https://www.sitepoint.com/
Udacity
This tool can be termed as a learning management software which assists users to start enhancing their data skills by learning to manipulate, analyze and visualize data with SQL, Excel, and Tableau. The best thing about Udacity is that they use artificial intelligence to keep track of each student’s activity.
Key Features
- This ingenious platform reveals how students can work in teams and carry out projects together, provide individual feedback.
- All the contents of the online platform are technological, so they are different from other online platforms
- The great acquaintances of Unicity are the nano degrees (nanocarriers / nanogrados) followed by millions of people around the world.
- Within this platform, we will be able to choose from a score of specialized programs in short-format technology, between 6 and 12 months.
Highlights
Those who are willing to pay for training access to additional benefits such as job correction. There are also courses called Nanodegrees, which cost about $ 200 a month, and which are more geared towards professionals who want to develop or improve certain skills. The classes are divided into chapters (videos) and in the end, the student finds test-type and practical exercises.
Official Website: https://www.udacity.com/
Microsoft Virtual Academy
Within this platform, you can find countless courses on Microsoft products with a lot of high-quality material (videos, manuals, links, articles, etc.). Each course has assigned some points that we will achieve as we progress and at the end of each section, they usually have an exam to measure the knowledge acquired.
Key Features
- Bypassing a degree, you will be able to download a certificate from the MVA of that degree. At the same time, you can enter the specialization you want.
- Agnostic races are content, content for a specific product or topic and Specializations (which have as a prerequisite some races)
- The courses differ from the races by their duration. The courses are short and most used as technological updates.
- The exams have a multiple selection modality. Exams can be taken as many times as necessary to pass, but only once a day.
Highlights
The organization of the courses and the materials of each course is quite intuitive and simple from my point of view. It has a Dashboard in which we can add the courses that interest us to our learning plan and keep them organized. In addition, we will be shown the progress of each course and we can easily access the materials of each subject.
Download: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/virtual-academy/9wzdncrdk13l
DataCamp
DataCamp is a highly recommended platform for doing data science courses. There are courses of all levels and themes (programming, algorithm theory, etc.). There are both free and paid courses. Its courses include free basic Python course, intro to SQL for Data Science and SQLBolt, the interactive course that covers the basics of SQL with examples.
Key Features
- It helps to create accounts by linking to Facebook and Google+ and further, it allows you to use the LinkedIn account.
- The DataCamp page is geared towards choosing one of the two programming languages: Python and R.
- The DataCamp messages are so specific that it is almost impossible not to answer correctly.
- Once the proposed exercises are completed, the message is quite a celebration, additionally, they indicate the experience points they are earning.
Highlights
It is an online course platform that focuses on the Data Science area. Within this platform, there are careers, such as the Data Scientist Track. When you complete the first module, DataCamp displays a message stating that for the next 48 hours you will have access to a 40% discount on the total value of the annual service.
Official Website: https://www.datacamp.com/
Code School
This application is an online learning platform that offers free and paid courses. The tool currently has more than a million students worldwide. The platform is organized in different learning routes and defined by languages and skills.
Key Features
- You have the freedom to choose your educational path that is created by professional instructors and you work with the material.
- Can practice what you have learned directly in your browser window and get immediate feedback.
- As you complete each level of the course, accumulate points
- Keep an eye on your progress and keep track of all your achievements, badges earned and material studied.
Highlights
All the codes you learned during the tutorials are downloadable, so you can practice them yourself. Bookmarks section contains all the references and useful information for each tutorial you may be interested in. You may need to jot down notes when learning. This section will store your notes for each tutorial respectively.
Official Website: https://www.pluralsight.com/codeschool
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is the world’s first free virtual school where anyone from any country has access to education. As an interesting complement, it allows each student to have their progress statistics through their Google or Facebook accounts.
Key Features
- Anyone can access the resources made available on the site. It doesn’t matter if you are a student, a teacher, a director if you study on your own.
- You can find a wide variety of exercises to apply everything you learned.
- It is a virtual learning project, which includes a series of video tutorials that allow you to experience the feeling of being in front of a blackboard in class.
- A voice-over and a series of graphics explain a topic to you.
Highlights
Khan Academy provides many features that assist students using the site, such as the new Learning Dashboard to help users focus their learning. It also provides various tutoring tools that help teachers guide students to learn and gain insight into their progress. (These features and tools are currently available only when using the site to learn math).
Official Website: https://www.khanacademy.org
Grasshopper
The tool proposes a new type of interactive study plan that is based on daily practice and that allows users to access knowledge and activities through their mobile phones, anytime, anywhere, taking advantage of transport routes. public or dead moments. The system is eminently practical and seeks students to write code since they consider this to be the best way to learn.
Key Features
- It helps to learn how to program with free JavaScript from the mobile with a dedication of only five minutes a day.
- The tool proposes a new type of interactive study plan that is based on daily practice and that allows users to access knowledge and activities.
- The system is eminently practical and seeks students to write code.
- It focuses on coding for real things, avoiding heavy classes of syntax and allowing users to explore the lessons for themselves.
Highlights
The units are structured as a series of courses that teach students from the basics of programming to the most complex concepts. The theoretical part is explained in a pleasant way and the knowledge is evaluated through quiz-type questions, while the practice is carried out with puzzle-type games or in the Code Playground space to write custom code.
Official Website: https://grasshopper.app/
Skillshare
Skillshare is a learning platform with thousands of creative and entrepreneurial classes to teach educators and students real-world skills. It focuses on making students shine in their professions, improving their lives, and continuing to do what they want. This tool covers topics like marketing, freelance, design and more.
Key Features
- The platform is highly interactive and well developed to help users to vary between classes.
- You can quickly add a maximum of 5 skill labels when creating your course to increase their discovery.
- Skillshare focuses on professionals, creators, and entrepreneurs to earn money online.
- The platform makes it possible for you to upload video files directly from your computer. Videos will only be hosted and accessible by Skillshare members.
- You can attach files to your video lessons, project lessons, and other resources.
Highlights
Since most of the lessons in Skillshare are project-based, the teacher is enabled to add each phase of the project, also, students can interact with each step of the project. You can easily upload photos from your computer through each phase of the project. This gives you the flexibility to present information.
Official Website: https://www.skillshare.com/
Codewars
In Codewars you can train in programming challenges called kata, but before you must pass an entrance test of any of the 20 available programming languages such as Java, PHP, Python, Go, Rust, etc.
Key Features
- There are also a number of additional languages such as Kotlin, Erlang or Ethereum that are currently in the beta phase.
- This platform is free and driven by the community, so you can create and publish your own kata for others to solve.
- The great advantage of Codewars is that it allows you to test your own codes
- Codewars also has a large and active community, which helps a lot in welcoming newcomers, networking and collective collaboration.
Highlights
As you progress through each kata, the challenges will become increasingly difficult. When you complete a challenge, you will see how your solution works compared to others. This will show you different techniques to solve certain development problems.
Download Link: https://www.codewars.com/
edX
edX is an online learning destination that contains everything from organic chemistry courses to classes on the human rights of refugees. With over 90 global partners, it has the world’s leading universities, nonprofits, and institutions as members. edx University members lead the QS World University Rankings.
Key Features
- Each of the services is accessed through a different URL, being the internal management CMS for the participating university or universities.
- As for the handling, it is worth noting a very intuitive and simple interface, in a few minutes one is able to create a course and start providing it with content.
- It offers various modules with specific functionalities such as ‘EASE’, it is an improved scoring engine, for example for tasks).
- It also has ‘Discern’ that allows offering the service as an API) or ‘Edinsights’ (for real-time analytics and more complete) among others.
Highlights
The edX platform, implemented in Python (Ruby and NodeJS), is made up of a series of modules, some optional, the main edx-platform being which includes: An LMS where the courses are shown and where the student accesses and a CMS as an authoring tool called Studio, from which the teacher will create the course.
Official Website: https://www.edx.org/
Conclusion
Learning to a program used to mean hours and hours of expensive education. But, with all the alternatives of Pluralsight and the resources available today, you can learn to program in record time. There are also quite a few paid programs and courses. But the free resources shown are more than enough to start and develop the fundamental knowledge to succeed as a programmer.
