The demand for skilled tech professionals continues to soar in our increasingly digital world. Aspiring professionals looking to get into tech may consider completing an online coding bootcamp to build the skills they need without investing the time and money required for a full-length degree.
Codecademy is an online coding bootcamp provider offering a variety of computer programming courses and career paths. With options for beginners, advanced professionals and everyone in between, Codecademy’s bootcamps can help learners unlock new career opportunities in the tech industry.
In this guide, we explore Codecademy’s bootcamp options, diving into the specifics of web development, data science and other areas of study for these programs.
What Is Codecademy?
Codecademy is an online learning platform offering 100% self-guided coding courses. Whether you’re a tech newbie or a seasoned professional looking to expand your programming knowledge, you can pursue a Codecademy bootcamp to help sharpen your skills with hands-on coding exercises, projects and quizzes.
Codecademy’s “career paths” prepare students to pursue specific entry-level roles in the tech industry. Potential career areas include web development, data science and front- or back-end engineering. After completing a career path, students can earn professional certifications by passing a series of exams.
For the purposes of this guide, we will refer to Codecademy’s career paths as bootcamps, which students can complete in three to six months.
What Does Codecademy Cost?
While Codecademy does offer some individual courses for free, you’ll need a paid membership to access its skill and career paths, which function like bootcamps. The Plus plan costs $179.88 yearly or $29.99 monthly, while the Pro plan costs $239.88 yearly or $39.99 monthly.
- Basic: Gives free access to selected courses and content; this option may appeal to beginners who want to explore potential areas of interest for their careers
- Plus: Offers the features of the Basic plan, plus access to all courses, quizzes and projects in the Codecademy catalog, including most skill paths; may be a good option for students interested in learning a specific skill, such as HTML or Java
- Pro: Builds upon the Plus plan by offering access to career resources, peer-reviewed coding projects, portfolio-building opportunities and learning plans called career paths; the best option for individuals seeking entry-level jobs in specific career trajectories
In comparison, the median cost of coding bootcamps in 2023 was $9,500, according to bootcamp data collected by Forbes Advisor.
Codecademy Review: PROS
For the sake of keeping things structured and simple to follow, let’s do a “pro / con” overview of what Codecademy has to offer. Starting with the benefits of this MOOC provider, one thing that I noticed straight from the get-go is just how simple it is to navigate the platform, and use all of its main features.
Very Easy to Get Into
Now, the factor of just how easy it is to use and navigate the site is very important when it comes to an eLearning platform being successful and respected within the community. If a website is clunky and confusing, chances are that visitors are not going to get past the main landing page.
My first impressions upon visiting the main Codecademy landing page? Well, the website didn’t really stand out all that much, to be fair. The unique design choices reminded me of certain computer interfaces from the 2000s, which was a nice touch, seeing as code is what you learn here.
That being said, kudos to the company for keeping things nice and clean. While the platform might not be flashy, its layout is very welcoming, especially for those who aren’t yet certain about what it is that they want to learn.
This is in contrast to what the platform used to look like, a few years ago. Upon my initial Codecademy review, I found that the homepage was pretty generic – it’s just that everything was so up close and in your face! Even back then, though, scrolling through it a few times, I quickly got used to it.
The current homepage itself is pretty plain, as far as educational platform landing pages go. You have the signup form, some popular course picks (to help you get started as soon and as simply as possible), a few testimonials, and some reasons why you should choose Codecademy as your online code-learning platform.
Overall, a pretty basic front page – in a good way, that is!
Back in the day, there were two sections that you could go to from the main page – the community section, and the full catalog. What I do recall from my previous experience with Codecademy is that the community section was frankly impossible to get to – after what seemed like minutes of waiting and not seeing the page give out any signs of possible life, I gave up.
Today, everything loads up, nice and fast! The lack of student Codecademy reviews complaining about laggy interfaces works to advocate this further, too.
All of your main navigation will take place from the menu at the top of the page. You have your catalog of courses, additional learning resources, a lot of community sections to check out, pricing, as well as a separate, dedicated section for teams.
The Codecademy course catalog is very interesting, I must say. Not many Codecademy reviews mention this when they discuss is Codecademy good, but I actually found their course layout to be very unique.
Courses are displayed by topic, in a unique and retro-futuristic aesthetic. When you enter any of the actual course pages, you have all of the relevant information displayed in front of you, accompanied by the same cool design choices I’ve just mentioned.
The catalog itself was very intuitive to navigate (you could sort the courses by learning level, price, type, as well as the number of lessons). It was refreshing, since it didn’t try to stuff a ton of information down your throat.
All things considered, I have to say that a lot of Codecademy reviews fail to mention that the user interface of the platform is both aesthetically pleasing, and very simple to navigate and use.
High-Quality Learning Materials
You probably don’t need my Codecademy review to tell you that, when choosing an MOOC for coding, nothing matters more than the actual quality of the learning materials that it comes equipped with.
Think about it – the platform can have the nicest and most inviting of designs, offer all courses free of charge and advertise like mad – if the content sucks, no one's going to spend time actually dealing with it.
I am thrilled to say that this doesn’t seem to be a problem for Codecademy, though. A lot of users mention this in their Codecademy reviews, but the content on the platform is actually up to par!
The company stresses that the learning quality is really important, and it seems that they’re rather serious about it! Codecademy constantly updates its courses and aims to bring new and relevant learning material to the site.
This is evident from simply visiting the course-listing page. Recently, Codecademy added AI courses to its roster – this is in line with the wants & needs of the industry, since AI has become a very relevant and sought-after subject[2].
This is often where the question of “is Codecademy Pro worth it?” pops up, as well. While it’s something we’ll explore a bit later in the review, it’s a well-known fact that there are two types of courses on Codecademy – free, and paid ones.
Free courses can often give you a really good hint about what you can expect, if you do subscribe to a learning service. Once again, having tried my hand at some of the courses myself, I can say that Codecademy certainly puts a lot of effort and attention into creating a valuable learning experience.
All in all, the quality of the content presented on the site does seem to be in line with what the company says its values and goals are. Since good content is so important, this is great news, indeed!
Varied Membership Plans + Cool Features
Interesting and unique features are some of the bigger ways that online learning platforms try to distinguish themselves from their competition. Some offer interactive courses, others – different subscription plans, memberships and promotions. As many student Codecademy reviews state, this site is exactly one of such platforms.
Codecademy offers its users three different ways to learn on their site – free courses, Codecademy Plus and Codecademy Pro. As I’ve mentioned in the introductory part of my review, there used to be a “Codecademy Pro Intensive” plan, as well, but it was discontinued.
Let’s have a quick overview of the different plans, shall we?
- Free courses. For the longest amount of time, the majority of the courses on the platform were free of charge. All you had to do was register and start learning. Since the inception of the other two paid plans, however, the number of free courses has experienced a downfall (which is pretty obvious from most Codecademy Plus reviews and Codecademy Pro reviews). However, there are still quite a few courses on the site that can be accessed and taken free of charge.
- Codecademy Plus. If you’re already certain that Codecademy is “where it’s at”, then the Plus plan is like the generic, entry-level plan for studying on the platform. It unlocks access to all courses, and supports most other features, with the exception of career paths and career-related functionalities.
- Codecademy Pro. If you’re wondering “is Codecademy Pro worth it?”, imagine it like the “premium” plan that the website offers. This plan includes various quizzes, personal projects, learning paths, career-boosting features, and so on – things that would otherwise not be accessible to a free user. As Codecademy puts it themselves, Pro is designed for people who want to “develop the skills and experience to land a job in tech”.
- (DEPRECATED) Codecademy Pro Intensive. As a lot of Codecademy Intensive reviews will tell you, this was basically the hardcore version of Codecademy Pro. Here, you would have found (in addition to the previous features) extra curriculums, deadlines, designated Slack channels, exams, and so on. It was essentially a bootcamp version of what you want to learn.
These are the plans that Codecademy offers to its students. Well, most of them – you’d struggle to find Codecademy Intensive reviews these days, but at the same time, they’re not really relevant anymore, given the fate that this plan met.
Now, if there’s one thing that you might have noticed in this part of our Codecademy review, it’s the fact that there are quite a few features available with the platform in question, depending on the plan that you choose.
Naturally, you have your very basic stuff – community support (forums, Discord, various events, etc.), mobile app functionality, quizzes, personalized practicing, and so on. Many MOOCs that I’ve tried and used before provide these or similar features.
However, Codecademy also puts a lot of emphasis on practicing your skills, as well. Students can access portfolio-building tools, such as real-world project examples. Then, there are also skill and career paths, for a more optimized, topic-centric learning experience.
Evidently, there are plenty of additional features that you, as a student, can explore. I have to say that the platform does seem to have a good variety of extra activities to pick from, aside from the courses themselves.
Top Codecademy Course Picks
Say that you’ve decided to try the platform out, after reading my Codecademy review. That’s great – granted that there’s a free version available, you really don’t have anything to lose.
That being said, and assuming that you’re looking to learn coding, which courses should you be looking into?
Well, to help you pick, I’ve gathered some of the popular picks from a few different categories. Obviously, these are just suggestions, but they can really help answer the question – is Codecademy worth it?
My free Codecademy course picks are:
- Learn Java. A Java course for complete beginner. With 1,5 million enrollments, it’s safe to say that this is defintely one of Codecademy’s more popular free courses.
- Intro to ChatGPT. If you’re looking to get into AI, this course is a must – it covers the fundamentals of ChatGPT, the most popular language-processing chatbot application.
- Learn Python 2. A beginner introduction to Python. If this programming language is what you’re looking to learn, many student Codecademy reviews will point you to this particular course.
As far as paid courses are concerned, I’d suggest checking out these:
- Python 3. A continuation of Python 2 – a course for anyone who’s serious about learning and understanding the fundamentals of Python.
- Machine Learning and AI Fundamentals. This isn’t a course per se, but rather – a skill path. Codecademy skill paths are like clusters of different courses and learning material, on dedicated topics. Anyone who’s serious about learning AI will likely enjoy this!
- Code Foundations. Yet another skill path, this time – for anyone who’s seriously considering a programmer’s career, and wants to learn the general basics of the field.
Codecademy’s roster of courses, skill paths, and other learning material is quite large – you should be able to find something of interest, no matter how niche your preferences are. Try the MOOC provider out for yourself, and decide if it’s the right pick for you!
It makes sense – if you’re looking for the best of the best, chances are that you’re going to compare the pros, cons, and features of each of the top players. Well, let’s see how they actually compare, then!
Conclusions
With time, there are more and more online education and learning-based companies popping up in various different parts of the internet. Some are based locally, but most of them try to get a broader reach and attract a global audience in any way that they can.
This is why eLearning platforms have to constantly show their A-game, update their content, and offer students various promotions & other incentives.
That being said, it’s actually a great thing if you’re a student looking for an online-based learning platform. This guarantees that you’ll receive some of the best deals around, since all of these companies are competing for your attention.
Codecademy chose the route of specializing in a single, niche topic – coding and programming. Their whole content and ideas revolve around it – and that's great!
Being a niche product or service provider means that you can target a very specific audience, which then translates into a bigger retention rate than if you would, for example, offer students to teach them everything and anything. Well, at least in most cases. If you're in need of some alternative course providers – ones that also have a broader range of topics, too -, you should turn to platforms such as Udemy or edX.
That being said, we have reached the end of this Codecademy review. Thanks for reading, and best of luck in your search for online education!
