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Add to SafariWhen comparing Codecademy vs W3Schools, the Slant community recommends Codecademy for most people. In the question“What are the best websites to learn to code?” Codecademy is ranked 7th while W3Schools is ranked 21st. The most important reason people chose Codecademy is:
Right from the start, users write code. They start small in an environment that has constant feedback and gradually progress to more complex concepts. Users can see code results instantly, giving great feedback.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Interactivity
Right from the start, users write code. They start small in an environment that has constant feedback and gradually progress to more complex concepts. Users can see code results instantly, giving great feedback.
Pro Excellent progression
Codeacademy doesn't overwhelm beginners with information. It gives bite-sized information, the bare minimum needed to finish a task and get to the next one. As the course progresses, it slowly fills in background information.
Pro Good editor
Codeacademy has a powerful, beginner-friendly integrated development environment (IDE) that can also be used outside of curriculum.
Pro Bite-sized lessons
Each lesson in code-academy focuses on a single concept, and repetition is provided to drill the concept.
Pro Mostly free content & best progression series for beginners
Pro Community forums
It has forums which can be used to discuss with other learners
Pro Easy to learn
All the tutorials are written in a straightforward and easy to understand way.
Pro Built in editor
Almost every example has a "try it yourself" button which opens up an editor in a new tab. It allows you to play with the example code and see how it works.
Pro Well organized tutorials
All of the lessons are separated into their own pages, which makes it easy to learn about specific concepts.
Pro Great source from Google search's perspective
Cons
Con Not the best structure for quick refreshers
The content of the lessons is aimed very much at people just starting to learn how to code. This is perfect for beginners but if you want to use Codecademy to refresh your knowledge the lessons are not designed to be quickly done.
Con Lack of context
Codecademy is great for providing a hands-on approach, but there is a lack of context regarding how to start a project in real life. While users may learn how to code using Codecademy's interface, they may not have any idea how to code independently.
Con Sticks to pretty basic
Con Deleted a lot of content
A lot of free content has been taken away, for example the PHP course was removed from the site.
Con Buggy
Codecademy is known to have many bugs which interfere with the editor, resulting in error messages despite having the correct answer.
Con Allows infinite loops to run
If you run an infinite loop, the browser freezes. Many other similar websites will give you an error, preventing the loop from running. Though not a bug, the lack of feature to stop infinite loops from running can be quite frustrating to beginners.
Con Outdated practices / problem solutions
The practices that are shown to solve the problems at hand are rarely, if at all, updated. Usually, their tutorials and learning material is updated only after they see their profits drop.
Con Doesn't care about teaching right
There are multiple errors in the data they show. Although the solutions they show work, they will lead to unmaintainable code. That happens even when the maintainable code alternatives are as easy or accessible to new programmers as the alternatives.
Con Certifications not recognized
Many professionals in IT agree that w3s certifications are not recognized by them and are deemed useless. Good luck finding any respectable professional that accepts a w3s certification.
Con It is for profit
What defines what goes is and what gets fixed on w3schools is what gives them profit and what doesn't (through their ads system).
Con Written tutorials only
While many learning resources offer a mixture of media in their courses (such as videos, challenges etc.), w3schools offers only written tutorials and code editors. This makes w3schools more beneficial as a quick reference rather than a primary learning resource.
