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Add to SafariWhen comparing Code School vs freeCodeCamp, the Slant community recommends freeCodeCamp for most people. In the question“What are the best websites to learn to code?” freeCodeCamp is ranked 1st while Code School is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose freeCodeCamp is:
Free for anyone who wants to take the camp.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Practice the code after each video
After each video, there are a series of challenges that give you a chance to apply what you just learned. The great thing about these challenges are that they force you to think through a problem, and use the new skills to solve it. It's not just regurgitating facts; it requires some effort.
Pro Paths for learning different skills
While you can jump into any video you like, there is also the option to follow a path for what you are wanting to learn. These give a nice direction if you are wanting to improve on a particular area and guide you into what to do next. They currently offer Ruby, Javascript, HTML/CSS, and iOS.
Pro Videos show how to build an app in real time
Soup to Bits is a series of videos that shows a developer creating an app from scratch in real time. It's easy to pause a video and follow along with the developer.
Pro Video tutorials
Videos give an overview of the course/lesson plan before a single line of code is written. This gives context and a general understanding of what is possible and how teaching will be approached.
Pro Fun and engaging teaching style
The instructors often use humour throughout the videos while letting their passion for the topic show.
Pro In-depth courses
Code School is not just for beginners to programming, but provides plenty of intermediate and advanced courses for students as their skills grow.
Pro Completely free
Free for anyone who wants to take the camp.
Pro Open source
Due to freeCodeCamp being open source, you are able to contribute to the program that helped teach you how to code in the first place. It's a great way to give back and gain experience.
Pro Self-paced
There is no set schedule with freeCodeCamp. You can work through the program as fast or as slow as you want.
Pro Browser-based
All courses used by freeCodeCamp are done in the browser, rather than students having to set up their own environment. This makes it much easier for beginners to get started.
Pro Actively developed
They are frequently updating courses and adding new material.
Pro Welcoming, active community
freeCodeCamp strongly encourages interacting with other learners and experienced programmers. They provide chatrooms which are always active and full of members happy to answer any questions you may have. Pair programming (programming with another user) is encouraged as a great way to work through some of their coding challenges.
There are also meetup groups where you can code in person with other freeCodeCamp students.
Pro Six certificates available
There are currently six certificates available that you can get once you've completed all the projects:
- Responsive Web Design Certification
- Javascript Algorithms And Data Structures Certification
- Front End Libraries Certification
- Data Visualization Certification
- Apis And Microservices Certification
- Information Security And Quality Assurance Certification
Pro Gain real world experience while helping nonprofits
Once you've completed all the courses and practice levels on freeCodeCamp, you are able to participate with other learners on developing software for non-profits. It's an amazing way to gain experience and build your portfolio as a developer, while helping out a non-profit organization.
Pro Full stack certificate
There is a cool Full stack certificate
Cons
Con Acquired by Pluralsight
Con Videos are of a tone that some people cannot stand
Con Requires paying to complete courses
Although the beginning of each course is free and you can see if you are interested in pursuing it, to complete the course you must pay.
Con A bit too basic
There is not a lot of advanced content.
Con No longer offers opportunity to build projects one-on-one with nonprofits
There are no nonprofits to help upon completing the program.
Con Learning material is not in-depth
The teaching content provided by freeCodeCamp tends to act more as an introduction than a solid learning resource. Unless you already have some prior experience, you won't have enough knowledge to get through the coding challenges and development projects without using outside learning resources to fill in the gaps.
Con Massive time waste
Content mainly focuses on trivial concepts and is very sparse in those few areas that inch beyond 'complete beginner'.
Con Is an email list generator
Early focus isn't on programming. It is on signing up for all of FreeCodeCamp's social media and getting looped into their newsletters. The content is trivial. It is all just a massive marketing scheme to get email addresses of aspiring programmers to affiliate sell to by pushing novice developers to blog posts containing affiliate links.
That is until they sell to a 3rd party. Read their disclaimer. Whoever buys them out gets all their user data, email lists, etc.
Con No offline version
Con Excessive focus on the basics
This platform focuses too much on the basics.
