When comparing W3Schools vs CSS-Tricks, the Slant community recommends CSS-Tricks for most people. In the question“What are the best resources to learn CSS?” CSS-Tricks is ranked 2nd while W3Schools is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose CSS-Tricks is:
All posts, whether they are written by Chris Coyier or a guest blogger, are very clear and well explained. Each example has code snippets with easy-to-follow explanations of the code and theory behind the specific concept. Possible issues you may run into with the code are often addressed, so you know how to tackle bugs that may pop up.
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Pros
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
Pro Examples are well explained
All posts, whether they are written by Chris Coyier or a guest blogger, are very clear and well explained. Each example has code snippets with easy-to-follow explanations of the code and theory behind the specific concept. Possible issues you may run into with the code are often addressed, so you know how to tackle bugs that may pop up.
Pro Codepen makes code review easy
Pro Frequently updated
CSS-Tricks is extremely active, being updated every day or two with a new blog post. Despite the frequency of the posts, the quality always remains high.
Cons
Con Outdated practices / problem solutions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.
Con Not a good starting place for a complete beginner
CSS-Tricks does not follow the structure of a traditional tutorial, starting at the basics and gradually increasing in difficulty.
Instead, each blog post addresses a specific topic (such as responsive images, debugging keyframe animations etc.). Therefore it's better suited to someone who has already been introduced to CSS and is looking for more info on a specific topic, or wants to discover new concepts.
