Pros & Cons
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- Affordably priced
- Provides classes, ebooks, and tech talks
- Curated learning paths
- Videos feature closed captioning
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- Stilted coursework
- Course inconsistencies
- Not very interactive
- Lacks a few required tools for getting work done
SitePoint Specs
| Built-in Tools | |
| Free Trial | |
| Quizzes | |
| Starting Price | $9 per month |
| User Forums | |
| Video Tutorials |
There are many ways to learn to code, and SitePoint provides several methods via a vast library of ebooks, video tech talks, and screencast classes. The service does a good job of curating the content to give you the exact education you want and offers thorough, well-designed coding lessons. However, SitePoint lags behind competing coding education platforms due to a lack of quizzes, interactivity, quality consistency, and the needed tools to get work done (some classes require you to sign up for third-party apps). We prefer the more complete and engaging learning environments provided by Codecademy and Treehouse, our Editors' Choice winners for free and paid coding services, respectively.
Plans and Prices
Like many online coding schools, SitePoint is a subscription-based service. Although some content, like select ebooks and blog posts, is free, you must pay $9 per month (or $72 per year) to access everything. The Premium plan includes advanced learning paths, thousands of videos, more than 700 ebooks and courses, the ability to publish articles on SitePoint, and course certificates. A seven-day free trial lets you sample the learning experience before whipping out the plastic.
(Credit: SitePoint/PCMag)SitePoint is affordable compared with similar learn-to-code services. Code Avengers and Treehouse cost $29 per month and $25 per month, respectively. Frequent deals slash SitePoint's price, so you should keep an eye out for those savings. You can pause and resume your subscription anytime, much like Treehouse. In a nice touch, SitePoint sends you a reminder a few days before the pause expires. Treehouse also lets you quickly and easily pause and resume subscriptions.
Navigating Classes and Content
After you log in, you're directed to your dashboard, which displays the courses you've taken, the ebooks you've downloaded, and course suggestions. Two large buttons near your dashboard's top link to the full class library and curated paths, the latter comprising multiple classes featuring varying difficulties.
For example, the Become a Full Stack Developer path includes 16 courses and books, starting with Introduction to HTML and ending with new features for JavaScript. You can also search the site and access your profile, settings, membership information, and referral status. Overall, SitePoint's interface is easy to navigate and makes it simple for adults and teens to start coding.
SitePoint's library is regularly updated with new classes, ebooks, and tech talk videos. The topics include CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Ruby, and WordPress. After selecting Ruby, SitePoint suggested reading an ebook (Jump Start Rails) and taking a Ruby 2.0 class. These helpful suggestions were listed on our dashboard. You can save books for offline reading or purchase physical print copies from Amazon. We appreciated the flexibility here.
In addition to coding classes, SitePoint has material for entrepreneurs. These include courses on building a web-design business and project management for freelance developers. Likewise, Treehouse has some non-coding courses, including one on starting your own business. Codecademy also offers classes for general business skills, including communication, teamwork, and project management. However, if you need both business and coding classes, SitePoint may be the better choice due to its greater amount of material.
Similar Products
Our Current Picks for The Best Programs for Learning to Code
(Credit: SitePoint/PCMag)Learning to Code: Instructors, Tools, and Help
We began with the Learn HTML and CSS path, and appreciated seeing the entire curriculum up front. This let us plan (or skip) ahead, which isn't always possible with these programs. Many instruction videos provide closed captioning, which is helpful, especially if the instructor is not always on-screen.
As in the offline world, an instructor can make or break a course. One instructor was not as engaging as those in other tested services, including Codecademy and Treehouse. This was in part because they never appeared on screen, aside from a brief introduction video. The instructor for the second course had a little more personality and was visible most of the time. In general, we didn't find much consistency among courses. Thankfully, user ratings let you know which classes are better than others.
Unfortunately, a lot of SitePoint's content doesn't have a built-in tool for completing your exercises and checking your work. You do your coding in a third-party text editor and must download a ZIP file with course materials; the instructor walks you through this process. We prefer coding platforms, like Codecademy and Treehouse, that let you work within the same screen where you learn. In addition, you need a link a GitHub account to your SitePoint account to check your code against the example. That said, you can pull up a live coding environment to essentially take notes when paging through certain ebooks.
Previously, SitePoint provided a handful of coding assessments, little tests that brought it more in line with quizzes from Codecademy and Treehouse. However, those tests are now gone. That's unfortunate and makes the service's biggest weakness, its overall lack of fun interactivity, especially glaring. By embracing interactivity, pairing lessons with quizzes to answer and challenges to tackle, Codecademy and Treehouse turn bland education into an engaging game. They get you accustomed to writing code, which can be a dry experience on its own. SitePoint often feels like reading a textbook, which is a miss for a digital, online platform.
On the upside, SitePoint's community is active with lively and helpful discussions. During testing, we saw confused users having questions answered within a day. If you need further help, you can email customer support. SitePoint lacks phone support, which is a bummer if you really want to chat with a human being. For more on digital education, check out The Best Online Learning Courses.
Molly McLaughlin contributed to this review.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: SitePoint)
SitePoint
SitePoint's information-packed classes will expand your coding knowledge, but don't expect to find the quizzes, consistent quality, and tools featured in the top rival platforms.