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Code School

Jordan Minor
 & Jordan Minor Principal Writer, Software

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

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65 EXPERTS
43 YEARS
41,500+ REVIEWS
If you're willing to pay to take your coding education to the next level, Code School is an excellent choice. - Code School
4.0 Excellent

The Bottom Line

If you're willing to pay to take your coding education to the next level, Code School is an excellent choice.

Pros & Cons

    • Video tutorials.
    • Deep, extensive library of courses.
    • Screencast shows offer insight from industry professionals.
    • Limited free content.
    • Most courses require preexisting coding knowledge.

Coding is one of the most-valuable skills you can have in our modern, tech-driven job market. If you're looking to gain some of this precious knowledge, free coding classes are a good, but limited, place to start. Anyone serious about pursuing a coding career eventually needs to tackle some tougher material, and that usually requires coughing up some cash. So if you are willing to pay ($29 per month) to take your coding education to the next level, Pluralsight's Code School is a worthy choice. 

Hard Knocks
Students with even a little coding knowledge will appreciate that Code School doesn't waste your time covering material you already know and quickly gets you to the good stuff, instead. Exploring the deep course catalog turns up a few introductory HTML and CSS classes, but most tutorials are on more-advanced topics like The Magical Marvels of MongoDB and Adventures in Web Animations. You can also pick from six broad paths that offer curated, comprehensive, and ongoing tutorials. These cover Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, iOS (but not Android), Git, and Database. With these tracks, you get to fully understand the fundamentals before moving onto to different electives, just like in real school.

code school

Final Thoughts

If you're willing to pay to take your coding education to the next level, Code School is an excellent choice. - Code School

Code School

4.0 Excellent

If you're willing to pay to take your coding education to the next level, Code School is an excellent choice.

About Our Expert

Jordan Minor

Jordan Minor

Principal Writer, Software

My PCMag career began in 2013 as an intern. Now, I'm a senior writer, using the skills I acquired at Northwestern University to write about dating apps, meal kits, programming software, website builders, video streaming services, and video games. I was previously a senior editor at Geek.com and have written for The A.V. Club, Kotaku, and Paste Magazine. I'm the author of the gaming history book Video Game of the Year: A Year-by-Year Guide to the Best, Boldest, and Most Bizarre Games from Every Year Since 1977, and the reason everything you know about Street Sharks is a lie.

The Technology I Use

I use the newest Android and iOS smartphones for testing, but I currently use an iPhone 14 as my personal phone. I just hate that we gave up headphone jacks.

I've always favored gaming laptops over desktops. On that note, I have a 16-inch HP Envy with an Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. No matter what machine I’m working on, an alarming amount of my personal and professional life revolves around cloud-synced Google Drive files.

For food subscriptions, my household sticks with CookUnity and HelloFresh for meals. Video streaming is a bit more complicated. While there are too many services to list, we're subscribed to most of the major ones. These days, I find myself drawn to HBO Max's movies and shows, as well as Peacock's reality trash.

I've been a lifelong Nintendo fan, and I sincerely believe the Nintendo Switch will go down as one of the best gaming consoles of all time. It has an unbelievable library of new and old games from Nintendo and third-party companies. The handheld/console hybrid approach makes playing games so much more flexible, a legacy that continues with the Nintendo Switch 2 and Valve’s Steam Deck.

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