Is Pluralsight Worth the Time or the Money ? (A Pluralsight Review)

Pluralsight is a website that brings instructors and students together. On Pluralsight you will find an array of tutorials and guides on different technologies such as IT, Programming, Design, Data Engineering, and so on. You can also practice for the various certification test and learn new technologies such as Angular and Node.js. I have reviewed several online learning platforms such as Udemy as well. My Udemy review can be found here.

My Experience on Pluralsight

I tried Pluralsight's free trial offer of 10 days. It requires billing information and you must cancel within 10 days to avoid being billed. I tried two different courses on their website over a few months. The first course I took was on Ethical Hacking and the second course I took was ASP.NET MVC. My experience on the website was very pleasant for the most part. Pluralsight has a great feel to the actual website and the technologies work very well within. Was it flawless? No. I will detail some of the Pros and Cons of my experience on the Pluralsight Platform.

Pros Of Pluralsight

1. The website - It's very sleek and modern and the navigation is easy.

2. Paths - Pluralsight allows you to use predetermined paths of course work. This provides a full scope of the course. These courses are excellent for learning new technologies.

3. Test Your Knowledge - I think one of the best features on the Pluralsight is its testing modules. You pick a technology or area of study that you know and then take an assessment test. Based on the results of this test site recommends courses to improve in areas you didn't do well in.

4. Certification Courses - I examined a few courses on Pluralsight that are to help with getting a certification. I liked how their A+ certification was updated. The A+ cert has evolved over the years as the focus has shifted from older times. The Course includes material on these shifts and also a great history and hardware section.

5. Fresh Material - Most of the courses I viewed were rather new. This is a good thing as technology is always changing. I found plenty of fresh videos on MVC, Angular, Server Driven Development and other technologies that are growing such as Amazon Cloud, OpenStack, DevOps, ect..

6. Discount Codes - Pluralsight offers discount codes for various certification test you may take online. This helps with the cost as some of these test can be rather expensive.

Cons Of Pluralsight

1. Pricing - While some sites require you purchase each course you use, Pluralsight charges you on a per month or yearly bases. This can be costly over time and you do not own the material afterward so if you miss a payment you can't continue the course until you make amends

2. Advanced Topics - Advanced topics seems to be lacking industry-wide on tutorial platforms like Pluralsight. While learning to build basic applications and websites can be helpful, the business logic seems to be absent from many tutorials. After reviewing the C# section, I was not very impressed with the advanced aspects. In my opinion, LINQ is not an advanced C# topic. Working with Sockets, RestAPI's, and encryption should probably be a focus beyond just an ASP.NET course. These are real-world technologies that are very important. Also, going over installers, code cert signing, and creating Windows services would be helpful.

3. Technology Focused - This is a good thing if you are wanting to learn programming or IT related technologies. I do feel, however, that Pluralsight could expand to offer even more training such as Quickbooks, Receptionist, Medical Coding, and more advanced designer courses.

Pluralsight is not for just beginners but beginners should find Pluralsight to be very helpful. While many YouTube tutorials exist that are somewhat similar to what sites like Pluralsight offer, most are not nearly as good. The point of Pluralsight is to give the user access to many tutorials that are all professional grade all at once. YouTube platforms stick to real basic information and examples while Pluralsight interacts with the viewers by having them code along and build projects as they learn. The instructors do an excellent job of referencing terms and then explaining those terms before moving on. This step by step process is excellent for beginners to learn from. Some advanced courses do offer a faster introduction to new technologies and some of the advanced courses do offer decent learning material.

Pluralsight Can Teach An Old Dog(Programmer) New Tricks

Many courses offer speed learning to fill in knowledgable programmers and techs on the basics of new technologies. The idea is to fill you in on areas you may not know while speeding through areas you are probably familiar with. This limits the time it takes to learn the core concepts on the new technologies while comparing them to technology you may already know. This also speeds up the process of getting to more advanced topics and examples. The follow along projects are excellent and allow for deeper thinking and realization of different uses for the technology.

Is Pluralsight Worth It?

I think Pluralsight is an excellent tool for beginners. I believe the speed of the courses seems sound. I only completely followed 2 courses but I did check on many more going as far as the first unit in. I do believe the cost can be an issue for some. However, the upside of the cost is that you have access to tons of courses while other sites you may own the property, you must buy new courses each time you want another. If you are a Computer Science student I would recommend this site to learn alongside your college course. It would probably help greatly. I would also recommend this site for established techs and programmers looking to pick up new technologies.

Negative Reviews

I find that most negative reviews have to deal with billing. I mentioned at the beginning that it is important that you cancel your trial if you do not want to pay for membership. The fee for Pluralsight is 35$ per month for an individual. Some reviews suggested that Udemy may be a better choice for beginners. You can find my Udemy review here. I think you can learn off of either platform but some instructors are not as good at explaining beginning concepts in a way students will understand. If you are having trouble with the course, I would suggest searching another from a different instructor as this will usually solve the problem.

When comparing Pluralsight and Udemy many factors come into play. The reality is that some of the instructors have written courses for both sites. The cost is also a factor to take into consideration. Pluralsight charges a monthly or yearly premium while Udemy allows you to purchase courses outright for various prices (normally between 9.99 and 19.99). Both sites offer good content that beginner or experienced professionals could learn from. Which site is better would depend on a number of factors and a bit of personal preference. Udemy works better for me as a developer because I do not always have time to focus on the content. Owning the course allows me to save money in the long run. However, If I wanted to take many certifications and learn a lot of new material, then Pluralsight would likely be a better option. You really can't go wrong with either platform as they are both excellent tools for learning.