Hi, I’m Olga! I have years of experience in data science, most recently at eBay. Now I work as an industry mentor at Pathrise, helping data scientists land great jobs through technical workshops and 1-on-1s. Check out my article where I compare Coderbyte vs Codewars.
- Similarities and differences between Coderbyte vs Codewars
- Topics offered on Coderbyte vs Codewars
- Prices for Coderbyte vs Codewars
- Ratings and reviews of Coderbyte vs Codewars
- Alternatives to Coderbyte vs Codewars
- How do Coderbyte and Codewars compare to Pathrise?
Similarities and differences between Coderbyte and Codewars
Coderbyte and Codewars are online resources that software engineers can use to prepare for technical interviews. Similarities
- Users can sort questions by topic and skill level
- Both Coderbyte and Codewars feature in-browser coding windows so users can solve coding challenges directly on their website.
- People can use both platforms to practice JavaScript, Python, Ruby, and dozens of other programming languages.
- Students in both programs earn rankings as they complete coding challenges.
- Both programs host free content, although Codewars is 100% free while Coderbyte requires paid subscriptions for full access.
Differences
- Anyone can create a Coderbyte account and start preparing for interviews. To get access to Codewars, people have to pass a technical challenge in a programming language of their choice.
- Codewars is a free community-driven site that allows users to upload their own coding challenges. Coderbyte creates their own material, and some companies even use their platform as an assessment tool for technical screenings and remote interviews.
- Coderbyte offers free 1-week starter courses that teach students the fundamentals of JavaScript, Ruby, Python, and algorithms.
- In addition to offering mock interviews, Coderbyte curates interview prep kits for companies like Google and Microsoft.
- Coderbyte users get custom personalized improvement recommendations, predictive interview success scores, and detailed progress reports. Although Codewars users can level up their rank and earn honors, the program is not especially personalized.
Topics offered by Coderbyte and Codewars
Coderbyte and Codewars would help aspiring software engineers ace interviews by hosting practice questions across a wide variety of topics, including:
- String
- Trees
- Arrays
- Binary search
- Hash tables
- Linked lists
- Prime numbers
Challenges also cover software topics like variables, conditionals, loops, closures, and functional programming. However, Coderbyte hosts starter courses and video solutions to help students learn technical software skills. Codewars relies on their user community to upload challenges, with a focus on practical prep rather than teaching new software skills.
Prices for Coderbyte and Codewars
Although Coderbyte offers 11+ coding challenges and starter course videos for free, most users subscribe for full access. The subscription is $35 per month or $150 billed annually. Users can also make a 1-time payment of $29 for a 14-day plan or pay $79 for a 90-day plan. Paid subscribers get access to 300+ coding challenges, over 1 million user solutions, detailed video solutions from industry experts, mock interview opportunities, and official interview prep materials from top tech companies like Amazon and Facebook.
Codewars hosts community-created online challenges for free. They offer martial arts themed “kata” challenges for beginners and “kumite” coding challenges for more advanced users. As users complete kata challenges, they gain “honors” and improve their ranking. Challenges feature 50+ different programming languages, although some are still in beta phases. After improving their rank, users can create their own challenges for other users to solve and offer feedback. Users can also discuss challenges and ask questions on Codewars’ bustling community forum.
Ratings and reviews of Coderbyte and Codewars
Coderbyte holds a 4.5/5 star rating on G2, where many users praised their detailed challenges and described it as an effective tool for both hiring and interview practice. The program is also listed among the top coding challenges of 2020 on Medium, where users appreciated the mix of officially curated and user-submitted solutions.
However, some users were confused by how long they should spend on challenges, with people noting that they spent anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours writing a solution. Although most users felt they benefited from the hands-on practice and detailed solutions, some people felt they could find similar prep content online without paying for a Coderbyte subscription. Although Capterra reviewers praised their in-depth feedback and metrics, some were disappointed that “solutions to all of the problems provided in this platform can be found on Google.” Overall, however, most users were very satisfied with the hundreds of practical challenges and thorough solutions on Coderbyte.
As a free community-based platform, Codewars does not have too many formal product reviews. However, so far their reception has been positive. Hubspot listed their platform among the top 12 best resources to learn code for free. Users on Reddit felt Codewars was helpful for current software developers to practice in their “downtime”, with users appreciating that “it lets me stay sharp on my skills” and “keeps my coding readable.” Although one user still valued the practice, they warned that “the ramp up isn’t too great. You get an easy question, then an insanely hard question.”
A few users were also disappointed that the quality of community-uploaded challenges varies dramatically, warning that sometimes “user-submitted katas are really bad, incomplete, or just plain don’t work.” However, Slant gave Codewars a glowing review, with users impressed that they teach dozens of programming languages, offer “learning gamification” through engaging challenges, and most importantly that they are completely free. Reviewers also liked that “Challenges cover all areas of programming” including algorithms, OOP, functional programming, and more.
Although Codewars is often described as a terrific practice resource for both advanced and beginner software engineers, Quora users warned that “if you aren’t solid on the fundamentals, you will be completely lost on Codewars.” On the whole, users seemed very satisfied with Codewar’s free challenges and active community.
Alternatives to Coderbyte and Codewars
Besides Coderbyte and Codewars, there are a good number of alternative resources you can use to prepare for software engineering interviews:
- Another popular platform for software engineering interview prep is AlgoExpert. Their platform hosts 115 hand-picked technical interview questions, 70+ hours of detailed video explanations, assessments, and even a data structures crash course. Students also get formal certificates and opportunities for mock interviews.
- Created by a former Google software engineer, Interview Cake is a study tool that helps aspiring software engineers ace their technical interviews. In addition to a thorough technical curriculum, their course features hands-on practice, new approaches to thinking about interviews, and lots of practical interview hacks from an experienced engineer. Learn more about Interview Cake in our review.
- Similarly, Codebasil features coding interview questions written by software engineers at top tech companies like Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.
- The popular interview prep platform Leetcode hosts 1,050+ interview-type questions. Premium subscribers have access to problems based on actual company questions.
- Similar to Codewars’ engaging “kata” game challenges, CodinGame and CodeSignal are interview prep tools that turn software practice problems into games. This “gamied” approach makes the prep process extra engaging, taking on more of an arcade-style than Codewars’ fairly realistic challenges.
- Similar to Codewars’ kata challenges in more than just name, CodeKata hosts technical challenges based on real problems software engineers encounter on the job, mimicking specific requests from marketing or sales teams. Their program is completely free.
- If you are looking to participate in mock interviews with software engineers at top tech companies, you should check out Interviewing.io. Learn more about Interviewing.io in our review.
- The community-based interview platforms Pramp and Gainlo connect aspiring software engineers to practice mock interviews together.
Students who want a casual, free program can subscribe to Daily Coding Problem. Their newsletter sends subscribers 1 technical interview problem per day with a detailed solution.
How do Coderbyte and Codewars compare to Pathrise?
Coderbyte and Codewars are online platforms that help aspiring software engineers prepare for technical interviews. While both programs host coding challenges for extra practice, Coderbyte also offers short courses, video solutions, interview kits for top tech companies, and even opportunities for mock interviews.
While Pathrise also puts a great deal of focus on technical interview preparation through workshops, pair programming, and 1-on-1 sessions, we are a full service organization that helps with all phases of the job search. Our experienced mentors work 1-on-1 with fellows on resume optimization, cold emailing, behavioral interviewing, and salary negotiation as well. Fellows in the
Pathrise is a career accelerator that helps students and professionals land their dream job in tech. Our experienced mentors have already helped 800+ people land great tech jobs.
Fellows in our program can see their interview scores double and their application responses triple, landing their dream job much faster. If you are interested in working 1-on-1 with any of our mentors to optimize your job search, become a Pathrise fellow.
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