Pluralsight Review: Top 10 Benefits Of Taking Its Courses [2023]

pluralsight review

You might be looking for a Pluralsight review to understand the benefits of its courses and certifications. You might be wondering if this eLearning platform is right for your learning needs or not.

I have written this article after carefully analyzing Pluralsight.  I have examined its features, assessed its offerings, and checked its pricing & subscription plans before writing this article. I have written about its advantages and disadvantages at the end of article, which will help you in deciding if it is worthy of your investment.

Pluralsight is an online education platform with 6500+ courses on technology and creative subjects. You will find good quality programs on software programming languages, cyber security, cloud platforms, mobile development, testing, databases, and many other technical subjects at a reasonable price.

I would suggest you to take free trial of Pluralsight before reading this article further. It will help you understand the description of features written in this article.

Pluralsight Review

About Pluralsight

Pluralsight was started in April 2004 as a classroom training platform. It was founded by Aaron Skonnard, Fritz Onion, Keith Brown, and Bill Williams.

Pluralsight published its first online course in May 2006. In order to reach more learners, the company was completely transformed into an online learning platform by the January 2010. Today, it has more than 6500+ online programs.

Pluralsight is headquartered Utah, USA. It has grown rapidly since its inception. It has won many accolades and awards, acquired a few companies and raised multiple rounds of funding to become what it is today. In May 2015, it became a public company and listed its stock on NASDAQ.

Today, Pluralsight has 1500+ expert authors and 1400+ employees. It is trusted by 70% of the Fortune 500 companies and thousands of individuals. You can read about its quick timeline here and history here.

LMS

Pluralsight is a online education platform for learning technology courses. It’s not a typical Learning Management System (LMS ), which can host any online course. It is a custom platform made by Pluralsight to host its own courses. It includes videos, quizzes, courses, learning paths, and assessments.

Pluralsight supports integration with third party LMS systems depending upon their integration capabilities. Pluralsight could be a good option if you integrate your LMS system with Pluralsight. It provides the option to track your growth and much more.

Courses

Pluralsight offers technology and creative courses for IT administrators, software programmers, database professionals, designers, and security professionals. These courses are grouped under different categories.

Pluralsight Category

Different courses are made for different skill levels. You will find courses for students at different levels of their knowledge – beginner, intermediate and advanced.

The course videos come with text transcripts. You can read the transcripts if you prefer reading over watching videos.

There are thousands of courses on the offer. You can opt for any course after taking Pluralsight’s subscription.

Subscription and Cost

Pluralsight works on a subscription model. You can buy either monthly or annual subscription. You can enroll into any of its courses after taking the subscription i.e. you just need to pay once and you will get access to all the courses available on Pluralsight’s platform. You don’t need to pay for each course separately.

Pluralsight offers different subscription plans for individuals and businesses. The cost of subscription changes with the geographic region and the type of plan. The price ranges from $19 per month to $299 per year for personal plans and it ranges from $499 to $699 per year for business plans. You check the prices of different plans in your country by going to Pluralsight’s website.

The cost of each plan depends on what features it provides and what needs it caters to.

You can read my other article to understand how much will Pluralsight cost you.

Skill IQ

Now that you know Pluralsight provides thousands of courses at a reasonable cost, you might be wondering which ones should you take. You cannot possibly take all the courses.

Pluralsight provides the answer. You can take their Skill IQ assessment to gauge your proficiency level in a subject. It will give you a score between 0-300 and tell you your proficiency level, which could be one of novice, proficient and expert.

Pluralsight path

Based on your assessment, you can take courses that appropriate for your expertise. If you are a beginner, you can opt for a learning path.

Learning Paths

The learning paths are designed to give you complete knowledge of a subject. A path has a sequence of courses catering to novice, proficient, and expert levels.

If you don’t know where and how to start a course, you can take the Sill IQ assessment to find your level and then take courses according to your expertise. This way you can skip the things that you already know and focus only on higher level courses. It can save you a lot of time.

You should look at my article on top courses on Pluralsight before opting for a course or a learning path.

Instructors

What make a course great – learning platform or a course author?

I believe, a course author is instrumental in making a great course. A learning platform like Pluralsight can provide support for creating and hosting a course but it cannot make a great course by itself. Just remember your school days when a good teacher made even a boring subject very interesting.

Pluralsight course authors are experts in their respective fields. Pluralsight hires instructors who have good educational background and experience. Its selection criteria is very strict. The instructors provide excellent quality content.

Pluralsight author

Practical Exercises

Learning a new technology need two things viz. understanding theory and doing some practical work. You can learn theoretical aspects of a technology by watching videos and/or reading transcripts. Pluralsight gives you an option to learn practical aspects by doing exercises.

The course authors provide exercise material as part of the course. It may include some .pdf slides, notes, source code, and other useful material.

Learning Checks

The course videos and exercises are good for gaining new knowledge but you need something more to validate what you have learned. Pluralsight has inbuilt learning checks, which can be used for self-assessment.

Learning checks comprise of short quizzes having of 6-12 questions. The quizzes are based on the course material. They can be taken at any time and as many times as you would like.

Learning checks do not have a time limit and are not scored. They are just meant for you to gauge if you have gained a good understanding of the course topics.

Course Completion Certificates

There are hundreds of websites where you can learn programing and other technical subjects but at the end of the day a certificate is required to showcase your knowledge. A certificate is sometimes essential for getting a promotion or finding jobs.

Pluralsight gives a certificate after completion of a program. You can download the certificate after taking course end quizzes and put it on your resume. The certificate will not only give you a credential to prove your knowledge but can also give you an edge in the job market.

Pluralsight CertificatePluralsight focuses only on technology and it has created a good brand around technical subjects. Its certificates are globally recognized and well respected in the industry. They can become a useful tool for enhancing your career .

You can also read my other article on are Pluralsight certificates for career to understand its value.

Channels

It is hard to remember all the things after you have gone through a course. You might need to refer back to a few things.

What will happen if you have already taken a few courses? Or if you intend to go through all the courses from 2-3 learning paths (some of the paths have more than ten courses)?

The amount of content can become mind boggling. Pluralsight channels comes to rescue. The channels help you to organize content. You can make your own channels and add content to them. The content could include entire course or certain specific modules. It is like making your own playlist and playing it as required.

Community Forums

At times, you would need support to overcome your doubts while learning about a new technology. You may get stuck somewhere or you might have some questions. At these times, support from your peer group can accelerate your learning and help you in understanding a subject completely.

Pluralsight offers community and peer group support through discussion boards. All Pluralsight courses and projects have a discussion board. They allow you to give feedback, participate in discussions, and post your queries.

Pluralsight_forum

I will recommend you to actively participate in the discussion boards. The discussions will certainly help you to clear your doubts. In addition, you might learn new things by reading what other people are saying. You can also help your peers by answering  their questions.

You can also send a mail to Pluralsight support ([email protected]) in case you don’t get answer to your questions. They work 24/7.

Downloadable App

There are times when you are idle but you are not in front of your computer e.g. when you are of waiting for a Doctor, traveling in a metro, sitting alone in a cafeteria. You can use these times productively to study and learn new things. Many online learning platforms do not offer a mobile app but Pluralsight has an excellent app for offline study.

You can use Pluralsight’s app to download and study course study material. It is extremely useful when you have poor mobile network coverage or when you do not want to carry your laptop around.

You can use Pluralsight’s app on Windows, Android, and iOS devices. In fact, Pluralsight also offers a player for Apple TV. For more information, you can look my article on downloading Pluralsight course videos.

Pluralsight Apps

Top Benefits of Pluralsight

1. One Subscription, Unlimited Access

You can access complete portfolio of Pluralsight with just one subscription. You can learn as much as you want from thousands of courses since you don’t need to pay for each course separately.

Secondly, you can view the courses as many times as you want. There is no limitation on the number of views.

Pluralsight is completely focused on technology. You can learn complementary technologies like cloud development, databases, and mobile application by taking a single subscription. You do not not need to go anywhere else.

2. Gain Complete Knowledge Through Learning Paths

In today’s competitive world, you should have thorough knowledge about a subject. You can gain complete knowledge by using Pluralsight learning paths. You can go from a novice to expert in a short period time by going through the whole sequence of courses in a path.

3. Great for Career

Nowadays, employers look for knowledge about latest technologies. They also look for professional credentials in resumes.

Pluralsight helps you on both counts. It provides access to courses on latest technologies and certificates of completion for each course. If you want, you can also get professional certificates like PMP, CompTIA and many more.

4. Good Quality Courses from Industry Experts

You can expect thorough and in-depth courses from Pluralsight. Pluralsight maintains a strict control over its course curriculum and content. It does it by following two distinct approaches:

  • All courses on Pluralsight are created by industry experts and good teachers. The instructors explain the topics in a very simple and easy manner.
  • There is a thorough review process before a new course is published and released for public consumption. Courses are regularly updated based on students’ feedback.

5. Reliable Student Support

Each course has a discussion board where students interact and ask questions. The questions are answered by the community of other students. In case you don’t get an answer from the community, you can also send a mail to Pluralsight support ([email protected]).

6. Learn Practical Aspects

You cannot learn a technology without working on code files and scripts. Pluralsight provides downloadable exercise files to give you a complete orientation of technology.

7. Validate your Knowledge

Pluralsight provides an option to assess and gauge your knowledge through small quizzes and learning checks. It can be useful before you for job interviews.

8. Learn Anywhere and at Anytime

You can use Pluralsight’s mobile app to download course videos and learn offline. This way you can learn when there is downtime or when you are traveling. You can watch the videos even if there is no network coverage.

9. Try Free before you Buy

You can try Pluralsight course free for 10 days before investing. This way you will get to know the features of the platform and quality of its courses.

10. Affordable Fee

Pluralsight’s subscriptions fee is very low. It start as low as $19 per month in certain geographic areas, which is less than $1 a day. A coffee costs more than that.

Disadvantages Of Pluralsight

With all the positive side of the platform, there are also some negative ones as well.

1. Requires Self-discipline

Pluralsight is an online learning platform. You will need self-discipline to gain knowledge from its programs.

2. No Refund Policy

Pluralsight does not have a refund policy. Once you have paid the subscription fee, you will have to retain the membership till the expiry of subscription period. Your fee will be forfeited even if you cancel your subscription.

3. No Accredition

Plurlsight is not accredited with a College or university. It has its own certification and does not provide any diploma or degree programs.

Final Thoughts

Pluralsight is one of the best online education providers. Its positives outweigh the negatives. You get unlimited access to all the programs under a single subscription at a very low cost.

We are in a rapidly changing technological world where programmers, designers, security analysts and other professionals are in great demand. Pluralsight only focuses on technology programs. Its has premium quality programs that can help you finding a job in technology industry.

Every technology professional, whether she/he is a novice or an expert can benefit from Pluralsight. I would recommend you invest in one of its subscription plans. You can start by taking its its free trial to evaluate its courses and features.

Over To You

Let me know your take on Pluralsight. What are some of the good features of this online learning platform? What are some of the other features you would have liked? Do you think it is reasonably priced?

I would love to hear your opinion.

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