Pluralsight Review: Is This Tech-Focused Platform for You?

Pluralsight is an e-learning platform that focuses more on technology-related topics. Although many businesses use the platform to upskill their workforces, Pluralsight is also a great choice for individuals looking to learn new skills to improve their careers. Students of this platform learn from high-quality courses produced in-house.

At-a-glance:

• Pluralsight is a platform with over 7,000 courses on various topics within the technology sphere.
• Some free courses are available (and five free that change every month) for learners who first want to try the platform.
• The platform serves individuals and businesses who want to learn and upskill.
• Paid plans are affordable for individuals, starting at $29 per month.
• Pluralsight offers unparalleled accessibility, with closed captioning and full transcripts available in more than fifty languages.

So, is Pluralsight worth it? 

This full and comprehensive Pluralsight review will discuss everything you need to know to determine whether this platform is the right one for you. Just how good is Pluralsight, exactly? And what does Pluralsight do? Read on to find out!

What is Pluralsight?

If you’re here, you might wonder: what does Pluralsight do?

Well, Pluralsight is an online learning platform. It started in 2004 as a company that sent instructors to help train businesses, but in 2007 it shifted to online video courses. Pluralsight’s courses focus on technology-related topics, with ten categories available.

Pluralsight is a unique platform with features included but not limited to:

• Mobile apps (iOS and Android)
• Offline mode availability
• Course discussions on every course
• Hands-on exercises and projects (for Premium plan subscribers)
• Certificates of completion
• Quizzes and tests
• Skill IQ and Role IQ
• Full course transcripts and closed captioning in 50+ languages

Pluralsight has over 7000 courses available in its expanded library, with the courses organized into novice, proficient, and expert levels. Students can choose from individual courses or paths. Paths combine tools and courses into a single guided experience that can teach students specific skills from beginning to end.

Is Pluralsight Legit?

Headquartered in Utah, Pluralsight is 100% legitimate. The platform started in 2004 as a training company helping businesses with in-person training events. In 2007, Pluralsight shifted into providing online training focused on providing video courses on tech-related topics.

Is Pluralsight Recognized and Accredited?

Pluralsight is not an accredited institution. However, employers recognize many certificates from the platform thanks to its high course quality.

If you’d rather learn from a platform that offers accredited certification, you can try Coursera.

Check out our review here.

Who Should Use Pluralsight?

Pluralsight is a platform perfect for anyone who wants to learn new tech-related skills and knowledge. Individuals and businesses seeking to upskill their workforces are welcome here.

Pluralsight has content available for novice, intermediate, and advanced learners, so there is something here for everyone. However, it’s worth mentioning that many past subscribers state that the content (even the ones for beginners) is targeted more toward learners who already have some experience and knowledge.

If you’re looking to earn a professional certification (ITIL®, CompTIA, PMP®, etc) and you want some guided prep and some practice exams, Pluralsight is an excellent choice for you. If you’re already certified, it’s worth knowing that Pluralsight’s certifications count toward CEU (continuing education units) credits.

How Does Pluralsight Work?

Pluralsight is an online learning platform where you can learn tech-related skills. The platform offers its courses in video format (with videos produced in-house to guarantee quality). Signing up for the platform is extremely easy, although you’ll need a payment method handy if you want to start the 10-day (or 200 learning minute) free trial.

Once you’re registered on the platform, you get access to the courses. The level of access you get depends on the subscription you choose. Note that if you’d like to download your courses and course material, you’ll need to be a paying subscriber.

If you want to be able to access projects, professional certification practice exams, and interactive courses, you’ll need a premium subscription.

How to Open a Pluralsight Account

Getting started on Pluralsight is straightforward and intuitive. Follow the steps below to create your account:

• Visit the Pluralsight website and click TRY FOR FREE.

• Choose which plan you’d like to try for free for ten days (or 200 minutes). Select whether you would like to pay monthly or yearly (you will not be charged).

• Fill in your account details.
• Pluralsight will ask you to enter your payment method details. Don’t worry, you will not be charged until your free trial ends. If you don’t want to continue your plan, don’t forget to cancel or you will be charged. Pluralsight does not offer refunds.
• Review your details and confirm your account.

The Pros and Cons of Pluralsight

Should you choose Pluralsight for your learning purposes? These pros and cons might help with your decision:

How Much are Pluralsight Courses?

Here’s what you need to know about the Pluralsight cost per month:

Pluralsight offers a free trial lasting ten days or 200 learning minutes. The free trial ends when you reach either one of the limits.

Pluralsight offers a ten-member team trial for its professional plan and a trial available by request for its enterprise plan.

Does Pluralsight Offer Free Courses?

Yes — you can access a limited number of free courses with the free Pluralsight account. Additionally, the platform offers five free courses that change every month.

What Kinds of Courses are Available on Pluralsight?

Pluralsight’s courses all revolve around technology-related topics. You can certainly find coding content as well, but they’ll be specific to one of these ten categories: 

• Software Development
• Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence
• Cloud Computing
• IT Ops
• Business Professional
• Architecture and Construction
• Data Professional
• Information and Cyber Security
• Creative Professional
• Manufacturing and Design

You can also learn through paths, which can be around three to fifteen courses long (some paths have even more). Paths combine various courses to give you a linear curriculum for learning a specific skill.

How to Find the Best Pluralsight Courses

Here’s what you can do to find the best Pluralsight courses for you:

• Use the platform’s search function and take advantage of the search filters.
• Sign up for the ten-day (200-minute) free trial, which allows you to see all the courses and take skill assessments.
• Sign up for a free account to access 50+ courses, guides, and assessments. You also get to use the Role IQ and Skill IQ features.
• Check out the free monthly courses. Five are available each month.

• Look at a course’s contributing authors to determine their qualifications and why you would want to learn from them.

• Check out the Pluralsight resource center.

One of the best ways to figure out which courses are right for you is by using the Skill IQ and Role IQ features.

• Skill IQ takes ten minutes to complete. It is a twenty-item questionnaire designed to help determine your proficiency in a certain skill. Upon completion, you get graded from 0 to 300, and your skill level is classified into one of three levels — novice (1), proficient (2), or expert (3).

• Role IQ is similar to Skill IQ, except it measures your proficiency in skills relevant to your chosen role. Once complete, you’ll also be classified into levels 1, 2, or 3. From here, you can better understand your weaknesses to inform your learning focus.

Skill IQ and Role IQ are excellent for helping you decide on a path to follow.

Best Pluralsight Programs

There are literally thousands of high-quality courses on Pluralsight, but we’ve listed some of the best and most popular below.

Paths

• Java Language Fundamentals is an excellent path combining 21 courses with over fifty hours of video material. This path takes students through Java syntax, Java fundamentals, Java collections, and so much more. No prior experience is necessary.

• Fundamentals of Virtualization is a path combining five courses totaling six hours of studying. The path shows students why visualization is necessary for companies, how to virtualize servers, how to test and then deploy the server visualization, and much more.

• Google Cloud Certified Associate Cloud Engineer is a path combining six courses totaling seventeen hours of learning. Here, students learn Compute Engine, Google App Engine, Data Storage Services, and more. Students of this path must have previous knowledge and at least six months of experience working with Google Cloud.

Courses

• Creating Apps with Angular JS, Node, and Token Authentication is an intermediate course that takes students through a practical/hands-on experience learning how to allow app users to authenticate their accounts with Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other 3rd-party Auth providers.

• Fundamentals of Cloud Computing is a novice-friendly course that teaches students different types of cloud computing, why they are helpful, and why they are so powerful. This is a short course lasting only two hours.
• Cloud Computing: The Big Picture is an hour-long course even beginners can take. It provides an excellent intro to everything you need to know about cloud computing.

Our Pluralsight Review: In Summary

Want our Pluralsight review summarized? Based on different criteria, here’s what we think:

• User-friendliness: 5/5 - Many Pluralsight reviewers find learning on the platform incredibly easy and intuitive. The user interface is simple yet sleek and clean, and the high contrast colors make it easier to stay focused on the important content.

• Convenience: 4/5 - Getting started on Pluralsight is extremely simple, with the only caveat being you need a credit card, debit card, or PayPal account to start the 10-day all-access free trial. Courses and learning material won’t be available for download unless you are a paying member.

• Accessibility: 5/5 - Pluralsight is available on various platforms, including mobile (Android and iOS) and desktop (or laptop). However, one of the best things about Pluralsight is that the platform makes closed captions and full transcripts available for every single one of its courses. Not only that, captioning and transcripts are available in 50+ languages.

• Affordability: 5/5 - Compared to other learning platforms, Pluralsight is quite affordable. With its monthly subscriptions starting at $29 per month, more people have access to the ability to learn and potentially further their careers.

• Certification: 4.5/5 - Paying students who finish their courses can earn a certificate of completion. Although unaccredited (and unusable for college credit), these certificates are generally recognized — especially as continuing education units (CEU) or continuing professional education (CPE) credits to PMI, CompTIA, (ISC)2, and ISACA. Note that only certain courses award certificates – you cannot earn them for projects and interactive courses.

• Catalog: 4/5 - Pluralsight has found its niche in technology, which is why a vast majority of its catalog focuses on this topic. However, the platform has ten categories that can help you learn specific skills.

• Course quality: 5/5 - The video-based courses on Pluralsight are nine to fifty hours long. They combine multiple tools and video courses to teach you the skills you want to learn. The platform is very stringent in its quality checking, and you can rest assured the videos are of good quality as they are produced and filmed in-house.

• Course curricula/structure: 5/5 - All courses on Pluralsight are self-paced, so you don’t ever have to worry about missing anything important. Standard (individual) subscriptions give you access to video courses, while premium (individual) subscriptions allow you to do projects, interactive courses, and practice exams to help you with your future certifications.

• User support: 5/5 - Pluralsight has an email you can contact 24/7 for support (support@pluralsight.com) and a phone number you can call from Monday to Friday from 8 AM to 5 PM, timezone GMT-7. You can also submit a ticket at any time, although Pluralsight encourages you to access their help center (knowledge base) to first check for answers there.

• Payment methods: 5/5 - If you want to buy an individual subscription, Pluralsight accepts PayPal or credit and debit cards (Visa, American Express, Mastercard, and Discover). Note that you can only use American Express if your payment is in USD. Pluralsight allows payment in USD, GBP, EUR, and INR.
• Refund policy: 0/5 - Pluralsight does not accept refunds. You can cancel your subscription (you won’t be charged for the next billing cycle) and get continued access to the end of your paid cycle.

Final Verdict and Rating

Is Pluralsight good? There’s no doubt that Pluralsight is an excellent platform providing great courses that can help you learn the skills you need to help further your career. In our opinion, this platform provides a great mix of affordability, accessibility, and unique features (Role IQ, Skill IQ) that sets it apart from the rest.

Perhaps our only real complaint about Pluralsight is that even courses for beginners aren’t quite for beginners – they’re geared towards those who already have some knowledge or experience. Other than that, we highly recommend checking Pluralsight out.

So how good is Pluralsight? For us, it’s an excellent 4.75/5 stars. Pluralsight has mastered its technology niche and as such has optimized all of its content and learning experiences to provide the best possible education to its students.

Alternatives to Pluralsight

If you aren’t sold on Pluralsight, there are a few other platforms you can look at that might be more suitable for you.

• Udemy is one of today’s biggest online learning platforms. The platform’s almost 200,000 courses cover all sorts of topics, which means the chances of you finding something you want to learn are pretty high. Courses frequently go on deep discounts, and purchasing them grants you lifetime access.
• Coursera is another platform with a subscription price model (though there are also some courses you can purchase individually). Coursera partners with many educational institutions to create its courses. There are even some full-on bachelor’s and master’s degrees you can earn here.
• LinkedIn Learning has over 16,000 courses, all created by experts in their respective fields. You can choose to sign up for a subscription or pay for courses individually (if the option is available for that specific course). Many courses on this platform have quizzes and projects to help cement your learning.

Conclusion

Learning on Pluralsight is an immersive experience that is affordable and accessible to many, thanks to closed captioning and full transcripts available in 50+ languages. Its unique features are unrivaled and can help you determine the right path toward learning the skills you want to help improve your career.

We hope this Pluralsight review has helped you decide whether to give the platform a try.

If you’d rather try a platform where learning is easier for beginners, consider Udacity or Udemy. 

Check out our Udacity review

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is Pluralsight Worth it for Beginners?

Pluralsight has plenty of courses for those who are complete beginners in any topic they want to learn. With Pluralsight’s Skill IQ and Role IQ features, it becomes even easier to determine what path to take to learn a specific skill that can help advance your career. Do note that past users have mentioned that courses seem geared more towards those with at least some knowledge or experience in the field, so consider that as you make your decision.

2. Is Pluralsight Free?

Unfortunately, you need to be a paying subscriber if you’d like to enjoy most of Pluralsight’s features and courses. However, there is indeed a small library of courses for those with a free Pluralsight account. Additionally, you can access Pluralsight’s five free courses, which change every month. Remember that many features are locked behind a paywall, such as certificates and downloadable course material. 

3. Does Pluralsight Have Exercises?

Yes, Pluralsight does have exercises available. However, to take advantage of them you have to be at least a premium level subscriber. Premium subscribers can access projects, certification practice exams, and interactive courses.

4. How Long is Pluralsight’s Trial?

You can enjoy Pluralsight’s all-access free trial for ten days or 200 minutes spent learning — whichever one you reach first. After you reach your limit, you will have to pay for a subscription for continued access.

5. Is Pluralsight Premium Worth It?

If you would really like to get the most out of your learning on Pluralsight, a premium subscription is worth it. You can access certification practice exams, interactive courses, and projects that can solidify your learning experience.