Pluralsight vs Udemy vs Zero To Mastery: Comparison Guide

So you’re looking for the best platform to learn to code, and you’re not sure which to choose:

• A: Pluralsight with its huge course catalogue

• B: Or Udemy with its cheap courses

Well, by the end of this Pluralsight vs Udemy guide, you'll know exactly which one is the better choice. We'll weigh the pros and cons of each, the pricing, and the unique features that they have (and the ones they're missing).

I'm also going to show you a 3rd option that you might not have heard of... Zero To Mastery, which you'll see is better than both Udemy and Pluralsight.

I’ll show you exactly how all 3 options compare so you can choose for yourself. But since you're reading this on the Zero To Mastery blog, there's obviously some inherent bias, but I guarantee I won't BS you. I'll call out issues and downsides with all 3 platforms, ZTM included.

Still don't believe me? Then go read some unfiltered reviews for yourself on the TrustPilot page for each (for better or worse, TrustPilot doesn't let any reviews be edited or deleted):

1. Pluralsight Trustpilot Reviews = 1.4... ouch!

2. Udemy Trustpilot Reviews = 1.7... better-ish?

3. Coursera Trustpilot Reviews = 1.5... there's a theme here 🤔

4. Codecademy Trustpilot Reviews = 2.7... wow!

5. Zero To Mastery Trustpilot Reviews = 4.9... we ain't perfect but we're trying our best over here!

I threw in Codecademy and Coursera as well, since those are typically other options people consider as well. Don't shoot the messenger. I'm not looking to bash anyone here, just providing the facts.

Mile-High Comparison

Before we get into the full breakdown, here's a quick side-by-side comparison for the skimmers in the audience.

Alright, let's get into each of these.

Pluralsight: Detailed Breakdown

Pluralsight is a huge training platform with over 6,500 tech-focused courses! Obviously, this means you’re going to find pretty much anything you want.

For example

A quick search for Python shows 277 courses alone!

Of course, not every course is a deep dive into a topic for 10 hours. Some are just an hour or so to cover one area or even just one task:

However, with so many options, it can definitely be confusing to know what to pick.

For example

There are multiple courses seemingly teaching the same thing:

• Python Foundations

• Python Fundamentals

• Python Essentials

Confusing right?

It does get a little easier to choose the right option when you check out their roadmap options, as these are a series of complementary courses.

They have actionable projects that you can work on and build.

Learning by building is super important. We're firm believers that this is really the only way you're truly going to learn to code or learn any skill, really (you'd be amazed at how many platforms don’t have projects or focus on this).

Here at ZTM, we've put our learning philosophy into 10 key pillars... #4 is deliberate practice.

Are the courses up to date?

It can vary. The 'core' larger topics do seem to be updated regularly, but then there are other courses that haven't been updated since 2020.

This could be for a few reasons:

• The topic was popular at a time in the past and isn't really relevant anymore, so there's no point in updating it. (If that's the case, we would simply remove the course because it confuses people, but then they can't boast about having 6,500 courses)

• The topic hasn’t really changed much, so no update is needed (to be honest, this is highly unlikely in the tech industry, where things are constantly changing, but I guess it's possible if it's a super short course on a niche topic)

• It’s hard to keep 6,500 courses up to date!

Can they help you get hired?

The tech industry is unique to almost any other job, in that they hire people without a degree - just as long as that person has proof that they have the skills to do the work. This is done via portfolios and technical exam questions during the interview. 

Because of this, it can be a little difficult to get hired at first, simply because the process has more steps and nuance. So ideally, you want a platform to not only teach you tech skills, but also to have some focus on helping you get hired.

Unfortunately, Pluralsight doesn’t have any training around getting hired and passing the tech interview, although they do have a few blog posts around various job-related topics for different roles:

However, they do offer a feature that’s not strictly designed to help you get hired as such (although it may help).

It’s nothing to do with tech interviews or anything like that. It's a way to track certifications in your industry:

If you don’t know, some areas in tech offer user certification exams to prove that you fully understand a tool or are up to date on a topic.

CompTIA+ is a cybersecurity one, while Amazon has its own AWS practitioner exams, etc.

This tool helps you to see the certificates available so you can plan ahead and get them done. Which, in a roundabout way, may help when you apply for roles. However, you would still need to then pass the tech interview itself.

Either way, it's a great idea!

Pricing

As for the pricing, it’s a little complicated. 

Basically, you have 3 tiers (with further discounts if you pay for a year in advance):

• ‘Core tech’ is $30 a month and gives you access to 3,900 courses (of the 6,500 total)

• Then you have specializations at $35 a month (which also includes the core tech training). So if you want to learn AI, data, cybersecurity, or Cloud, then you need to be on this price point. That being said, I’m fairly certain you only have access to the one you choose + the core lessons

• Finally, you have the ‘complete’ tier, which is access to every course at $55 a month

Honestly, it would probably be easier for them to just offer the $55 a month as the single price point.

Is there a community?

Learning a new skill can be incredibly hard. You might be super motivated, but that motivation can dip over time. 

That’s why communities are so vital, because they help you get past problems, but also lower the chances that you will quit. Especially if you join with other members on the same course, and keep each other accountable.

Unfortunately, Pluralsight doesn't offer a community. In fairness, with 6,500 courses and likely millions of users, it would be hard to manage one.

You could always find other communities online and join them, but you might struggle to find people learning the same things. 

Is there support? 

It seems that Pluralsight has recently moved its support towards an AI chatbot that has had some teething issues:

Although not a ‘core’ feature that you look for, it would be incredibly frustrating if you’re having an account issue. 

Apparently, you can get through to support tickets, but even those can be hit and miss:

On the subject of reviews, let’s take a look at their TrustPilot score.

Reviews + TrustPilot score

At the time of writing, Pluralsight is currently sitting at 1.3 out of 5 stars on TrustPilot.

In all fairness to them, that’s out of a total of 920 reviews, and unfortunately, people do prefer to post reviews when having a bad experience.

However, scrolling through them, I see their last positive review was 4 months ago. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

They seem to have recently acquired another training platform, and members of that other platform are not happy with the changes. So it seems like they’re getting review bombed related to that.

However, they also seem to have a few issues with removing lifetime access that had been purchased previously:

That's definitely not cool!

Like I say, though, definitely check out the reviews for yourself, as things can change and the details and reasons people are unhappy matter.

TL;DR

As you can see, there are a few great things and a few hiccups with Pluralsight.

Pros

• $55 is fairly cheap, even on their premium membership. Most dedicated tech platforms are around this or more expensive

• High-quality content

• High-level teachers and expertise

Cons

• A HUGE volume of courses can be overwhelming. Although in fairness, most of them cover a core specific topic vs multiple variations of the same topic that you’ll find in Udemy

• Many courses haven't been updated in a long time (I've noticed some from back in 2020). Given how fast the industry changes, this is a HUGE red flag when learning programming and other tech skills

• No dedicated community, but they do have a questions section via Disqus on each course (we've found here at ZTM that these don't end up providing personalized support and rarely address specific problems you'll run into)

• That pricing is overly complex. I need a lie down after figuring out how it all worked!

• No lifetime offer (at least, not anymore)

Udemy: Detailed Breakdown

Udemy is an e-learning platform with millions of users. Thanks in part to its discounted pricing schemes.

It’s not a dedicated ‘tech training' platform, but it does feature a lot of tech courses.

This can be viewed as good or bad. It's awesome to know you can find a course on pretty much any topic, but it can also be extremely overwhelming.

For example

When we search for Python courses, there are 27 on the first page. And then a whopping 417 pages of Python course results!

That’s 11,259 Python courses alone, with the majority of them on the exact same topic. In fact, of the 27 Python courses on page 1 of their results, 25 of them are focused on teaching Python to Beginners.

That's even more overwhelming!

Which do you pick? 

• The newest one?

• The one with the most reviews?

• Or just freak out and not pick any of them?

My best advice is to look for courses that are up to date, and then filter down from there. 

I did see some courses were updated in the last month, so that’s good. However, BE CAREFUL. This last updated field can be easily gamed by instructors, as we mentioned in our detailed Udemy review post.

Since Udemy operates purely as a marketplace where literally anyone can post a course (it’s why they have millions of them), this does lead to a few issues:

1. There’s no real quality control. Since anyone can make a course on anything, it's impossible for Udemy to actually review courses themselves. This leads to a lot of terrible courses (but also some incredible ones too, don't get me wrong!). On marketplaces, this is generally solved by ratings, but...

2. The ratings can be ‘gamified’ and are an imperfect system. Once a course gets a lot of sales and 5-star reviews, Udemy's marketing machine tends to continually promote that course, leading to more sales. Usually, one of the FIRST courses on a topic will end up being the most promoted and highest reviewed for a long time, regardless of whether it's actually been updated or is actually the best course

3. Speaking of updates. Udemy doesn't keep track of whether a course is actually updated. It uses an automated system. An instructor can just edit a text file to make the ‘last updated’ criteria trigger. (Such as tweaking a sentence and hitting save). So I recommend reading recent reviews and looking at the curriculum of similar courses from other learning platforms to make sure the Udemy course you're looking at is truly up-to-date

4. Stock Price & Revenue = #1. Udemy is a public company and for a few years now has been priortizing Enterprise customers over individuals (that's where the big money is) and has continually lowered the percentage that instructors earn per sale (makes them more money = stock price goes up) which has resulted in many instructors less incentivized and motivated to update their courses or answer student questions like they used to in the good old days

That being said, there are still some great courses on there at insanely low prices. Just be aware of these things and do lots of research, and read recent reviews before making a decision.

They also recently released roadmaps to certain careers called ‘Career Accelerators’:

Just like with our career paths or with Pluralsight's learning paths, these cover a series of courses to help you learn the core elements of a role (although I’m not sure AI art generation is a growing requirement in UX design, it's probably a good skill to have knowledge of).

Can they help you get hired?

They can!

Again though, they have 5,472 courses on how to pass the tech interview, including different specialties and programming languages, as well as different stages of the interview.

Gah!

However, some of the Career Accelerators do have specific recommended classes around getting hired based on that role (i.e. they cover JavaScript questions in the Web Dev Career Accelerator).

Pricing

This is where Udemy shines because almost all courses are constantly on some kind of deal, so you can absolutely grab a bargain.

Course prices will vary depending on what offers are live and based on your location (maybe try a VPN to see if you can get lower prices from elsewhere... try an IP in India 😉), but you’re typically looking at anywhere from $10 to $100 for some courses for lifetime access.

If it's going to cost you more than that, go find a deal or wait a couple of days for the same course to be 80% OFF.

They also have a membership pricing option at $12 a month, where you get access to a wide range of courses (but not all of them, because some instructors have opted out of being included).

It's a pretty reasonable price, but given most people probably only ever need 3-15 courses, you might as well just spend $20 per course when you need it.

Is there a community?

No. There’s no community at Udemy, which is understandable given their size. Some instructors may offer this as part of their course, but this is becoming less common because instructors are making less money, which means they can't justify the time investment.

I know I keep going on about the importance of these, but you will struggle to work through the content without a support network.

In fact, there’s a common issue in tech called ‘Tutorial Hell’. It sounds ominous, but basically, it's a common problem where you’re self-taught via a platform like this, but you lack any structure or support. 

Everything is fine at first, but what happens is:

• You do X amount of a course

• Stop 

• Come back 

• Get bored

• Choose something else to learn 

• Etc

You end up bouncing around between topics (sometimes for years), learning unrelated things and not what you need to know to actually get hired.

It's a really common problem.

In fact, we get a lot of students who start on free or cheap platforms like Udemy (or YouTube or FreeCodeCamp) and then come switch to Zero To Mastery because we have that structure and support. Some of them struggle for years on topics, and then within months of learning with us and being part of our Discord community, they’re building their own projects and getting hired.

It’s a night-and-day difference in what a community can do for you and how fast it can accelerate your career.

Is there support?

Yes, but it can be hit and miss. Just like with Pluralsight, they’re victim of their size and how many customers they have.

You can’t keep everyone happy. However, it does seem to be a pretty big trend with their reviews.

Speaking of which…

Reviews + TrustPilot score

Right now, Udemy is currently sitting at a 1.7 out of 5 across 1,718 reviews:

Again, with millions of members, you're bound to get some negative feedback. But considering 50% of their reviews are 1 star, you'd think they'd try and do more to resolve some of the issues and complaints people have. Or at least responding to some of the reviews.

To put that into perspective, that's a higher segment than any of their other star ratings.

That said, they have had 5-star reviews in the past 2 months, so that’s a good indicator that not everyone is having a bad experience. Although users are frustrated with some of the billing issues and refunds (if you watch more than X of a course, you void the 30-day refund window, apparently).

Again, don’t just listen to me.

Check out the reviews for yourself of the course(s) you're considering.

TL;DR

It can't be said enough that Udemy is the best option if price is the most important factor for you. You have to put in more work upfront to find the diamonds in the rough, but when you do, it's incredible value.

Just remember, you do run the risk of ‘getting what you pay for’.

Pros

• A huge database of courses from pretty much every topic you can imagine

• If you spend a lot of upfront time, you can still find some great quality courses for a super low price

Cons

• The sheer volume of courses can be overwhelming and make it hard to figure out what's high-quality vs. not, up-to-date vs. not, etc.

• There’s no community to help with accountability or to answer questions

• Udemy does very little quality control. This means they can’t verify the course content is accurate, and they don’t check or push for course updates.

• Content can be out of date, which can definitely be an issue when coding languages evolve or change versions, and is even more important with LLMs, AI, and AI tools, which are changing and evolving faster than ever

Ultimately, Udemy is a great place to find some high-quality training at a low price, as long as you’re willing to search through the results and maybe buy a handful of courses before you actually find one of the great ones.

But it also lacks some elements that can help you succeed when learning online, such as a community and support. However, if you're someone with a lot of self-discipline and organization, it can be a great place to start your coding journey.

But what if you want more accountability, structure, and systems in place to help you complete and finish your training?

Well, let me tell you about …

Zero To Mastery: Detailed Breakdown

Here at Zero To Mastery, we’re a tech training platform with some slight differences from others out there.

You can read our 10 Learning Commandments to see everything that makes us unique, but we’re incredibly focused on helping you learn fast and getting hired ASAP.

We don’t have the huge course catalogue of other platforms, and we do this on purpose:

• First off, it removes overwhelm and choice fatigue. For example, if you want to learn Cyber Security? We have one expert who teaches it. This means you don’t need to pick through 250 or 10,000 options

• Secondly, this allows us to update our courses regularly - often twice a year or sooner if a major update happens. This means you’re learning everything you need to know

We currently have 37 expert instructors who focus on their specialties, teaching a total of 142+ courses.

These are broken down into:

• Web Development

• A.I. and Machine Learning

• A.I. Development/Building with A.I./Generative A.I.

• Cyber Security

• Cloud

• DevOps

• UI/UX Design

• Business and Data Analysis

• Web 3 and Blockchain

• Life Skills

Each expert works in their field, so they are up to date with all relevant information and requirements.

Not only that, but we design our courses as if we were training up our ideal hire. We cut out all the stuff you don’t need, and give you everything to not only do the job but excel at it - including hands-on projects to create.

In fact, most employers are blown away by the level of our students. Some of them then end up training their departments at their new jobs!

This focus is also how we’ve had students go from zero experience to being hired in as little as 3 months! (Although that was one VERY eager person). The average is around 6 months or so, depending on the industry, what you need to learn, and how much time you can spend.

Either way, you’ll get it done faster here and be confident in your new role.

Can we help you get hired?

100%. Like I say, it's a huge focus for us.

Not only do we build our courses to help with this, we also give project training for your portfolio, as well as teach you how to ace each aspect of the tech interview. From the initial application to the technical questions, behavioral, and more.

Back to course topics again. Each year, we research the most trending areas to work in, and then survey our audience for topics they want to learn.

Then we either create that course or bring in a new expert to the team to get it made.

This is why we not only help people get hired initially, but we also help people get promoted into more Senior roles.

We recently helped someone learn the skills they needed to land a senior position at NVIDIA, while other students are literally writing papers on Deep Learning and speaking at events.

Not bad, right?

We also have career paths and roadmaps to help you learn everything you need to know in order to get hired in a role.

Pricing

We have 4 pricing options, as well as a deal which I GUARANTEE you’ve never seen offered before in the tech space.

So let’s break it down:

• You can purchase some of our courses individually ($99-$499)

• Then we have our monthly membership at only $49 a month

• Or you can join for the year at $299 and save 49% (Working out to $25 a month equivalent)

• We also have a one-time purchase offer for $1,299 that gives you lifetime access to all courses now and in the future

That alone is better than most platforms, but we take it one step further by offering a unique challenge.

This is the deal I mentioned.

Here’s how it works:

If you log in and complete 1 lesson per month, for 30 months straight, you no longer have to pay us and get lifetime access.

That way, we can reward long-term members. More importantly, though, it incentivizes you to keep learning and not quit. Like I said, we’re all about making sure you succeed at this.

It’s why we’ve had people hired at Tesla, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and all other places.

You can check out some of the testimonials here.

They’re super inspirational.

Like I said, we’ve had people hired in 3-6 months, and going from waiters to 6-figure tech salaries.

Is there a community?

Of course there is! 

We have a private Discord community with private channels for each major course/industry.

This way, you can chat with the instructors, other students, create accountability buddies, and ask questions from working tech professionals in your field.

Like I’ve said already - we’re committed to providing things that will help you learn and stick to it. People are often shocked at how supportive and helpful the community is - especially after experiencing other platforms.

(And that’s just a fraction of the happy members we have here).

We also run live events, cohort sprints, private AMA calls, and more. All the benefits of boot camps or in-person events, without the price tag!

Is there support? 

Yep. Hopefully you never need it, but we have a genuine human being there to help reply to any account issues if they happen.

We also have our experts and community support who help pass on any issues and get them sorted ASAP.

No dodgy pricing issues allowed!

Reviews + TrustPilot score

As of the time of writing (Sept 2025), we currently have a TrustPilot score of 4.9 out of 5, with 563 reviews.

You can check them out here for yourself. 

We also have less than 1% of our reviews as negative, and every single one of them has been responded to and resolved within 24 hours.

In the interest of fairness with these other platforms, let’s take a look at those 1-star reviews.

The last one we got was 9 months ago in December 2024. As you can see, a student was annoyed that a course wasn’t up to date.

What had happened was the language had just gone through a major overhaul less than 30 days prior, and the instructor was putting together all the changes so they could update the course, and that takes time, which I think is fair.

It’s been updated multiple times since then also, but for such a sweeping change, it can take a little while to record 43 hours of videos!

Advanced

Complete React Developer in 2025 (w/ Redux, Hooks, GraphQL)

42.5 Hours •380 Lessons

Learn React.js from two industry experts. The only React JS bootcamp course you need to learn React, build large-scale apps from scratch, and get hired as a React Developer. Go from Zero to ReactJS Mastery.

Andrei Neagoie&Yihua Zhang

That said, definitely go read the reviews for yourself so you can decide for yourself if it would be a good fit for you. Or just sign up now and you have 30 days to try it out. If you don't love it, we'll refund you 100% no questions asked. 

TL;DR

If you want to get a job in tech asap, then we believe we have everything in place to help you get there fast.

Everything that we do, we plan the best methods to help you succeed.

Pros

• Reasonable price and variety of pricing options

• Designed to help you get hired asap with zero prior experience

• Thriving, helpful community with actual instructors, mentors, and fellow learners

• Most up-to-date courses of any school we know of

• Lifetime free access on completing the lifetime challenge

Cons

• We don’t offer a free plan, although we have released some introductory courses over on our YouTube channel and we provide the first ~1 hour of most courses for free (no signup or credit card required)... just click any lecture that says "PREVIEW"

For example

Here’s the first 8 hours of our complete Python Developer bootcamp course:

This way, you get an idea of our courses and can get started for free!

So which should you choose? Pluralsight vs Udemy vs Zero To Mastery

Hopefully, this guide has helped you clear up some questions you might have about the best platform for you to learn programming, machine learning, AI, or any other tech skills.

The decision is ultimately yours, as there is no best option for everyone. You need to weigh up your own needs:

• Pluralsight has a large tech course catalogue, but lacks support

• Udemy is cheap but might not be updated, so make sure to do your homework. It also lacks support and has an overwhelming number of courses on the same topic

• Zero To Mastery will help you learn from scratch and get hired ASAP. Everything from the way lessons are structured to the topics we choose to each, and how we teach them, is all focused on helping you become a working tech professional

The key thing, though, is to just make sure you take action and choose one of these platforms today so that you can get started on that new job and skill.

You’ll be surprised how quickly you can get into that 6-figure career.