Review — Is Educative a Good Place to Prepare for Coding Interviews?

Does Educative.io’s Grokking Courses Really worth it for Coding interview preparation?

Hello guys, if you’ve been preparing for coding interviews, you’ve probably come across Educative.io, an interactive learning platform that’s become extremely popular among software engineers and aspiring developers.

Unlike video-based learning, Educative provides text-based, hands-on coding environments that allow you to learn, practice, and test your skills directly in the browser — no setup required.

In this review, we’ll take a closer look at whether Educative is actually worth your time (and money) for technical interview preparation, explore its best-selling courses.

We will also see how it compares to other popular coding interview preparation resources and platforms like like ByteByteGo, DesignGurus.io, Exponent, Codemia.io, Bugfree.ai and Udemy.

Why Educative.io Is Different?

I have tried many platforms in last 10 years, starting from Udemy and Coursera and most of the niche platforms and I come across Educative almost 5 to 6 years back when I was searching for System Design resource for my Google Interview.

That’s where I laned on their classic Grokking the System Design course and since then I fall in love with this platform.

While most online learning platforms focus on video lectures — which can be effective, but often slow and passive. Educative’s biggest advantage is its interactive, text-based learning format.

Instead of watching someone code, you’re the one doing the coding right away in a browser-based environment.

This makes Educative a great choice for engineers preparing for coding interviews, system design rounds, and low-level design challenges where hands-on problem-solving is key.

Additionally, Educative’s team collaborates with real industry engineers — including former FAANG employees — to design courses that mimic actual interview expectations. Their “Grokking” series, for example, has become a gold standard for interview prep.

Here are a few of them which are essential for coding interview prep:

I am going to share more on the next section but these two are the essentials.

8 Best Courses on Educative for Coding Interview Preparation

Here are some of the most popular and highly recommended Educative courses if you’re serious about acing your technical interviews:

1. Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions

This course revolutionized how developers learn to solve LeetCode-style problems. Instead of memorizing solutions, it teaches reusable problem-solving patterns — such as Sliding Window, Two Heaps, and Cyclic Sort — helping you recognize the logic behind questions quickly.

Grokking the Coding Interview Patterns – AI-Powered Course

2. Grokking the Modern System Design Interview

One of Educative’s top-rated courses, this guide is a must-have for senior developers preparing for system design rounds. It breaks down concepts like scalability, consistency, and caching with diagrams, detailed explanations, and interview-ready examples such as designing YouTube, Uber, and Twitter.

Grokking System Design Interview: Patterns & Mock Interviews

3. System Design Deep Dive: Real-World Distributed Systems

This course takes system design beyond interview questions — diving into real-world architectures used at scale. It’s ideal for engineers who want to strengthen their backend and distributed systems knowledge while preparing for interviews at top tech companies.

System Design Deep Dive: Real-World Distributed Systems – AI-Powered Course

4. Grokking the Low-Level Design Interview Using OOD Principles

Low-level design (LLD) rounds have become increasingly common in interviews. This course helps you learn object-oriented design principles through case studies like designing a parking lot, ATM, and elevator system — all with detailed UML diagrams and reasoning.

Grokking the Low Level Design Interview Using OOD Principles

5. Grokking the API Design Interview

This newer addition focuses on API-first system design — an important area for backend engineers. It covers best practices for designing scalable APIs, including versioning, authentication, and rate-limiting, using realistic scenarios.

Grokking the Product Architecture Interview – AI-Powered Course

6. Grokking the Frontend System Design Interview

Frontend engineers are not left behind. This course helps you understand frontend architecture, component design, caching, and scalability from a design perspective — preparing you for FAANG-level frontend interviews.

Grokking the Frontend System Design Interview

7. Grokking the Generative AI System Design

One of the most exciting new releases, this course explores how to design AI-powered systems, covering topics like LLM architecture, embedding stores, and AI application scaling — perfect for modern AI engineers.

Grokking the Generative AI System Design – AI-Powered Course

8. Grokking Coding Interview Patterns in JavaScript

A JavaScript-focused version of the Grokking series, it’s perfect for those who prefer practicing interview questions directly in JavaScript while mastering algorithmic patterns and data structures.

Grokking the Coding Interview Patterns – AI-Powered Course

By the way, you don’t need to join these course individually, you can just get an Educative Unlimited Subscription and you are all set. This single subscription gives access to more than 1200+ AI powered, high-quality, interactive courses for coding interview and learning in-demand tech skills.

They are also offering 50% discount now on their 2 year plan which provides best value. I got the same one and I highly recommend this to every engineer who wants to break into FAANG or improve his tech skills.

Educative Unlimited: Excel with AI-Powered Learning

Educative-99: Accelerate Your Coding Interview Prep

Educative.io has another great resource called Educative-99, a collection of 99 question which is curated for FAANG interview. This resource is must for coding interview preparation

Why solve 2800 problems when 99 will do?
That’s the philosophy behind Educative-99, one of the most efficient and thoughtfully designed interview prep paths on Educative.io.

Instead of endlessly grinding through thousands of LeetCode problems, Educative-99 focuses on 26 fundamental problem-solving patterns that form the backbone of almost every coding interview question.

Created by MAANG hiring managers, this path contains 99 handpicked problems that cover essential data structures, algorithms, and interview scenarios.

Each module introduces a specific coding pattern, explains when and how to use it, and provides guided coding exercises right in the browser.

The course also teaches you how to analyze problem statements to identify which pattern applies — a critical skill for performing well under interview pressure. It’s a smart, structured way to prepare, especially if you’re short on time and want maximum results from focused effort.

Learning Objectives:

Master 26 problem-solving patterns to crack any coding interview.
Learn to identify the underlying patterns of thousands of LeetCode-style questions.
Practice hands-on coding with 99 carefully chosen problems.
Understand tradeoffs between time and space complexity.
Build a flexible, conceptual framework for approaching any algorithmic challenge.

Educative-99 is currently available in Java, with options for C++, Python, Go, and JavaScript, making it one of the most versatile and practical coding interview prep paths on the platform.

If you don’t have time to solve 500+ Leetcode problems then this is a savior.

Here is the link to join — Educative-99 in Python

Educative-99 in Python: Accelerate Your Coding Interview Prep – AI-Powered Learning for Developers

Other Useful Tools on Educative

Apart from courses and Educative-99, Educative also provides excellent tools to enhance your preparation:

Mock Interviews — Practice coding and system design interviews in a timed environment to simulate real conditions.
Coding challenges and projects — Apply your skills in practical, project-based exercises.
Cloud Labs — Hands-on environments to learn real-world DevOps and cloud technologies.

AI based mock interview is particularly very useful for coding interview preparation. I normally do a lot of mock interview to stay focus and motivated instead of just passively reading and watching videos.

Mock interviews are kind of wake up calls which shrug of laziness and bring back the focus and clarity for me. They offer both Coding interview and System Design mock interviews which are must for coding interview preparation.

Here is the link to explore mock interview — Try Educative Mock Interview

Pricing — Is Educative Worth It?

Educative courses used to be available individually, but now they are only available via subscription and the real value lies in the Educative Unlimited Plan, which costs around $14.99 per month (billed annually).

This plan gives you access to 1,200+ courses, projects, and cloud labs, covering everything from web development to AI engineering.

Right now, Educative is offering a 55% discount on the Unlimited Plan — a great deal if you plan to take multiple courses throughout the year.

If you’re still unsure, you can also try Educative for free with their 7-day free trial and get full access to any Grokking course before committing.

Final Verdict

So, is Educative.io a good place to prepare for coding interviews?Absolutely, its a great place to prepare for coding interviews, both FAANG and Startups.

Its structured “Grokking” series, hands-on learning model, and emphasis on reusable problem-solving patterns make it one of the most practical and effective platforms for technical interview prep.

Whether you’re targeting FAANG-level interviews or looking to sharpen your software design skills, Educative offers a complete learning ecosystem that’s hard to beat.

If you’re starting your preparation, I highly recommend beginning with Grokking the Coding Interview and exploring the rest of the “Grokking” series through the Educative Unlimited Plan — especially while the 55% discount is live.

Educative Unlimited: Excel with AI-Powered Learning

Other Programming and Interview Articles you may like

Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like this article then please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback, then please drop a note.

P. S. — If you want an Educative alternative for coding interview preparation then , go join ByteByteGo and start learning System Design and Coding Interview concepts, you will thank me later. The FAANG dream job you always wanted is not far anymore.

System Design · Coding · Behavioral · Machine Learning Interviews

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