How Long Has Pluralsight Been Around?

There’s no denying that Pluralsight has become one of the most popular and well-renowned online learning platforms in the world with over 2,000 expert authors, a whole range of tech partners including Microsoft and Adobe, and some very big names in the tech world being a part of their team, not many people could have anticipated that it would grow quite this big. 

With that being said, Pluralsight actually had very humble beginnings before becoming the juggernaut that it is today, and while there are new businesses, tech companies, creative professionals, and users signing up for the program every day, many people are actually unaware of the fascinating history behind Pluralsight.

Therefore, we have taken a deep dive into the background of Pluralsight and looked at how long has Pluralsight been around, and how it has managed to remain so popular for so many years. 

What Year Was Pluralsight Founded?

Pluralsight was first founded in 2004 by four close friends and fellow tech colleagues in the small city of Farmington in Utah.

Originally, the aim of the new company was simply to send instructors to training events and businesses in order to share knowledge about web development in technology skills and how to utilize the resources that were becoming available to people through the internet to further their own businesses and personal ventures. 

2004 was a year of tremendous change in the tech world as the internet really started to open up and connect individuals around the world more than ever. It was not only the year that Facebook started, but it also saw the domination of the iPod, the gradual rise of Firefox, and a worldwide fascination with Skype. 

With so many new technological avenues opening up at once, it was hard back then to get a quick understanding of how to use these platforms, and more importantly, how a company or business could expand through using them since the online courses, training guides, and assessments that can be found easily today were virtually non-existent back then. 

By 2007, Pluralsight had started becoming known as the go-to company when it came to online education with many businesses and important individuals within the tech space starting to give it the attention it deserved, and because of this, Pluralsight shifted its emphasis to online video training, publishing their first online course in 2008. 

When Did Pluralsight Become Popular?

While it was certainly creating quite the buzz among tech enthusiasts by 2008, it was really in 2010 that Pluralishgt started its journey towards becoming the company that it is today, especially because this was the year that it made the full transition towards its online learning business model, releasing training courses on software development and IT operations, along with graphic and web design. 

By this point, Pluralsight had become the biggest and most popular online training platform on the planet, receiving an expansion in 2012 worth $27.5 million which was supplied by Insight Venture Partners.

Because of the expansion, Pluralsight was in a position where they were towering over other online platforms and even acquired many of them in 2013 including TrainSignal, PeepCode, and Tekpub. 

These all provided similar online mentoring programs which fit perfectly with the rest of the catalog of training videos, assessments, and tutorials that Pluralsight was offering users, with their total number of advanced courses jumping well over 1,000  immediately. 

The full transition to becoming an online learning platform and the expansion that came with it was therefore the period when Pluralsight started to shift from a small and fairly niche service into an unstoppable online program which, even to this day, shows no signs of slowing down. 

When Did Microsoft Partner With Pluralsight?

As one of the largest and most profitable corporations on the planet, tech fans were blown away by the announcement that Microsoft had decided to partner with Pluralsight in March 2017. 

This partnership meant that Pluralsight users were now granted unlimited access to Visual Studio and a few of Microsoft’s other online programs, with this undoubtedly being the biggest partnership Pluralsight had secured by this point. 

Today, Pluralsight even supports Microsoft Azure which is the company’s very own cloud computing platform that grants users access to a wide range of cloud services and resources, making it very easy for online users to engage with agile cloud computing, alongside managing and creating apps. 

Other Pluralsight Partners

Since the partnership with Microsoft was announced in 2017, many other huge names in the tech industry have also followed suit and partnered up with Pluralsight.

This is a major reason why Pluralsight has been growing in popularity because every time a new partnership is announced, very often, some of that partner’s services will then be available on Pluralsight, especially any resources and tools that are related to online education.

These are the other major companies that have declared a partnership with Pluralsight over the last few years: 

• Amazon Web Services
• Oracle 
• Okta 
• Gainsight 
• Unity Technologies 
• 97th Floor 
• LastPass
• Cornerstone OnDemand 
• Assembla 
• CrossKnowledge 
• Andela 

Pluralsight also offers an affiliate program that provides several benefits to those who sign up for it including optimized banner ads for websites, monthly newsletters, and a free trial of Pluralsight’s courses. 

Are There Any Online Learning Platforms As Big As Pluralsight?

When it comes to the sheer selection of video courses and online machine learning resources users can engage in, along with the number of users, Pluralsight is still the biggest online learning platform today, and with new partnerships being announced every few years, it seems unlikely this will change any time soon. 

With that being said, a similar platform that has also seen a steady rise in popularity in a similar way to Pluralsight, and that many now see as its main competitor, is Udemy.

Udemy started a lot later than Pluralsight, first being founded in 2010, however, in the years since it was released to the public, it has become incredibly popular in a very short period of time.

It should be noted that the way users sign up and use Udemy is quite a bit different from Pluralsight, specifically because while you must pay a subscription for Pluralsight which will grant you access to all of the resources and programs the service has to offer, Udemy allows you to pay for specific Pluralsight courses depending on what you want to learn about. 

While Udemy is one of the biggest online educational platforms which has been growing larger and expanding and improving its courses each and every year, Pluralsight still reigns as the king of online education, especially since so many people are still signing up for it each and every day. 

Summary

Since it was first established back in 2004, Pluralsight has grown alongside the online landscape and developed into the biggest and most helpful online learning program you can sign up for. 

With over 7,000 courses available and a range of very well-known and influential partners, Pluralsight is only going to expand as the years go by, so if you’ve ever been interested in signing up for a subscription, there really is no better time than now, especially considering just how many individuals and companies have benefited from using the resources it provides.