What Is The Purpose Of Pluralsight? [The Complete Guide]

In modern life, it is incredibly easy to get swept up in how quickly technological changes are happening and to lose track.

Especially if you are a programmer, or work in an industry that requires programming knowledge, keeping up with changes can require a lot of effort.

This is why it is so great that there is a service that has courses on all topics that a programmer or someone who wants to have insight into programming will need to know.

So, what is the purpose of Pluralsight? Let’s read all about this platform

On Pluralsight these courses have been organized into a simple order so you can work on them in an order that will help in advancing your career plan.

So, if you have heard of Pluralsight, but you are unsure what exactly it is, this guide will have the information you need to know if it will be right for you.

For a quick answer, Pluralsight is an online platform for learning journeys that are specifically designed for professionals working in the tech industry.

It started as a tool for a training company to provide a classroom-like learning environment for companies, however, over time the focus of this shifted to be more set on online training.

The topics covered go anywhere with topics like software development and graphic design for the learning path. This tool gained traction since companies want more services that can provide on-demand video training for employees. 

The training offered on Pluralsight has kept growing and growing and it even offers assessments that will aid in measuring a specific learner’s growth when working with different tools and tech skills and companies keep track of this.

Pluralsight learning paths can even recommend to companies what interactive courses would be useful for specific employees to take next.

However, the service is not just for employees, it can also be used by individuals with Pluralsight being popular with freelancers who want to be able to show clients that they have specific Pluralsight skills, learning journey, and curated learning paths.

The training on Pluralsight follows a crowdsourced model where instead of working with full-time trainers, the service instead uses and publishes courses that have been created by specific experts in the industry.

These experts will create video courses in their field and will collect royalties based on how well the Pluralsight course is performing.

Pluralsight has grown massively in recent years and it now has more than 7000 courses to offer from more than 1500 experts. There is even a technology workforce conference held by Pluralsight every year in Salt Lake City.

What Topics Are Covered On Pluralsight?

As we mentioned in the introduction, Pluralsight is not a general online learning platform, and the video training courses offered are focused on tech and certification practice exams, so if this is not something you are looking for, then Pluralsight will not be a good fit, however, if it is, Pluralsight is the best option.

All of the training material is categorized into 4 main sections. Firstly, there is software development with thousands of Pluralsight courses aimed at different skill levels.

These cover popular languages like JavaScript, Python, and C#, as well as mobile and web development.

The second category is IT Ops, these are focused on professional database and system admins, the courses cover different areas like cloud platforms, IT certifications, database admin skills, security, networking, servers, and virtualization.

Then there is Data Professional, these courses are focused on data science like big data and business intelligence.

Finally, there is the information and cyber security category, these are courses for both professionals as well as students who want to enter the cyber security girls with materials that give useful certifications like CompTIA

How Much Does Pluralsight Cost?

One of the most important considerations when it comes to wanting to use Pluralsight is how much it will cost.

If you are just using Pluralsight for yourself, then you will only need to pay $35 a month which for the amount of courses you gain access to, is reasonable compared to some competitors.

If you want to invest a little more for saving, you can also get the service for a year for $299.

However, there are also specific packages that are available for businesses who want to do training through Pluralsight, of course, this is cheaper than buying every employee an individual membership, but the price for this will vary on the number of employees you are looking to train.

It is also worth noting that MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) subscribers will get free memberships for Pluralsight for around 3 months. This is a great offer, so if you use this service, Pluralsight is something you should try!

You might be wondering why you would use a paid service since there are free alternatives out there that give training in similar topics.

There are now quite a few good-quality tutorials on free platforms, even if they are sometimes hidden amongst poor-quality content as well.

The main reason why Pluralsight works better than other online learning platforms is that Pluralsight professionals work with a team to get the best of their insight extracted onto their courses, and they can work with the team at Pluralsight to give their courses the best production quality possible.

All tutorials on Pluralsight need to go through a lot of steps and then peer review before being uploaded onto Pluralsight with the focus placed on teaching effectiveness.

Pluralsight also features no ads and you can download parts of the courses to be available on mobile devices using the app.

Pluralsight Profiles

One of the main benefits of Pluralsight, especially if you are working as part of a team, is the profiles that are generated when using the service.

These profiles make sharing progress simple and you can display what you have worked through and what you have completed. It also displays the interests you have shown in different areas as well.

Pluralsight users will also have access to the bookmark system which lets them organize and save their courses so they can come back to them simply. You can also organize courses into channels that are perfect for sharing a specific course direction.

Pluralsight Assessments

Another benefit of Pluralsight is the assessments that are offered which will test knowledge in different areas which you may need to display for different jobs.

There is the Role IQ feature that has been newly added and it will display just how much you are informed on a certain topic, and can also advise which courses will be best to take next.

Assessments score you between 1 and 300 and they will show you exactly how you need to improve to get a better score on a certain subject.

Summary

We heavily recommend at least trying out Pluralsight if any of the information here has seemed appealing to you, whether this is on an individual basis, or for a whole company.

The benefits that can be offered by using this service will outweigh how much the service costs.

If you are unsure, we recommend signing up for at least 1 month (or for free using MSDN) and seeing what courses you work well with and if you can see yourself getting much value from using it consistently.

There are plenty of different tools to aid with tracking growth, so if this appeals to you, then Pluralsight might be one of the best options!