In this detailed Pluralsight review, I share my real experience with their courses, labs, pricing, and features to help you decide if it is worth your money.
Here is what I will cover.
- Overview of the Pluralsight platform
- Key features
- Course quality
- Hands-on labs and their effectiveness
- Overall user experience
By the end, you will have a clear idea of which Pluralsight subscription plan suits you best if you decide to go ahead with it.
Lets get started.
About Pluralsight
Pluralsight is an online learning platform for professionals and learners who want to upskill in DevOps, Cloud, Data Science, Machine Learning, other key IT verticals, UX and Business skills.
Overall the platform has over 6500+ courses.
Also, as per the 2025 Forrester Wave for tech skill development platforms, Pluralsight was named as the leader.
Now that you have a high level idea of what Pluralsight is, lets look into my detailed review of Pluralsight based on my learning experience.
What Does Pluralsight Offer?
When it comes to learning tech, Pluralsight has organized its content into different categories. Cloud, Data, Generative AI, IT Operations, Security, and Software Development.
This way, we can easily navigate and select topics that we need to upskill.
When you login to the Pluralsight platform you get a lot of options in the dashboard. Lets look at each option to see how you can make use of it effectively.
Course Library
Pluralsight has a vast library of video courses created by experts across topics such as coding, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data, and more.
The following image shows how you can browse through the topics.
Skill Assessment
The next key feature is the skill assessment option which I really liked.
Here is how it works. Once we learn a specific topic, we can validate our knowledge against it using Skill IQ and Role IQ.
In the Skill IQ section, we can quickly measure how good we are in a particular technology or programming language. It is basically a quiz.
Each quiz has 20 questions and is time-based. All questions will not be at the same difficulty level. For example, the following image shows the Amazon s3 skill assessment.
The system also validates your knowledge based on how many questions you answered correctly and the difficulty level of those questions.
For example, here is the assessment report generated after finishing the skill assessment.
The best part is, at the end, it will suggest which path you should choose to learn and improve that topic.
Now the interesting part is the Role IQ. It primarily validates your level of knowledge at the job level.
For example,
Pluralsight defines job roles like "AWS Solution Architect" or "Full-Stack Developer", each need several key skills as shown below.
If you are preparing for a particular role, you can choose that role, so you will get multiple Skill IQ quiz sections as shown below.
Based on all the Skill IQ section completions, the knowledge will be validated. This basically helps you learn and prepare of the Job interviews. I really liked how it is organized and takes our learning is goal oriented approach.
Learning Paths & Channels
Pluralsight has a section for those who are facing challenges to learn about something specific but do not know where to begin.
Paths is a section where we can self learn about a specific topic in a structured manner. So you can start from fundamentals and then gradually process to advanced topics.
These are predefined paths that are created by experts. Also, we can create our own custom learning paths if required, but that is available only for team plans. I will talk about the plans a bit later.
The following image shows how learning path looks like.
Channels are another section where we create channels to organize our learning materials, such as courses, Paths, Skill IQ, and Labs, like a playlist.
With hundreds of thousands of courses, it is easy to get lost. Channels give you a learning path or playlist rather than random browsing.
If you are working with a team (or running a cohort), it is hard to ensure everyone is learning the same thing, in the same order. Channels solve that by letting you share a curated set of content and track progress.
Also, for team leads/managers, it is hard to know who is actually going through the content, how far along they have learned. Here, they can use the Channel analytics feature for that visibility.
Pluralsight Hands-On Labs
A key feature that I have used more is the "Hands-on Labs" section, where we can practically do everything on the browser based labs.
Here is an example lab - "Deploy a Web Application in Kubernetes with Terraform"
Once you start the lab, you will have access to the video, supportive project guide and lab credentials as shown below.
For programming labs, you get a integrated code editor and terminal like an IDE as shown below.
Another section is also available, which is "Hands-on Playground" where we can explore cloud services like AWS, GCP and Azure using sandbox accounts. It is more of an option to explore tools, consoles, services without messing up your local environment.
For example, you can create a temporary AWS account to practice what your learn. The following image shows the AWS sandbox details you get once you create it.
The sandbox accounts comes with certain restrictions. You cannot deploy everything in the account.
Certification Preparation
As a DevOps engineer, I was looking more into cloud certification, especially in Azure Administrator.
Pluralsight has a dedicated section for preparing for the certifications as shown below.
During preparation, we can take mock tests to build confidence for the certification examination.
User Experience & Platform Features
My overall user experience with Pluralsight was good because the user interface is clean and focused on learning content.
All the menu tabs are arranged on the left side in decent order, which makes it easy for me to navigate to sections. For example, I could switch quickly from a course to check my skill level through Skill IQ or Role IQ.
Each video course includes transcripts, so we can read them in a full-text format or download them as a PDF. Videos also have subtitles in different languages, which actually helps for non native English speakers as well.
The learning progress will automatically be saved, so when we return, we can continue from where we left off.
To make the learning more engaging, Pluralsight rewards badges and trophies for completing courses and skill assessments.
When it comes to the negative, here is what I feel can be improved.
- Some old labs are still in update phase.
- Also courses needs update as tech is changing in a rapid pace.
- Also, you wont find most advanced content in niche topics.
Pluralsight Pricing & Plans
Pluralsight categorized the plans into two: one for individuals and the other for teams.
All the plans offer a 10-day free trial so we can explore everything before the subscription starts.
Individual Plans
This one is what I chose for my learning, and is suitable for all individuals who want to upskill in tech.
This is also further categorized into the following.
- Core Tech (access to over 3,900 courses)
- Complete (unlimited access to over 6,500 courses.)
- AI+ (Includes Core Tech)
- Cloud+ (A Cloud Guru Courses + Core tech)
- Data + (1,400 data science courses + Core tech)
- Security + (cybersecurity courses + Core tech)
You can save 30% if you choose annual plans. I have purchased the plan during a sale.
You can check the Pluralsight promo code page to know about the latest discounts.
Team and Business Plans
Team plans are for the organization that provides access to its members to improve their knowledge.
The pricing is based on how many users are using it, and it is mostly a yearly subscription.
Tips to Get the Most Out of Pluralsight
The following are some of the tips that I have used to learn effectively
Do not start random courses. Once you pick a topic, take the assessment test. This gives an idea of your current skill level and suggests the right path to improve this.
Then create a channel and add all related resources, such as topics, courses, and other materials, which makes your learning organized.
Do not just watch videos; instead, use the provided lab sections and playgrounds for hands-on practice. This is very useful for real-world projects.
Set daily reminders to study at a specific time, and if facing any difficulty in watching videos, slow down the video, turn on subtitles, or read the transcript.
Pluralsight & Other Platforms
I have used many platforms for my learning, such as Udemy, KodeKloud, Educative, Udacity, Exponent etc. Each platform has its own strengths and offers something unique that others may not.
Some of my subscriptions were purchased during Black Friday deals, while a few were provided by my organization. So, I can share a comparison based on my personal learning experience across these platforms.
Is Pluralsight better than Udemy?
When it comes to Udemy, for one topic you will get many options from different authors and you a choose one based in the rating.
But here you wont find duplicated content. It is more of curated paths, labs, and focused tech catalog learning rather than a course marketplace setup.
Also, With Udemy you buy a course and you keep it for life (as long as Udemy platform exists). Pluralsight you will have to renew the subscription.
Overall, if your aim is to keep your self updated in tech, Pluralsights structured path is a great option.
If you want only a specific topic, Udemy is a good option in terms of cost.
Conclusion
From what I learned using different learning platforms is that as long as you are dedicated, you can get the most out of the platform.
Pluralsight is no different in that case. It has everything for your learning. As long as you use it wisely, you can upskill.
Also, as happens with every platform, sometimes you won’t find in-depth content for advanced learning. In my case, I use books or text-based courses for such cases.
For example, I use O’Reilly to dig deep into advanced concepts for Kubernetes and Educative for system design topics.
Hope this Pluralsight review help you understand about what the platform offers and help you make an informed decision. If you have any doubts, do let me know in the comments.
As I am actively using the platform, I can help you out with the queries.
