Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

CodePen VS Treehouse

Compare CodePen VS Treehouse and see what are their differences

CodePen logo CodePen

A front end web development playground.

Treehouse logo Treehouse

Treehouse is an award-winning online platform that teaches people how to code.
  • CodePen Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-30
  • Treehouse Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-16

Treehouse is an online learning platform that specializes in coding and design instruction. Offering courses to individual learners, internal company teams, and third party education providers, Treehouse helps to bridge the gap between formal educational institutions and on-the-job requirements. Graduates of Treehouse academic programs are ideal candidates for companies seeking to augment their technology teams.

CodePen features and specs

  • Real-time Collaboration
    Developers can collaborate with others in real-time, making it easy to work on projects with teammates or seek help from the community.
  • Immediate Visual Feedback
    CodePen allows you to see the results of your code as you write it, which is highly beneficial for learning and debugging.
  • Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
    CodePen provides a comfortable and feature-rich online IDE environment with syntax highlighting, autocomplete, and more.
  • Community-Driven
    Users can share their work with the CodePen community, receive feedback, and explore a wide range of projects created by others.
  • Extensive Resources
    CodePen offers a wealth of examples and templates for various web development tasks, making it a useful resource for learning and inspiration.
  • Cross-Device Accessibility
    Being an online platform, CodePen can be accessed from any device with an internet connection, making it convenient for developers on the move.

Possible disadvantages of CodePen

  • Limited Offline Functionality
    Since CodePen is primarily an online tool, it requires an internet connection for most of its features to work, limiting its usefulness in offline environments.
  • Performance Constraints
    Complex or resource-intensive projects may not perform as well on CodePen as they would in a full-fledged local development environment.
  • Subscription Costs
    While many features are free, advanced functionalities and additional storage options require a paid subscription, which may not be ideal for all users.
  • Limited Backend Capabilities
    CodePen is primarily designed for front-end development, so it offers limited support for backend technologies, making it less suitable for full-stack or server-side development.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies and libraries can be cumbersome compared to local development environments which have better tools for this purpose, like npm.
  • Security Concerns
    Sharing projects with the public can expose your code and assets to unauthorized use, posing potential intellectual property and security risks.

Treehouse features and specs

  • Comprehensive Courses
    Treehouse offers a wide range of courses that cover various aspects of web development, design, and business, making it a well-rounded platform for learners with diverse interests.
  • Interactive Learning
    The platform uses quizzes, code challenges, and interactive videos to make learning more engaging and hands-on, enhancing the retention of knowledge.
  • Self-Paced
    Learners can progress through courses at their own pace, which allows them the flexibility to balance their studies with other commitments.
  • Projects and Real-world Examples
    Treehouse encourages learners to apply what they've learned through projects that simulate real-world scenarios, providing practical experience.
  • Trail System
    The guided learning paths (called 'Tracks') help students follow a structured learning path and focus on particular fields of interest.
  • Community Support
    Treehouse has an active user community and forums where learners can get help, share ideas, and collaborate on projects.

Possible disadvantages of Treehouse

  • Cost
    Treehouse is a subscription-based service, which may be a barrier for learners who cannot afford the monthly fee or are looking for free resources.
  • Limited Advanced Content
    While Treehouse is excellent for beginners and intermediate learners, those looking for very advanced courses may find their offerings lacking.
  • Less Personalization
    The one-size-fits-all approach of the Trails might not suit everyone, especially those who prefer a more customized learning experience.
  • No Accredited Certification
    Certificates provided by Treehouse are not formally accredited, which might be a disadvantage for learners looking to showcase credentials from recognized institutions.
  • Dependence on Videos
    A significant portion of the learning material is video-based, which might not suit all learning styles, particularly those who prefer text and reading.
  • Limited Language Offerings
    Treehouse primarily offers content in English, which can be limiting for non-English speakers or those looking for courses in other languages.

CodePen videos

What Is Codepen?

More videos:

  • Review - Learn to use CodePen from a co-founder of CodePen
  • Review - Using CodePen For Inspiration & Learning

Treehouse videos

Treehouse in the Classroom

More videos:

  • Review - Imagine What You Can Do in a Year

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to CodePen and Treehouse)
Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0
Education
0 0%
100% 100
Programming
100 100%
0% 0
Online Learning
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using CodePen and Treehouse. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare CodePen and Treehouse

CodePen Reviews

Best Forums for Developers to Join in 2025
Codepen is a social network for developers to show off their work, ask and answer questions, and exchange ideas. It's like a Reddit for coding and design, with a large community of talented web developers.
Source: www.notchup.com
Top 10 Developer Communities You Should Explore
Codepen is a social development environment that allows developers to showcase their work and experiment with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a collaborative space. Codepen’s focus on visual and interactive development makes it an excellent community for front-end developers and designers.
Source: www.qodo.ai
8 Best Replit Alternatives & Competitors in 2022 (Free & Paid) - Software Discover
Codepen is a social development environment for front-end designers and developers. Build and deploy a website, show off your work, build test cases to learn.
Best Online Code Editors For Web Developers
Probably the most popular online code editor. CodePen is fast, easy to use, and allows a web developer to write and share HTML/CSS/JS code online.
Source: techarge.in
Top 25 websites for coding challenge and competition [Updated for 2021]
CodePen is a cool online IDE that allows you to write code in your browser and see the result just as you build it. CodePen challenges is a place for leveling up your skills by building things. Each week, new challenges appear for you to tackle, and the best “Pens” get picked.

Treehouse Reviews

  1. Matheo Lane
    · Web Developer at Trusting Deeds ·
    Versatile Content

    The content of this website is perhaps best of the best and i can say that the site is using really remarkable approach to convey the learning material to the audience.

    🏁 Competitors: Tuts Insider

10 Pluralsight Alternatives & Competitors (2024) – Our Picks
Users have the option to test the quality of Treehouse through the 7-day trial, which is completely free of cost. The courses cover all the relevant topics and concepts and can be downloaded for offline use. The option of availing of the Techdegree helps you navigate through courses easily.
10 Best Treehouse Alternatives in 2024
Udacity is one of the best Treehouse alternatives catering to online coding courses. Learners can choose courses for tech skill development along with hands-on projects. It also offers nano-degree programs focusing on full-stack, front-end, and Java development. It is Treehouse alternatives free in use.
How to Learn Coding in 2024: 18 Great Ways to Do It
You’ll discover HTML, CSS, Java, PHP (WordPress), Objective-C, Javascript, Ruby and more through video tutorials. Treehouse’s style tends to work in the following formula: show, explain, do it yourself, which can be very effective.
10 Best Codecademy Alternatives in 2022
In our opinion, we think Treehouse is the better option if you're an absolute beginner. Most of their courses, Learning Paths and Techdegrees are geared towards newbies looking to get their feet wet with programming. But while treehouse is video-based, Codecademy uses video and interactive lessons. So it all depends on what learning style works better for you.
13 Sites to Learn How to Code for Web Developers
For Treehouse, every course is divided into different stages or modules, and beyond every first stage the learner will be invited to pay a monthly subscription fee of $25 to access all courses with 650+ videos, and an exclusive Treehouse Members Forum as a bonus.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CodePen should be more popular than Treehouse. It has been mentiond 502 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

CodePen mentions (502)

View more

Treehouse mentions (58)

  • Career Transition at 31: How I Became a Front-End Developer
    I continued studying online while juggling my work at the agency. Some excellent resources I found were Brad Traversy's YouTube channel, Curso em Vídeo, the Tree House platform, and some instructors on Udemy, where I collected dozens of courses. I consumed these sources as a hobby and only when there was a need for a project at the agency. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • I need to vent out about something
    Check here they start from the beginning and really simple Https://teamtreehouse.com/. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Career Change at 50, Best Options?
    Maybe you could transition to product management. Or some other tech field. It’s easy to train in tech without needing to go to college. Check out Team Treehouse. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Learning JS and I want to step into React, should I dedicate my time to learning React or NextJS?
    There's also Udemy courses or I've found https://teamtreehouse.com/ to be a great beginner friendly resource. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Those who gave up their Software Development job; what did you do next?
    Approximately 3 years ago I started doing a front-end development course on teamtreehouse.com wich was pretty good but was like 20 dollars a month.( so I dont really recommend it ) quite expensive. This got me an internship at a friends company. Wich I did for 1 year ( I did some front end stuff but mostly wordpress developing there wich wasnt really my thing but at least I had some tech related development stuff... Source: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing CodePen and Treehouse, you can also consider the following products

JSFiddle - Test your JavaScript, CSS, HTML or CoffeeScript online with JSFiddle code editor.

PowerSchool - PowerSchool provides a K-12 education technology platform for operations, classroom, student growth, and family engagement.

CodeSandbox - Online playground for React

Codecademy - Learn the technical skills you need for the job you want. As leaders in online education and learning to code, we’ve taught over 45 million people using a tested curriculum and an interactive learning environment.

GitHub - Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.

Teachable - Create and sell beautiful online courses with the platform used by the best online entrepreneurs to sell $100m+ to over 4 million students worldwide.