Most Popular Coding Challenge Websites for Programmers

Technology is an ever-evolving industry and most coders in the business are well aware of the upkeep required of their knowledge bases. With new languages, frameworks, and technologies developing faster than ever before, there is no room for complacence. 

Aside from freelance programmers, even those with secured jobs are pressured to match the pace with the latest trends. That’s why technical skills need to be refurbished and tested every now and then. Coding challenge websites can help you with that. 

What is A Coding Challenge? 

A coding challenge is a coding task that is developed to test and measure the skillset of the coder. It is a way to practice coding and apply your knowledge. Many companies use coding challenges in their hiring process for programmers. The scale of the task varies. It can be simple or complex and it can be individual or team-based. 

Who is it for? 

There are coding challenges for jobs and for the ambitious programmers seeking to better and exercise their skills. Even during the hiring process for technical work, employers use challenges for interviews so these websites are great for coding interview practice.

Competitive programming enthusiasts also make use of these challenges to work with teams or gain speed in coming up with solutions. In general, online coding practice can benefit anyone in the industry, from the novice to the pro, because the challenges are tailored to your level, and especially for beginners, this can be a great way to advance faster.

Best Coding Challenge Websites 

There are dedicated coding challenge websites to help people better their programming skills. And we will discuss the best among them below:

Coderbyte

Suitable for: Beginner to the Intermediate programmers

Coderbyte provides hundreds of coding challenges that you can solve directly in their online editor. They have ten programming languages to choose from. The tasks can be as easy as finding the largest word in a word to complex graphing questions. 

Furthermore, you get access to the official solutions,  more than 1 million user solutions as well as articles on efficient methods to approach the problem. All these reasons make Coderbyte a top recommendation by coding boot camps. 

Companies can also make use of their collection of interview prepping challenges. The tasks can provide you a good workout but this site isn’t mainly for competitive programmers.

Pricing: Premium subscription or one-time payment access for a period of time for prime content, which includes over a million user solutions to more than 300 challenges. Monthly subscriptions start at $35. Few free challenges are also offered.

Codewars

Suitable for: Beginner to the Intermediate programmers

Codewars is a website driven by the community and the challenges they provide are also actually submitted and edited by them. They have a direct online editor which you can use to solve the tasks. For each challenge, a discussion is available for viewing along with user solutions. 

Codewars incorporates a ranking system through which you can earn points and climb up by solving their challenges. You can even become a Codewars patron and it’s a good way to show off your skills.

Pricing: You can get all of their community created challenges for free. But they also provide a premium subscription starting at just $6 a month for an ad-free experience and some premium features.

HackerRank

Suitable for: Intermediate to the Advanced programmers

HackerRank is a versatile website that offers challenges from different domains of programming like Algorithms, Mathematics, SQL, Functional Programming, AI, Data Structure, etc. The list goes on. You can solve the tasks directly and view a discussion and leaderboard for each challenge. 

Most of the challenges on their platform come with an editorial that describes the challenge in further detail and even suggests approaches to come up with solutions.

Due to some problems including mathematical notations, HackerRank is not recommended for beginner developers. It’s perfect for those coders who have a good grasp of the basics of their language. 

However, some users have used this website to begin their journey into competitive programming. The benefit of HackerRank is that you can do tests on their website to get a certification. They also have company-sponsored coding challenges through which you can apply to jobs directly.

Pricing: HackerRank challenges are a hundred percent free and there is no premium version of their content. What you see is what you get. The main mode of their income comes from the companies that use their platform to scope out candidates.

Leetcode

Suitable for: Intermediate to the Advanced programmers

Leetcode is considered to have some of the best algorithm coding challenges and has over 190 challenges in nine programming languages. You would need to apply data structure topics like binary trees, linked lists, heaps, etc. to be able to solve some of the challenges.

For these reasons, Leetcode is recommended for a bit more advanced learners and especially, job interviewees. The website has a dedicated section for those preparing for software engineering interviews with a Mock Interview test. 

The community in the discussion board also frequently discusses questions related to interviews, jobs, compensation, and other professional aspects of engineering. While you cannot view other’s codes, they provide you with statistics showing how fast your code ran compared to other users.

Pricing: Leetcode has a number of free challenges available for you to try your hand at but their premium content comes at a subscription. For around $35 a month, you gain access to a lot more challenges as well as some additional features such as info articles and interview simulation tests.

freeCodeCamp

Suitable for: Beginner programmers

For the very novices to coding, freeCodeCamp is a great resource to gain an understanding of the basics. They don’t have as much of an interactive selection of challenges as the other websites but you have a lot of cool beginner-friendly JavaScript challenges and interview prep tests. 

Aside from challenges, freeCodeCamp offers great ways to learn syntax, project building, and responsive web design. Beginners who aim to be web developers specifically should look into this website. You can learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in an interactive and fun way. 

Pricing: As the name suggests, freeCodeCamp is completely free to use.

TopCoder

Suitable for: Advanced Programmers

For competitive programming online, TopCoder is known as one of the oldest, original platforms, and years later, it’s still serving the programming community. It offers a set of challenges from previous coding competitions for you to solve directly on their website. 

You even get the chance to compete with others a few times a month in their popular Single Round Matches. The challenges are based on topics such as web design, web development, math, SQL, algorithms, etc. While these challenges are free and for fun, TopCoder even hosts sponsored competitions that give out prizes to the best solution.

TopCoder is most suited for advanced programmers who are comfortable with solving complex challenges such as ones dealing with graph search and number theory. It’s highly resourceful for competitive programmers since it has a community where the top-ranked users are competitive programmers who compete regularly.

Pricing: All challenges offered by TopCoder are free and there is no premium content, so everything is unlocked.

Codeingame

Suitable for: Beginner to the Intermediate programmers

Codeingame is the most different out of this list of coding challenge websites. Instead of a direct online editor making you solve tasks to produce outputs, this website requires you to take part in writing the codes for a game, that you then play online. 

It’s an extremely fun way to take challenges and seeing your code in action in the game is something else. The game they provide comes with a problem description, test cases, and an editor that supports 20+ programming languages. 

It’s not the atypical competitive programming website for sure, but it’s still popular among users for its fun challenges. If you’re looking for something out of the box, this is for you.

Pricing: Codeingame is free for its users. You just need to sign up and get started.

CodeChef

Suitable for: All Level programmers

Codechef is a competitive programming website based in India providing hundreds of challenges for students and competitors. The practice problems are offered separated by skill level. The platform community is composed of coders and programmers of all kinds who are active on the forums and discussion boards. 

There is no end to competitions hosted on this site so it will keep you busy. The tutorials and resources they provide are also excellent ways to learn about competitive programming.

Pricing: Free practice problems and open contests are available. You are only required to sign up. Some contests are sponsored and include prices for winners but require registration.

To Wrap Up

There you have it! All you need to know about coding challenges and how they can help you in your programming journey. Whether you’re just starting out in coding or a veteran looking for a challenge, one of these websites will surely meet your needs.

Have a go at them and work that brain. Your future programs and codes will be all the better for it.