CBT Nuggets vs Pluralsight – What’s the Difference? Full Overview

Chanel Alexander
April 7, 2022

It’s always a good idea to keep enhancing your knowledge to create the best online courses.

If you’re creating a course on IT-related skills, we would recommend CBT Nuggets and Pluralsight because they offer excellent technical training and courses on IT and software development.

But, what’s the difference between the two websites?

In this Pluralsight vs CBT Nuggets review, we will compare both the platforms as well as go over their features, pros, and cons.

Features	CBT Nuggets	Pluralsight
Price	$59 per month or $599 per year	$29 per month or $299 per year
Free Trial	7-day free trial	10-day free trial
User Interface	Intuitive and easy to use	Minimalist design and easy to use
Learner community	Available	Available
Customer support	Excellent customer support	Excellent customer support

We’ve given you a brief overview of some of the features. Let’s take a deep dive into a more detailed review of both platforms.

CBT Nuggets Review – Best Online Learning Platform

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If you’re unaware, CBT Nuggets stands for Computer Based Training.

It is famous for providing meaningful online training in IT, office productivity, and project management.

So, it’ll be perfect for you if you’re looking to learn a new skill in the mentioned subjects.

They deliver their courses through online streaming. This means you’ll be able to access the courses at any time of the day, seven days a week.

Moreover, their training videos are available on both computers and mobile devices. So, you can access them on the move.

Features of CBT Nuggets

Virtual labs
Offline viewing
Certificates
Bespoke quizzes
Personal trainers
Practice tests and exams
Usage report

Pros	Cons
• Engaging videos and tutorials • Expert trainers with good course knowledge • Quizzes and exams after every course • Virtual labs to put your knowledge to the test • Easy to use Partners with large companies like Microsoft that give huge credibility	• Expensive • Some courses have irrelevant knowledge

Benefits of CBT Nuggets

CBT Nuggets has an impressive list of vendors. All of them are bespoke training affiliated.

Here is a list of different vendors they offer:

Amazon Web Services or AWS

They offer 17 different courses on AWS with 2,144 videos and 243 hours of training.

Check Point

Offers one course with 6 hours of training. This single course will leave you in a great position to monitor network activities and utilize checkpoints in any role you may have,

Cisco

You’ll find 50 courses on Cisco with 801 hours of teaching to go through.

Citrix

Although Citrix is easy to maintain, you’ll still be able to learn about features such as visualization skills with CBT Nuggets.

Microsoft Virtual Academy

You’ll be able to find 100 different courses on Microsoft and 1000 hours of videos.

Linux

With 4 different courses and 110 video training, you’ll be proficient in this operating system.

…and the list goes on.

Since technical courses need a lot of practical knowledge, CBT Nuggets offer a series of virtual labs.

These are a series of sandbox environments to put your new knowledge to practical use without spending extra money on expensive equipment.

Furthermore, CBT Nuggets uses the Kaplan IT training practice test. These exams are customizable and use questions as you might get in a real exam.

As a result, in addition to knowledge about IT courses you’ll get as much real-world practice as possible.

Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy CBT Nuggets

Price

Let’s move on to pricing.

CBT Nuggets has two different pricing plans:

For individuals, you can expect to pay $59 per month or $599 per year. The same amount of pricing goes for Teams.

Free Trial

If you’re a new online course creator, CBT might be a bit expensive for you.

Therefore, we would suggest signing up for its 7-day free trial to see how you like the website and if it checks all the requirements.

User Interface

The design of an online learning website is what makes or breaks it.

Most online course websites are cluttered which makes it impossible for you to find the courses you’re looking for.

CBT Nuggets has a clean and slick interface. You can move around the app easily.

Moreover, everything is clearly labeled so you’ll have no problem finding what you’re looking for.

Customer Support

Let’s move on to the customer support of the platform.

CBT Nuggets has a Help Center on their website.

We found this really helpful whenever we got stuck somewhere or needed a hand with something. It has a series of pages with questions that you can go through that address different queries.

If that’s not enough, you can also contact them through phone, live chat, or email.

Learner Community

One of the most useful features that CBT has is its Learner Community.

This is helpful if you’re someone who learns better through student interactions.

On the learner community page, you can engage with other students as well as get involved with other channels. For example, one of the channels we joined was dedicated to mentoring and career advice.

We also noticed that everyone on the channel was extremely helpful and empathetic.

Moreover, you can use Slack to learn collaboratively, stay in touch for new courses or information and get answers to your questions.

What Do the Customers Think?

The customers had a lot of positive things to say about CBT nuggets.

Many people were satisfied by how simple the courses are and how easy it is to understand them.

Users were also impressed by the quizzed and virtual labs offered by CBT since they provided a source for feedback.

Here are some of the reviews we came across online:

Best Online Learning Platform

The best online learning platform is CBT nuggets thanks to its simple interface, easy-to-understand videos, practice exams, and desktop support.

Pluralsight Review – Best Video Training Provider

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To understand what Pluralsight is really about, let’s go over its brief history.

It was founded in 2004 with the intent to train employees to learn new skills. However, in 20017 it turned its attention to providing online training to anyone who wanted it.

Now Pluralsight has over one million students and 10,000 courses to choose from.

The courses are divided into the following categories:

Cloud Computing
Machine Learning
Software development
Network development
IT operations
Network and cybersecurity
Manufacturing design
Business professional and so on.

Although Pluralsight offers courses on IT-related topics, we would recommend going for video training tailored for developers.

We would also suggest Pluralsight if you have basic concepts in IT and are looking for more advanced training options.

They offer online training in:

jQuery
C#
C++
.NET
CSS
Java
iOS
Android, etc.

Whereas, their traditions IT courses include:

Linux
Windows
SQL

Features of Pluralsight

Online Assessments
Partnership with huge companies like Microsoft
Certifications
Self-paced videos
Advanced course pathways
1500+ courses
Skill IQ and Role IQ
Industry projects
Peer-tracking

Pros	Cons
• Unlimited access to courses for an affordable fee • High quality and relevant courses • Assessments to measure your understanding • Offer labs to help you learn the right skills • Expert teachers • Good customer support	• Topics besides technical courses are not available • Some courses may be difficult for beginners to grasp

Benefits of Pluralsight

As we mentioned before, Pluralsight offers a wide variety of courses for you to take.

But what sets Pluralsight apart from other websites is that it does a great job keeping its courses up to date by regularly checking its content.

So, you’ll most likely see changes in courses and paths quite regularly if you decide to subscribe to Pluralsight.

Moreover, the courses are pretty easy to follow.

You can take notes using the “Note tab” on the right side of the screen. You can also fast-forward the videos at your convenience.

You’ll also find plenty of interactive courses on the site. These courses give you tasks and tests to help you apply your knowledge to stimulations of real-world tasks and give you hands-on experience.

All Pluralsight courses mention their respective owners in the information section. You can access these sections to see exactly who you’ll be learning from.

In addition to this, you can also ask for detailed feedback on your performance from your instructors.

As an online course creator, certifications are extremely useful as proof of your knowledge.

Luckily, with every course you finish on Pluralsight, you’ll be rewarded a certificate of completion.

But, if you don’t pass you can take the course as many times as you want.

It’s important as an online course creator to choose an e-learning website that is accessible on many devices.

With Pluralsight, you can easily access your lessons on your desktop computer.

It is also compatible with both Android and iOS. So, you can use their app (bespoke mobile app) to take your courses if you’re on the move.