Everyone dreams of learning an entirely new skill set, especially if this will lead to a higher paying employment opportunity in the future.

However, most programs that teach new skills are expensive, time-consuming, or really just not that effective. This is why Team Treehouse seems too good to be true. With over 1,000 videos that feature tutorials ranging from programming to web design, adjustable 30-minute lessons and no need to purchase additional materials, there must be a catch to Team Treehouse’s impressive education model.

Is Team Treehouse worth it?

If you're asking yourself if Team Treehouse is worth it - the answer is "It is worth it, but only if it has the content you require." Find out more about Team Treehouse and other options available in this Team Treehouse review.

Why Team TreeHouse is Important

Because our abilities to communicate and develop the world through the internet are constantly expanding, more job opportunities are opening up for those with programming and expert computer skills. There will be 1 million programming jobs available in 2020, a fact that should key you into the promise of job opportunity in this growing field.

Society leads us to believe that we need to attend a four-year university and earn a master’s degree to be qualified for programming jobs, but Team Treehouse challenges the stigma that only certain people can be programmers. By following tutorials that are flexible, and with a little hard work, Team Treehouse makes it possible to expand a skill set or learn an entirely new field from scratch.

Since its inception in 2011, 172,000 people in over 190 countries seeking web and game design, coding, and programming knowledge, have viewed Team Treehouse’s videos. Businesses have even caught onto Team Treehouse’s efficiency, and have shown their videos to their own employees. This widespread viewership has led to thousands of positive TeamTreehouse reviews and “Is Treehouse good?” inquiries on search engines. Let’s go through how their site specifically works.

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How Team Treehouse Works

After signing up, a new user selects what program they want to learn from a variety of design and programming subcategories. Each subject is broken down into stages to make learning the information more digestible and to disrupt cramming, like chapters in a book.

Industry professionals teach all lessons offered on Team Treehouse and demonstrate their expertise through their personal tutorials. As opposed to other programs that are narrated by a robot or software, Team Treehouse echoes an online class with their lecture format, which feels more personal than learning from a computer.

Team Treehouse is also always expanding their library of tutorial topics. On top of their already massive subject list, they release new videos weekly to keep even the most advanced learners actively engaged in tutorials and learning new information. Team Treehouse specifically focuses on subjects that are always developing, which keeps their existing content up to date with contemporary technology and trends, as well as their content library always expanding. Users can find out about new weekly videos by signing up for email updates. This is also accessible on their website under the Content Roadmap section.

If you’re interested in a new skill, it’s likely you’ve already googled “TeamTreehouse reviews”, and researched other similar services. Let’s discuss how Team Treehouse separates itself from competitors in this detailed Treehouse coding review.

How Is Team Treehouse Different Than Other Sites?

Unlike other sites that follow a strict order, Team Treehouse tutorials can be viewed individually and out of order. This way, if an intermediate coder wants to learn advanced skills, they can save time and skip through beginner videos. However, those learning a new skillset are encouraged to begin at the first video, which is the beginning of a track. A track is the order that Team Treehouse aligns the videos for the best learning experience.

Through the track, Team Treehouse offers quizzes and interactive challenges that are designed to help you practice the content of each lesson. High scores on each quiz earn badges, which can be publicly shown on social media networks and to employers.

Team Treehouse guarantees speedy learning with a proven track structure that works and will set up users for success. The site claims that most often, users will learn how to build websites after a month, or about 45 hours of lesson time.

That being said, users are encouraged to take notes and do additional research. Otherwise, they might not retain the information without active participation and outside practice. While Team Treehouse offers the tools to learn, the site doesn’t grant automatic learning by just watching the videos. It still takes time and mental energy to learn a skill like programming: Team Treehouse just makes it easier.

One amazing Team Treehouse feature is the community network of other users that can assist each other if stuck on a lesson. Treehouse encourages users to reach out to a community member with questions, and also help others with their own concerns. This network of active users makes Treehouse a secure space of members that help each other, which makes learning even easier.

How Much Does It Cost?

We’ve finally landed on a topic that brings Team Treehouse out of the “too good to be true” category, which really would only be achievable if it were free. Instead, this service is provided at a minimum of $25/mo for the basic plan. This gives you access to the entire video library, as well as quizzes, Code Challenge Engine, and members-only forums.

The Pro Plan, at $49/mo, supplies everything in the Basic Plan as well as additional bonus content such as exclusive video talks from industry professionals. The most rewarding feature with a Pro Plan is the ability to download videos, which is convenient when in a location without quality internet access.

While even the Basic Plan is a substantial cost, it matches the commitment needed to learn skills. This price matches the vast library of over 300+ courses and 278 workshops, as well as the overall professionalism of the content, making it the best bang for your buck.

Despite which plan you’re considering, each new membership comes with a 14-day free trial, which gives you access to everything Team Treehouse offers and automatically rolls over into a paid subscription. However, this can be cancelled at any time free of charge because of Team Treehouse’s contract-less system.

To account for the cost of membership, Team Treehouse supplies users with a 90-day free trial to FreshBooks, which is small business accounting software for efficient billing. They also offer 40% at WooRanks, which is a website review tool and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) checker that is useful for any website. Additionally, a 60-day AWeber trial is included, a personalized email marketing automation service.

Team Treehouse offers many useful tools for web designers and site owners to take advantage of through their subscription, which add as an additional perk for signing up.

Treehouse’s Techdegree

Treehouse also operates a sister program called Techdegree, which offers users a more intense, immersive course for a higher price that’s designed with the intensity of a university course.

Web Development, iOS Development with Swift, Full Stack JavaScript, and Front End Web Development programs are available for those looking for a larger commitment and immediate career change.

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A Personal Trip Through Team Treehouse

Now that an overview assessment is done with, let’s navigate through each stage of the site to provide you with the most detailed TeamTreehouse review possible.

Signing Up

Upon arrival at the homepage, you are automatically greeted with a window to sign up and begin a free trial. The homepage is beautifully designed with a tech-savvy set up that’s not overwhelming with information. A user will encounter the standard information for sign up - full name, email address, and password.

Choosing A Track

After navigating the homepage and entering in my information for the trial, a window appears with specific questions designed to gauge the users existing skill level. Team Treehouse will ask about your coding skill level and your purpose for using the site to determine which track is best for you.

This is extremely helpful and saves time determining which program would be best for me, and instead automatically sets me up for immediate learning. After you are recommended a track, a green “Get Started” button waits to be clicked, and your lessons finally begin.

Learning About Your New Account

If you approach this section but aren’t ready to immediately begin lessons, Team Treehouse makes it possible to navigate away from this window and return when ready. This way you can check out other features on the site and learn how to take advantage of the features that come with your account before tutorials.

The Tree button on the toolbar at the top of the webpages is designated as the home button. By clicking this, a user can exit out of a tutorial and access their account information or the site’s other features at any time.

At the homepage, you’re greeted with an encouraging message with updates of your progress, and a link back to the tutorial you were last watching. The homepage also lists all tracks in progress, in case you’re juggling one or two other topics at once.

A Bookmarks tab allows users to access completed coursework easily in case they want to review specific subjects.

There’s also a profile icon in the upper right-hand corner where users can access a profile page. Here they can upload a profile picture, track their progress, and share earned badges. There is also a link here to jump back into the unfinished track, so you don’t have to navigate back to a previous page to continue progress.

On the opposite upper left-hand side is a link to the Team Treehouse tutorial library. Here, you can access the entire Team Treehouse library, separated by organized categories. On this same side is also an icon to access message boards and community help as well as a personal workspace, which is a separate online station for users to practice coding.

Overall, the site layout for Team Treehouse is simple and organized. All of the icons represent the pages well and make navigating this site easy. With links to a track on most pages, it easy to alternate between using Treehouse’s site features and completing tutorials. It might seem like a constant juggle back and forth, but the fact that Treehouse allows users to pick up right where they left off is extremely helpful and an intelligent feature that not all sites with media have.

Experiencing the Tutorials

Before you begin learning about any subject in a track, you must watch an introduction video, which gives students a broad idea of what they can expect from each lesson. In each tutorial, the instructor will start with basic concepts and work up to help viewers tie together loose ends. Tutorial videos last between about 7-9 minutes. Team Treehouse intentional breaks down their content into smaller scale videos to keep viewers feeling like they are making progress.

20-minute videos or longer make viewers feel like they have to dedicate more time to learning, but the shorter tutorials make viewers feel like they’re learning quicker and this gives them more drive. It shouldn’t really matter how long a video is to a viewer, they’re still going to learn the same information, but I think this model makes learning more approachable for others and therefore is a good idea. The broken up video structure also makes it more possible for stop at the end of the video as opposed to in the middle of a tutorial.

The lectures in the videos are delivered slow enough that a beginner could stay focused, but fast enough that the tutorial wouldn’t be a drag for those already familiar with the tutorial’s concepts. The pacing dynamic is one of the most important aspects of a tutorial video, and Team Treehouse seems to have nailed it down. If a user becomes bored by information they already know about and try to skim ahead, they risk missing important information, but Team Treehouse knowingly avoids this through a moderately paced format.

While taking lessons, there is a blue bar near the top of the screen that shows how many videos are left in a lesson. After a video is completed, a check mark occupies the former play button, and users will feel closer to their daily completion goal. The blue navigation bar also signals when a user will take a quiz, so users can prepare for questions ahead of time. This navigation bar also can be clicked on to bring a user back to a previously watched video for a refresher.

After completing a lesson, you can return to your profile page to see how many points or badges you acquired from your work. It is rewarding to accumulate several points from one lecture, and this stimulates drive towards doing more work.

Learning With Team Treehouse Review:

After signing up, navigating the homepage, and experiencing a few lessons, is Treehouse worth it? Let’s review the site’s quality features as well as some of its weaknesses.

Pros:

As most Tree House reviews point out, the amount of content is difficult to beat. The site really offers tracks for pretty much every area of web development, programming, and design, and it’s hard to imagine a competitor being able to keep up with such a large library of courses.

• Easy To Use: The courses really are easy to complete. After a few hours completing lessons, it is possible to immediately learn small skills that can eventually grow with more time and effort. The more hours you dedicate to lessons, the more skills you will learn. This is the model that Team Treehouse is based on, and it really works for their structure.

• Professional Quality: There’s no question that the teachers are real experts and working professionals in the field. The briefness of each video makes learning feel faster, matched with a pace that is suited for both beginner and intermediate users. Teachers are friendly, charismatic, and authentic even though they’re prerecorded, which makes the tutorial watching experience less stiff and more personable.

• User-Friendly Site: The entire site is well-organized and easy to find your way around. You are able to sign up, navigate to all features, and easily return to videos. You don’t have to constantly flip back and forth to access the features like the workspace, which is a problem on other sites. This allows you to practice while you watch as opposed to taking time after each video to play with coding, or waste time writing on paper. The workspace saves your notes and they can be accessed anytime you log into an account.

• Progress Feels Rewarding: The points and badges system keeps users motivated. It can be easy to log off and stop committing to tutorials if you lose sight of your initial goal, but the point system and positive messages from the site give encouragement to persevere.

• Helpful Community: The community of Team Treehouse is one aspect that really makes this skill building site a preferable choice. The ability to reach out to other users with questions, advice, and other knowledge shows Treehouse’s dedication to not only providing accessible information to its users, but also a sense of community that’s shared internationally. This tool can also be used for networking and connecting with others in a specific field.
• Free Trial: With a 14-day trial, you can try Treehouse’s video tutorial lessons risk-free. Everyone learns differently, so by taking advantage of the free trial period you can see if you like the teachers, the pacing of the lessons, and whether or not you’d be a good fit in the Treehouse community.

Cons: 

While this site functions well and is impressive in its design, opportunity, and accessibility, there are some small things to consider that could be improved.

• Price: The site’s cost per month matches with the benefits provided, and Team Treehouse extends its offerings with bonus discounts and free trials off handy services. However, this expense might be off-putting for those not used to paying a monthly subscription this high, or who already pay several monthly subscriptions for other services. There is no student plan available for university students looking to expand their skills outside their current curriculum, which would attract a younger audience that could use additional skills before entering the workforce.

• Advanced Topics: At moments, some specific industry language and terms that might be known to intermediate and advanced users are used without much explanation, which will go over a beginner’s head. Beginners will have to be patient and know that everything will make sense the more they watch tutorials, or pause the video to look up specific words.

• No Recaps: One picky note with the tutorial layout, if you encounter a quiz and fail, you are able to retake it. However, even if you go back and re-watch an entire lesson to review information before a retake, you still will probably have questions or misunderstand what was in the lesson. Turning to the community boards can take time, and there’s not a recap program at the end of each lesson to prepare users for a quiz retake. This feature would be helpful and save users the time of reviewing an entire lesson or waiting for another user on a message board for help.

Treehouse Tutorials Are A Great Beginning to Advanced Learning

From reading this treehouse review, hopefully you feel able to decide whether you want to choose this site specifically to learn a new computer programming or design skill. From personal experience, this site is a quality investment that is likely to keep your attention and uses efficient ways to maintain your drive towards learning.

While no site can give you automatic results at optimal quality for free, Team Treehouse will provide you with the necessary tools to learn a new skill, make yourself a candidate for new job opportunities, and prepare you for a career that incorporates a skill learned on their site. Your education is an investment in your future, and compared with college tuition, $25 per month isn’t asking for much. If you're interested in another similar type of course but with a wider variety of technologies, check out our Pluralsight review.

Sign up for a Team Treehouse free trial today, choose a plan that’s right for you, and see where your new skillset takes you.

What Other Options Are Available?

While Team Treehouse is definitely worth it for a lot of different courses and reasons, you may be better off with another service. You can see a quick comparison of the top alternatives below.