First of all, I want to specify that I do not have any affiliation with them, and I do not benefit from anything by sharing my thoughts. I want to share my opinion on this platform for people that have not yet tried their services.
What is Frontend Masters?
Frontend Masters is a platform where people can learn new skills or deepen their understanding of topics such as vanilla JavaScript, React, Angular, Vue, CSS, D3, WebPack and more. Even though their name contains the word "Frontend" and the opening line on their website is "Advance Your Skills with In-Depth, Modern Front-End Engineering Courses", you can learn backend stuff like Node, GraphQl, or databases such as MongoDB or sysadmin/DevOps stuff like AWS. They even have a "Fullstack" path where you learn a lot of complex things
Thus, do not be fooled by the name. Frontend Masters is not just for frontend developers or for people looking to become frontend developers. Let's look at different areas and see how good their services are.
Professional Developers
For myself, the most significant selling point is that you are taught by professional developers that work in the industry. Some of them work for well-known companies such as Microsoft or Netflix, whereas others work for less-known companies. Nonetheless, they have experience in the industry.
What does that mean? First of all, it means the information is legitimate. It is not someone just re-wording the documentation or someone that teaches you wrong concepts. You have the certitude that the information is of top quality. Also, you get a lot more besides specific knowledge. You get to see tips & tricks you do not usually see in other courses. You see the best practices when writing code. You see the environment of a professional developer. Should I continue? I think you got the idea.
Quality
The quality of the tutorials is the best I have ever seen. Mind you; I did a lot of tutorials as I was trapped in tutorial hell. So I know what I talk about. They to go to the tiniest details, and explain them in a way that it makes the information click.
I enjoyed their vanilla JavaScript courses the most, and I do not think there are any other courses outside that beat them in quality.
When it comes to other courses like the HTML, CSS or SysAdmin ones, I am not so impressed. Even though they are good, I believe other courses are equally good or better. See wesbos, for example. Once again, the courses are good, but they did not impress me in comparison with other courses on the internet.
Price
This section is short and to the point. The membership is pricey, I must admit. Is it justified? Absolutely. 1000%. I repeat myself: you are taught by professional developers like Brian Holt, Bianca Gandolfo, Will Sentance, or Kyle Simpson. There are many more developers, but these are some that popped into my head. I doubt these names are new to you, but if they are, do a quick Google search.
With $40 per month or $390 per year, it can be off-putting for some people. Once again, it is worth it. Should you go for it? Absolutely.
Dry and long courses
Some courses are very dry, and it makes it extremely difficult to follow along. I found myself day-dreaming a lot of times while watching the videos. Having to rewatch the same video five times is not the most fun thing. But I suppose, there is only so much to build when talking about concepts like lexical scope, closure and so on.
Some courses are incredibly long as well. For example, I did a course which was more than five hours long, but I could watch the videos on 2x speed because the instructor spoke very slow. So you need to be aware of these things.
Courses variety
As I have said in the beginning, they have a vast variety of courses. Basically, you can start as a novice, and finish as a Fullstack JavaScript Developer with SysAdmin knowledge. That is provided you can complete all the courses on their platform. They have so many tutorials, that is difficult for me to list them all here. And they keep coming.
There are plenty of courses to choose from. And again, they are all taught by professional developers.
Workshops
Another impressive and cool thing is that they have upcoming workshops all the time. That is, you can tune live and see the workshop before is added to the platform.
They are basically courses that will be edited and added to the platform once the workshops are done. You get never-ending courses for your money. I suppose that is cool, right?
Conclusion
What is the conclusion then? I conclude by saying that the membership is worth it. For a not-so-small but not-so-big price, you get:
- courses taught by professional developers
- continuous workshops
- a massive variety of courses
- quality information, best practices, tips and tricks
If you want to improve your JavaScript skills, Frontend Masters is the place to go; whether you are a frontend, backend or full-stack developer.