u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I would say the fair comparison would be 100Devs to CSX if CSX were to have a full bootcamp curriculum, but they are still very different. I've been following 100Devs since fairly early on and haven't talked about them much because it's a quite unique offering.
Disclaimer: personal opinions based on observations. I don't know Will Sentance or Leon personally to know their long term ambitions with their programs and am commenting on what I see today.
SIMILARITIES:
* Like any teaching style, Leon has a unique teaching style and it works for a lot of people. Will Sentance has a unique style that works for a lot of people. You can't argue objectively what is better and I don't want to start an academic argument about pedagogy. Objectively, 100Devs is certainly at least comparable to another complete online web-dev course and could be better depending on you.
* Very loyal community. Both communities are super loyal and supportive family-like vibes. Comparing CSX to 100Devs, 100Devs has a very active and lively Discord, more so than CSX. 42K members with 5K online right now, whereas CSX has 13K members 1K members active in the past month. But regardless, but have similar super supportive vibes and being surrounded by people with good intentions.
* One unexpected similarity is the hustle mentality. Leon unabashedly tells people to puff their resumes to 'fix a broken system with gatekeepers' and hope that an employer doesn't call you out, but he also tells people to hustle to get real contract projects so they can get some paid experience on there (I strongly support the real paid contracts, do not support puffing resume and hope you don't get called out). Codesmith similarly encourages people to not list Codesmith on resumes and to enhance the \~6 week OSP projects to make them look much larger scope than they are. Both take the stance 'if you can do the job, the resume shouldn't matter, so ends justify the means'
DIFFERENCES:
* Quite bluntly, by paying $20K upfront, the Codesmith immersive students are super dedicated to finishing Codesmith and working those 11 hour days to get there. 100Devs has a much higher drop-off rate and a lot of super enthusiastic people who start, are all over the discord and super intense, and then kind of disappear about a few weeks when they get stuck on something major for the first time. The super unique thing though, is that for a completely free program, Leon inspires a lot more people to stick around a lot longer than one would expect for a free program, and I think this is something about the way he unique connects with people.
* Codesmith is focused on getting more larger company jobs and building a resume to appeal to middle and large, 1st to 3rd tier companies. 100Devs is focused on getting a job, but really just any job and I don't think they would care about median salaries and such. Leon wants to get more people from underrepresented backgrounds a way to skip some hoops that people from more traditional backgrounds have already jumped through and is proud in doing so.