What are the good alternatives to LC in terms of interview preparation with the same effectiveness but not so overwhelming?

I found hack2hire, but they seem to have little number of problems in total... what else? codility?

So far I haven’t used a service like leet code. But from what I read that even the simple problems are fairly difficult. My question is if there is an alternative I could start out with that isn’t as difficult to start out with.

I’m not opposed to Leetcode, But don’t want to start out as frustrated.

Rather than running your code against 100 different test cases and failing you if you miss 1, is there a platform that can use AI to tell you if you have the correct approach that covers the general case and then a couple of the more common edge cases? I feel like that would more useful and more in line with a standard white board interview.

So I am a career switcher, trying to find a Junior SWE position in this god awful market, and am trying to prepare for possible technical interviews. I have found this task rather daunting because the only prominent services for interview practice seem to be Hackerrank and Leetcode. These two services are god awful because every exercise is made unreasonably difficult; if a question doesnt require some advanced mathmatical or scientific background to even understand the problem statement, it requires you to use some ridiculously roundabout method to solve the problem, and will mark the answer wrong if you use a simpler, more practical method. I know from experience completing technical interviews that decent employers dont employ questions like these when interviewing Juniors, and I know from my experience interning on a development team that the ability to solve brain teaser problems is irrelevant to a Junior SWE's Job.

The kinds of problems I want to practice would be something like "create a program that checks if a string is a palindrome" or "create a program that checks which items in an array of strings are represented more than once" (these are actual questions I was given during a technical interview for a Junior SWE position). Can anyone reccomend a book or website that focuses on problems at or around this level?

I want to practice and strengthen my programming/problem solving skills. I’ve heard about Leetcode and how many people recommend it, but it’s not free. Does anyone know any free alternatives that I can try out?

Hi R

I was looking into LeetCode and it seems the solutions they have there are from “the community”, which has no guarantee that the answers are actually the best solution or even that they are correct.

I’m looking for an alternative platform that also has good challenges, ones that are actually similar to real interview problemas, but that have the “official” resolution explanation, considering the best answer to the problem.

Please, would anyone have any recommendations?

Thank you

In school, I learned math best by doing TONS of problems. I am looking for good resources that will allow me to do the same thing as I practice DSA. The ideal platform would have problems that are easier than/about the same as Leetcode easys and can be filtered by topic.

So far, the only thing I have found is GeeksforGeeks. It lets me filter by Basic and also choose different data structures or techniques to filter by.

Any other suggestions?

Hi, I'm looking for an app or site like sololearn but only for algorithms and data structures.i was thinking about solving leetcodes but I feel like a dumb ass since I mix up algorithms and can't code that well since I don't practice that much. I'd be grateful for your advices.

is there a website similar to leetcode but with free answers to all the programming problems ?

I have been facing trouble with leet code problems and it's frustrating me. I studied and practiced Python from books and online tutorials and couple of my friends suggested me to try LeetCode but now I feel like I'm trying to jump on top of the building without taking the stairs. Please suggests me as to how to progress? Thanks in adv.

Hey everyone 👋

I’ve been spending a lot of time on coding platform like LeetCode (like most of us here 😅), but recently I started exploring other coding challenge platforms to see how they compare — in problem quality, learning experience, and interview prep value.

Some platforms really surprised me — not necessarily better, but different enough to strengthen specific skills (like time complexity intuition, contest speed, or even debugging mindset).

I ended up writing a short comparison-style piece highlighting the best platforms for:

• Daily practice 🧠

• Interview prep 💼

• Competitive programming 🏆

If you’re curious or want to add your favorites, here’s the write-up: Best Coding Challenge Platforms: LeetCode, HackerRank & More

But I’d love to know from you all 👇
👉 Which non-LeetCode platform do you think genuinely helped you get better at problem-solving?
👉 Are there any hidden gems that deserve more attention?

Let’s make a mini directory of awesome coding challenge sites together 💪

Hey 20F here and in my 3rd year. I’m currently grinding Leetcode for internship. My question is would it be worth it to get Leetcode premium? I think it’s too pricey so I’m looking for an alternative. Also where do you guys study for specific questions for specific companies?

I read that Websites like leetcode aren't representative of the type of problems that one will face in a day to day work environment. What would be a more useful way to practice coding and problem solving then?

Hello all! Hope yall are doing well!

Rising sophomore here who won't take my first DS and Algos class until this upcoming fall. I've already done a few medium-sized projects to get my portfolio up and running, but I've just recently started studying for technical interviews. I have a good month left before my semester starts and I want to get a good foundation in my DS/Algos understanding.

I tried to work with leetcode, but only knowing basic java, I'm struggling to solve even the easier problems. Do you guys have any advice on learning the material necessary to work these leetcode questions out (assuming they require a previous knowledge anyways)? My goal is to start practicing now so that I'm not completely hopeless once internships are in peak recruiting season in a few months.

Cheers!

Hey everyone,
As we all know, platforms like LeetCode are amazing for practicing Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA).

I was wondering — is there something similar for web development? A place where you can practice front-end, back-end, full-stack tasks, or even complete small projects with real-world scenarios?
Would love to hear your suggestions! Thanks in advance 🚀

I have been doing LeetCode weekly contests for 3 months, and I'm looking for some alternatives that can help me prepare for coding interviews better. I do like some part of it (you are given limited time to solve NEW problems, and it really motivates me to practice leetcode) but it has limitations:

• Q1 is typically too trivial for real interview scenarios

• Q4 is extremely difficult (today only ~60/20k contestants solved it)

• Neither really reflects typical interview coding problems

Has anyone found a platform that more closely simulates actual technical interview coding questions?

A lot of people on this sub practice on Leetcode. It is no doubt the best place to practice inter.view questions. However, unless you are a premium user, there isn't a good methodological way to learn algorithms. You can check out https://www.lintcode.com/ladder/2/

They have a special question ladder called "US Giants". It contains just the right amount of easy, medium and hard questions for each topic (most of them from Leetcode). There are 122 questions in total and I did around 80% of them. Almost every new question that I see in my interviews is a variation of what I already did on Lintcode.

P.S - It's free!. Thanks to our Asian friends :)

I'm only a freshman and started leetcoding and recently past 100 questions. I will keep doing these for a long time but I think there might be some better stuff to do rather than grinding for 4 years everyday. My grades are good

I am a Software Engineer in the industry for 7 years! Unlike the average individual, I actually like leetcode even though it has no correlation with job performance. It just satisfies my itch of solving problems and having a fast feedback loop: sort of like crossword or sudoku or math puzzles pr

I also like programming languages and like learning exotic languages. Are there sites that are more expansive than leetcode: test file io, or some regex parsing, or date time math or interacting with csv, json, concurrency or dealing with binary data. These will help me learn the capabilities of a new language much faster than just reading a book on the language.

I usually do projects but was wondering if there was something more expansive than leetcode with an autograder that tests some of the things I mentioned. This will satisfy the puzzle itch