Treehouse Alternative: 365 Data Science vs Treehouse Comparison

Why 365 Data Science Brings More Value to Beginner Data Science Students Course Content, Features, Pricing
Are you looking for a Treehouse alternative? Treehouse is an e-learning platform offering an online bootcamp experience to those looking to break into tech by providing online courses in data science, web development, software engineering, and UI/UX design. While 365 Data Science does not offer an online bootcamp venture, its accessibility and teaching style is more suitable for students starting in data science.

Pricing: 365 Data Science vs Treehouse

365 Data Science is particularly suitable for beginner and intermediate students. The course curriculum offers a strong foundation that lets you comprehend the more challenging topics later, including applicable business principles and programming languages like SQL, R, Python, and Excel and data visualization tools like Tableau.
Premium

$15.37 per month

Billed annually
  • Online On-demand Video
  • Gamifield Platform
  • Comprehensive Portfolio
  • Free Plan
  • Step-by-Step Curriculum
  • Real environment practice
  • Personalized learning dashboard
  • Career tracks
  • Exams
Courses Plus

$49.00 per month

Billed annually
  • Online On-demand Video
  • Gamifield Platform
  • Comprehensive Portfolio
  • Free Plan
  • Step-by-Step Curriculum
  • Real environment practice
  • Personalized learning dashboard
  • Career tracks
  • Exams

Course Content: 365 Data Science vs Treehouse

365 Data Science

The 365 Data Science curriculum offers three career tracks: Data Scientist, Data Analyst, and Business Analyst. Each track begins with an Introduction to Data and Data Science, laying the foundation for the upcoming concepts and lessons.

365 Data Science is especially suitable for novices because each session is a logical continuation of the previous one and considers skill levels already obtained. For example, you won't need to listen to repeated explanations only because the course's designers must be sure if a specific concept has been taught in prior courses. The Data Science career path also delves deeply into the advanced concepts in deep learning and probability required for students to become capable data scientists with computational thinking. The essential statistical principles necessary for working with data are covered in the career tracks.

Screenshot from 365 Data Science’s learning platform displaying part of its course content.
Screenshot from Treehouse’s learning platform displaying part of its course content.

Treehouse

Treehouse Tracks are designed to help you master specific skills via a structured series of courses and workshops. Treehouse offers 45 tracks on various tech topics—five related to data science. None include the more advanced concepts like deep learning with TensorFlow or data visualization in R and Tableau, which are covered in the 365 Data Science curriculum. The Treehouse curriculum does not provide courses on Tableau, R, or Power BI—essential technologies for data professionals.
Students who wish to build-job ready skills can enroll for Treehouse Techdegrees, equivalent to 365 Data Science Career Track. Currently, Treehouse offers six Techdegree online boot camp programs—one of which is the Data Analysis program.
Since the Data Analysis Techdegree curriculum is a selected compilation of courses from the Treehouse library, it faces the same content gaps. But the Treehouse Techdegree differs from the 365 Career Tracks in its more project-based approach.

Key Features: 365 Data Science vs Springboard

Learning Platform

365 Data Science recognizes students’ challenges with online learning, such as a lack of engagement, accountability, motivation, and fun. The platform has gamified elements to solve these concerns that promote engaging learning practices. The platform offers an XP system, newsfeed, collecting cards, leaderboard system, other features, and the standard learning dashboard where you establish goals and monitor your progress.

On the other hand, Treehouse offers no gamified features apart from a graph that presents your study activity for the last seven days. Their videos, however, have clickable time stamp transcripts and are downloadable, which is great for offline use.

Learning Material

Learning materials help students assimilate the subject matter quicker and in ways that course videos cannot. 365 Data Science provides downloadable resources that can be stored on your computer and accessed offline.

In addition to exercise files with videos, 365 Data Science offers a variety of other resources to satisfy the needs of students, such as the following:

  • Course Notes: free PDF text documents highlighting a particular course's key concepts .
  • Templates: code-ready templates that speed up your process and cut down on online browsing time.
  • Infographics: PDF documents with eye-catching graphics that assist newcomers in explaining the big picture of the challenging discipline of data science.

Treehouse courses also offer external learning resources and content linked to educational articles, cheat sheets, and working files that students can download.

Real Environment Practice

365 Data Science offers coding in real environments and video instructions on how to set it up.

Although less practical than in-browser coding—which allows students to transition from video to coding—developing your skills in a real-world environment far outweighs the disadvantages. All businesses assume you’ll create your own program and identify workable solutions to problems. Additionally, this approach demonstrates how to solve problems when browser-based code cannot handle massive datasets.

While Treehouse also encourages coding in real environments, they have Workspaces (browser-based code editors) that students can save whenever they follow along with the video material. Each Workspace, however, only has a limited 50 MB but can have up to 100 Workspaces created at a time.

Practical Case Studies

365 Data Science emphasizes the business application of data science in its practical case studies. It offers helpful case studies where students can put what they've learned into practice in a real-world setting.
As an illustration, the Probability Course in 365 Data Science provides access to the FIFA 19 player stats dataset. As the game's head product manager, you must use continuous distribution concepts to assess whether the game is fair and fun to play.

365 Data Science highlights the business application of data science in its exercises and case studies in such courses as:

  • Python for Finance
  • Credit Risk Modeling in Python
  • Time Series Analysis in Python
  • AI Applications for Business Success

As previously mentioned, the Treehouse Techdegree program emphasizes practical projects and hands-on exercises as the Data Analysis Techdegree curriculum is divided into eight sections. Each section contains a real-world project students must complete and can add to their portfolios. One of the mandatory Treehouse projects requires students to analyze Olympic data from 1896 to 2016, using Google Sheets to compute statistics, apply conditional formatting, and so on.
Treehouse’s peer-review system for projects means that students review and grade each other’s work, which can be problematic because your grade can be delayed or affected by an unprofessional or prejudiced opinion.

Exams

Exams are ideal for students to gauge how much knowledge they have retained regarding theory and application from a given section or course. Passed exams demonstrate to potential employers that you possess the necessary expertise to perform your job well.

365 Data Science хas three types of exams–practice exams, course exams and career track exams.

Optional practice exams evaluate your understanding of a particular area or chapter of the course. They help you find potentially essential areas for improvement and are an excellent method to prepare for the course exams.

Course assessments are thorough (timed) exams that gauge how much knowledge you have acquired on each course topic.

Career track exams are accessible only once you have completed every course exam in the professional track and have had your knowledge accessed from every course in the career track.

Treehouse offers coding challenges, short practice quizzes equivalent to the 365 Practice Exams, and a Final Comprehensive Exam at the end of each Techdegree.

Certificates

The certifications students receive from online learning platforms after completing a course or career track are key selling points. The data science business places a high value on certificates since they show that the student possesses the character qualities and technical skills required to be a competitive job applicant. 365 Data Science provides industry-recognized certificates that significantly increase students’ chances of landing a data science job. When passing exams with a grade of at least 60%, students can obtain course certificates and career track certificates.

Treehouse students receive certificates upon completing all the coursework, including all the projects, and passing the final exam. Students can save their certification via Accredible (a digital credentialing solution). Unfortunately, as previously noted, the peer review system can cause potential problems because your grade relies upon someone else’s diligence and judgment. While Treehouse tries to address this issue by providing workshops to students on how to critique work, nothing can replace a professional evaluation.

Q&A support

365 Data Science provides superb, personalized customer support, and instructors actively participate in responding to queries from the platform's Q&A section. Such assistance is essential for novices and when they require professional guidance.

The Treehouse learning platform features a Q&A forum and a Slack community of like-minded peers and staff assistants to help you throughout the course. Unfortunately, Treehouse instructors do not participate in these discussions. All students enrolled in the Tech degree get a one-time 30-minute free call with the Treehouse CEO, where they can discuss career advice and any other questions they have.

Student Ratings

365 Data Science and Team Treehouse are well-regarded by students and have positive reviews on Trustpilot and G2. Treehouse scores 4.3/5 stars based on 37 reviews on the G2 platform, while 365 Data Science has 4.8/5 from five reviews.

Treehouse has 4.1/5 stars based on 11 reviews, and 365 Data Science boasts 4.9/5 from 670 reviews.

Pros and Cons

Treehouse
Pros:
  • Project-based curriculum
  • Downloadable videos
  • Techdegrees in different IT fields
Cons:
  • Outdated or incomplete data science curriculum
  • Peer review system
  • Noticeable difference in quality between the different subscriptions
365 Data Science
Pros:
  • Comprehensive career track curriculum
  • Instructor-peer help
  • Gamified learning platform
  • Recognized Certificates of Achievement
Cons:
  • No Real-World Projects
  • No 1-on-1 mentorship

Pricing

365 Data Science provides free content to students who wish to taste the platforms’ teaching styles before deciding on a plan. It allows students access to the first chapters of each course and the resources and practice exams in them. In this way, students have an excellent opportunity to decide if they want to upgrade.

Treehouse also offers a lot of free content in the form of a seven-day free trial where you can audit entire course content and tracks without having access to the graded projects or exams.

It’s important to note that students do not get access to real-world projects, the Slack community, career advice, or other benefits in the basic Treehouse subscription courses and Courses Plus.

Treehouse Pricing
  • Free: 7-day free trial to all courses
  • Courses: $25/month
  • Courses Plus: $49/ billed month
  • Techdegree: $199/month
365 Data Science Pricing
  • Free subscription: access to the first few lessons of all courses
  • Premium: $36/month or $29/month billed annually

365 Data Science vs Treehouse: Which one to choose?

Springboard is a learning platform that has a lot of interesting real-world projects. The lack of a professional support system, one-on-one mentorships, and a comprehensive curriculum covering all the technologies and advanced concepts might provide a lesser online data science bootcamp experience than 365. If you wish to learn a specific skill, then 365’s courses in web development, UX, UI design, and other IT-related skills might suit you better.

If you’re looking to build your skills from the ground up and land a job in data science, the 365 Data Science Curriculum is the right choice. Each career track explains concepts of all levels in an easy-to-understand manner, covering all the technologies and skills you need while emphasizing practical skills. At the end of the career track, you can acquire an industry-recognized certificate to prove your proficiency, giving you an advantage over other job applicants.