What is Scrimba?
Scrimba is an interactive coding platform for learning web development and AI engineering in the browser. The official site is scrimba.com (opens in a new tab). This guide, scrimbaguide.tech, is an independent, unaffiliated review site. Scrimba's lessons are "scrims": screencasts you can pause at any moment to edit the instructor's code, run it, and resume. It has 73+ courses, four career paths (Frontend, Fullstack, Backend, AI Engineer), a permanent free tier of 24 full courses, and a Pro subscription for the paths, unlimited challenges, Pro-only Discord channels, and certificates. Its newest feature is Scrimba Explain, an AI tool that turns a lesson, a question or your own code into a short narrated video.
Reviewed inside Scrimba with a Pro account, September 2026.
What Scrimba is used for
People use Scrimba for three things, in roughly this order of popularity:
- Learning frontend from zero. The free Learn HTML and CSS, Learn JavaScript, and Learn React courses are the on-ramp most learners take, and the Frontend Developer Path is the one MDN (Mozilla's web docs) reviewed and endorsed.
- Adding AI engineering to a JavaScript skill set. The AI Engineer Path covers agents, RAG, MCP, and the Vercel AI SDK without switching to Python.
- Getting a quick, hands-on refresher on one topic: TypeScript, Tailwind, Next.js, SQL, or a single React feature, from the course catalog.
If none of those fit, Scrimba is probably the wrong tool: it does not teach Java, C#, mobile development, or computer-science theory, and it is not a bootcamp with job placement. See who Scrimba is for for the audience-by-audience breakdown.
How the Scrimba editor works
Scrimba is a real code editor, not a video. A scrim records the instructor's keystrokes and voice rather than pixels, so the code on screen is live text in a browser editor with a file tree, a preview pane, and a console. At any point you can:
- Pause and edit the instructor's code, then run it to see your change.
- Resume and the recording carries on from the instructor's version (your edits are kept in a separate copy).
- Save your own version as a scrim you can share, which is also how challenges and community answers work.
- Read instead of listen. Nearly every scrim we opened had captions, a timestamped transcript under the settings menu, subtitles in ten languages, and playback speed, and project courses add a Download as Zip option for the files.
- Ask about the code in front of you. The EXPLAIN button in the scrim header pauses the lesson and builds a short narrated video from the lesson's files and the lines you highlighted. Each one uses one explainer from your allowance.
There is nothing to install, which is the main reason beginners get further on day one than with a local setup. Try it without an account on the demo scrim (opens in a new tab), or read the longer walkthrough in how scrims work. The trade-off is that you are working inside Scrimba's environment, not VS Code, so at some point you still need to learn a real editor and terminal; the Command Line Basics course covers that gap.
What is inside: courses, paths, challenges, Discord
- 73+ courses and roughly 850+ hrs of lessons across React, JavaScript, CSS, AI, backend, Python, and TypeScript.
- Four career paths that sequence those courses with projects and a certificate: Frontend (81.6 hrs), Fullstack (108.4 hrs), Backend (36.2 hrs), and AI Engineer (11.4 hrs). Compare them on the paths hub.
- Interactive challenges inside every course (10 total on the free tier, unlimited on Pro). Some are AI-checked: the table of contents marks them "Challenge with Instant Feedback", and the AI tells you whether your solution meets the spec even when it differs from the instructor's. Learn Next.js has 80 of them.
- A Discord community with instructors and study groups. Basic access is free; Pro adds the Pro-only channels for code reviews and instructor help. See community and events.
- Scrimba Explain, an AI tool that turns a question, a web page, a lesson you are stuck on, or your own code into a narrated video explainer. A free account gets 10 explainers for life, Pro gets 100 a month. The Scrimba Explain reference covers the entry points and limits, and we tested it in What is Scrimba Explain?.
Is Scrimba free?
Partly, and permanently. 24 full courses (including Learn React, Learn JavaScript, and Learn Python) plus 10 challenges are free with no card; the 49+ Pro courses, the four paths, unlimited challenges, the Pro-only Discord channels, and path certificates need a subscription. Basic Discord access is free, and so are your first 10 Scrimba Explain videos (Pro gets 100 a month). There is no classic free trial, but there is a 7-day refund window and a free month for students through the GitHub Student Developer Pack. Full details: Is Scrimba free? Pro vs Free, Scrimba pricing, and the student discount.
Who is behind Scrimba?
Scrimba is a Norwegian company founded in 2017 by Per Harald Borgen (who teaches several of the beginner courses) and Sindre Aarsaether. Its best-known instructor is Bob Ziroll, who teaches the flagship React courses. In July 2024 Mozilla's MDN reviewed Scrimba's Frontend Developer Path against MDN's own curriculum and now recommends it as a partner course, which is the strongest third-party endorsement the platform has. Learner reviews on Trustpilot average around 4.3 out of 5; the recurring praise is the format and the recurring complaints are a few dated courses and renewal reminders, both covered in our Scrimba review.
Who is Scrimba for?
| You are | Start here |
|---|---|
| A complete beginner | Frontend Developer Path, or the free Learn HTML and CSS course first |
| A career changer with a few months to commit | Fullstack Developer Path |
| A frontend dev moving toward backend | Backend Developer Path |
| A JavaScript developer who wants AI skills | AI Engineer Path |
| Someone who wants one skill, fast | Individual courses |
| Unsure | The Path Finder asks five questions and recommends one |
How Scrimba compares to the alternatives
Scrimba wins on hands-on practice inside the lesson and on React and AI depth; it loses to freeCodeCamp and The Odin Project on price (they are free), to Udemy on catalog breadth, and to Frontend Masters on advanced depth.
- Scrimba vs Codecademy
- Scrimba vs Udemy
- Scrimba vs freeCodeCamp
- Scrimba vs The Odin Project
- Scrimba vs Frontend Masters
- All comparisons
Where to go next on this site
- Scrimba review 2026: the full verdict, pros, cons, and who should not pay.
- Scrimba pricing and student discount.
- Learning paths and the six-month study plan.
- FAQ, billing help, certificates, and troubleshooting.
Scrimba is a browser-based coding platform whose video lessons are editable: you pause, change the code, run it, and continue, with courses on frontend, fullstack, backend, and AI engineering.
A scrim is Scrimba's interactive lesson format. It records the instructor's keystrokes and voice instead of a video file, so the code on screen is live and you can edit and run it at any point without leaving the lesson. Each scrim also has captions, a timestamped transcript under the settings menu, and subtitles in ten languages.
Not a full one. It is a browser editor with a file tree, preview, and console that is good enough for every course on the platform, but you will still want VS Code and a terminal for your own projects. Scrimba includes a Command Line Basics course for that step.
Partly. About 24 full courses and up to 10 challenges are free with no card. Career paths, unlimited challenges, the Pro-only Discord channels, and path certificates require Pro. Basic Discord access is free, and a free account also gets 10 Scrimba Explain videos for life against 100 a month on Pro. There is no classic free trial, but there is a 7-day refund window.
Mostly for learning frontend development from scratch (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React), for adding AI engineering to a JavaScript skill set, and for quick hands-on refreshers on single topics like TypeScript or Tailwind.
Yes. It is a Norwegian company operating since 2017, its Frontend Developer Path is reviewed and endorsed by Mozilla's MDN, and its Trustpilot rating sits around 4.3 out of 5. It is not accredited and its certificates are completion certificates, not degrees.
scrimba.com. This site, scrimbaguide.tech, is an independent guide and is not owned by Scrimba.
Ready to try the format?
Start with the free courses, no card needed. Upgrade to Pro for the paths, unlimited challenges, and the Pro-only Discord channels when you are ready.