Written by
Janosch Herrmann
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If you've ever watched a YouTube video on a thought-provoking topic, chances are that you've heard of Brilliant. The platform is notorious for sponsoring interesting YouTube videos to promote their platform, which has already been used by more than 10 million learners.
But is Brilliant the right learning platform for YOU? And what do they even offer?
Let's find out in this full Brilliant review!
What is Brilliant?
Brilliant is an online learning platform that focuses on teaching fundamental concepts of math, physics, computer science, scientific thinking and most other STEM topics through interactive online courses. In total, they have a library of more than 60 courses, created by some of the smartest minds from universities like MIT, Caltech & more.
Founded in 2012 by Sue Kim, the platform now has more than 3.5 million monthly visitors and has served more than 10 million learners already.
Let's see what their platform has to offer!
Courses
Brilliant courses
Daily problem
Brilliant daily problem
Mobile app
Brilliant mobile app
Pro & Cons
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
High-quality courses | Limited amount of topics |
Learn on the go | No certificates available |
Beginner-friendly | No learning support |
Free trial is available | |
Who is Brilliant for?
Brilliant is the ideal platform for curious people. It focuses not so much on hard skills that you can apply to your everyday life immediately, but more on getting a grasp of the underlying concepts that shape most of today's reality. Through Brilliant, you can learn to see the world with a more knowledgeable view, including a better understanding of science.
Brilliant is right for you if:
you are curious by nature and want to learn something new
you're in college or starting a professional career in a STEM field
you want to refresh your knowledge of important scientific concepts
Brilliant pricing
Brilliant pricing
The entire course library
Entire Daily Challenges archive
Synced progress across web and mobile apps
Offline mode on mobile apps
In addition to that, they also have a gift plan, where you can get a lifetime license of Brilliant for $749.99.
There's also a free option available, which will give you access to the daily problem and the introduction of all the other courses. Though, if you want access to the full course library, you will have access to the premium plan.
Brilliant refund policy
Generally speaking, Brilliant doesn't grand any refunds (as written in their Terms of Use), but they stated that they do make exceptions to this from time to time. They recommend you use their 7-day free trial to test out whether Brilliant is the right platform for you.
Brilliant for businesses / groups
Brilliant currently doesn't offer a dedicated business plan, however they do give you the ability to purchase a group subscription. These group subscriptions cost
$24.99/month for the first 3 seats, then $9.99/month for each extra seat, and give each of the members access to the entire Brilliant course library.
As the plan isn't a dedicated business plan, there are no features like learning insights, custom learning tracks and reporting capabilities.
If you're looking for a solution to upskill your employees, you might be better of with platforms like Pluralsight or Udemy, which offer dedicated business plans that help you manage your workforce.
Brilliant for educators
Brilliant for Educators plan
To get access to this program, you have to send your application there, verifying your education status. You also have to be part of an eligible institution, like:
A K-12 school
An accredited college or university
A trade school
A post-graduate institution
Once your application has been accepted, you will get free access to the entire course library, and you can even give free access to up to 6 courses to each of your students.
Brilliant for students
As of September 2024, Brilliant doesn't offer a discounted student plan.
Learning & Customer support
Brilliant doesn't offer as much support as other platforms might do, as their focus is more on creating new courses and sparking curiosity than it is about learning new hard skills to apply to your job. They do offer a self-service knowledge base, and they also have a support email you can write to if you're facing any kind of problems.
They also used to offer a support community, but it was shut down in 2021 as they didn't have enough staff to maintain it properly. As an alternative, some users have decided to create their on community on Discord, but it's not affiliated with Brilliant, so there's no official moderation.
Overall, you're not going to receive as much learning support on Brilliant, but then again, the platform was never really built to accommodate that in the first place.
Certification
There's currently no certification available for completing Brilliant courses. After all, it's more about being curious and training your brain than it is about learning skills to advance your career (even though Brilliant courses can certainly help with that as well).
Create a Brilliant account
To create your Brilliant account, just click on the “Get started” button on their homepage.
Create a Brilliant account
From there, you will have to go through a short sequence of questions they ask to get to know you and which topics you're interested in. After you're done with that, you can create your account, either by entering an email and a password or by logging in with Google or Facebook.
Popular courses on Brilliant
Logic
Logic course on Brilliant
Scientific Thinking
Scientific Thinking course on Brilliant
Train your scientific thinking
Computer Science Fundamentals
Computer Science Fundamentals course on Brilliant
Get started with computer science
Brilliant instructors
Brilliant's instructors are mathematicians, PhDs and educators from top institutions like MIT, the Johns Hopkins University or Cambridge. In addition to their 12 lead instructors, there are also more than 70 contributors from various fields that helped to but the courses to life.
Meet Zandra Vinegar, the Director of Mathematics at Brilliant, with a B.S. in Mathematics from MIT. Before coming to Brilliant, she was a curriculum developer at the Museum of Math in Manhattan. You can find her work in the various math courses available on Brilliant.
If you want to learn more about the different instructors, check them out on Brilliant's instructor bio page.
Summary: Is Brilliant worth it?
Overall, I would say that Brilliant is definitely worth it! It's for sure not the right platform for everyone, but every naturally curious person will love Brilliant for their thought-provoking exercises and quizzes.
You'll like Brilliant if:
you're naturally curious
you enjoy learning new things
you have a thing for science, math & statistics
you're not here to learn a specific career relevant skill
Sounds like you? Then I'd definitely give Brilliant a try!
Brilliant
8.2