Best System Design Courses on Udemy, Reviewed

The best system design course on Udemy for interview preparation is System Design Masterclass by Sweet Codey. For architecture foundations, choose Software Architecture & Design of Modern Large Scale Systems by Michael Pogrebinsky. Complete beginners should start with Ace the System Design Interview: Concepts and Case Studies by Pratik Singhal.

A system design interview is a round where you plan a large software system, like a chat app, and explain your choices. Each pick is based on comparing a course syllabus with the topics interviewers ask about.

The review also considers the instructor background shown on Udemy, the format, and the last update on the course page.

Design Gurus publishes this review and sells system design courses that compete with the courses below.

This article compares six Udemy courses, explains how Udemy differs from a dedicated interview course, and matches each course to a need.

Quick comparison

Prices are not listed, because Udemy prices vary by visitor and sales are frequent. Video lengths and lecture counts come from each course page.

System Design Masterclass (Sweet Codey)

System Design Masterclass is listed under Sweet Codey, which Udemy describes as a team of FAANG engineers. FAANG is a short name for large tech employers like Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. The named co-instructors work or have worked at Microsoft, Amazon, and Bloomberg.

It is a video course with 242 lectures and about 11 hours 21 minutes of video. Short quizzes appear between lectures.

What it covers. Every design follows five steps: requirements, capacity estimation, API design, high-level design, and detailed choices like the database.

Capacity estimation is rough math for traffic and storage. API design lists the requests a service accepts. High-level design shows the main parts and how they connect.

The ten designs start with an Instagram news feed, YouTube, TinyURL, a rate limiter, and WhatsApp. A rate limiter caps how many requests one client can send in a time window. The later designs are a search system, Airbnb, a notification system, a log collection system, and a one-time password service.

Appendix lectures explain basic parts, like caches, which keep copies of frequently read data in fast memory.

Who it fits. It fits engineers who want to practice many interview designs with one repeatable method.

What it leaves out. The course page says it does not teach the internals of caches or message queues, which hold tasks until a worker is free. It also has no mock interviews, which are practice interviews on sample questions.

Mastering the System Design Interview (Frank Kane)

Mastering the System Design Interview is taught by Frank Kane with Sundog Education, the company he runs. His Udemy profile says he spent 9 years at Amazon and IMDb. It also says he was an Amazon bar raiser, an interviewer with the power to veto a hiring decision.

It is a video course with 73 lectures and about 5 hours 13 minutes of video, plus quizzes.

What it covers. The longest section covers scaling, databases, caching, and handling failures, and shorter ones review algorithms, data processing, and cloud computing. Another section covers AI systems that generate text or images, including retrieval-augmented generation, where a model looks up documents before it answers.

The main feature is six mock interviews. Each one gives the question and answers to clarifying questions, asks you to try it yourself, then shows a design and reviews it. The six questions include a URL shortener, a web crawler, a video sharing service, and a search engine.

Who it fits. The course page names experienced software engineers and architects preparing for big tech interviews.

What it leaves out. Each mock design video is about 4 to 9 minutes long, so it shows the main decisions rather than every follow-up. The course has six worked designs in total, and about an hour covers algorithms and data processing tools.

Software Architecture & Design of Modern Large Scale Systems (Michael Pogrebinsky)

Software Architecture & Design of Modern Large Scale Systems is taught by Michael Pogrebinsky. His Udemy profile says he is a software architect and an accredited trainer for iSAQB, a software architecture certification board. It lists past work at Google, Intel, Rubicon Project, and DAQRI.

It is a video course with 52 lectures and about 7 hours 54 minutes of video. It adds quizzes and a downloadable workbook.

What it covers. The course starts with turning a vague request into clear requirements. Later sections cover API design, databases, and load balancing, which spreads requests across servers.

They also cover the CAP theorem: during a network failure, a database on many machines must choose between up-to-date data and staying available. The course also teaches architecture styles like microservices, where one system is split into many small services. It then covers stream processing, which handles data as events arrive.

It ends with two practice designs, a discussion forum and an online marketplace.

Who it fits. Among these six, it is the strongest choice for software architecture, and it suits engineers who want a senior or architect role. The course page also names interview preparation as a goal.

What it leaves out. The course has two worked designs, and no lecture title mentions capacity estimation. Interview practice needs more questions than that, so plan on a second resource.

Ace the System Design Interview: Concepts and Case Studies (Pratik Singhal)

Ace the System Design Interview: Concepts and Case Studies is taught by Pratik Singhal. His Udemy profile says he works at Amazon as a senior software engineer.

It is a video course with 73 lectures and about 6 hours 15 minutes of video.

What it covers. Sections cover scaling, load balancers, microservices, SQL and NoSQL databases, the CAP theorem, and caching. NoSQL databases store data in forms other than tables, like key and value pairs.

Five case studies follow: a rate limiter, a URL shortener, Instagram, Dropbox, and WhatsApp. The description says each covers requirements, rough traffic math, API design, and the database schema. The rate limiter case compares five limiting algorithms.

Who it fits. It fits beginners, because it teaches the concepts in order before the case studies.

What it leaves out. The course has no quizzes and no section on message queues. Five case studies is a small set for interview practice.

Pragmatic System Design (Alexey Soshin)

Pragmatic System Design is taught by Alexey Soshin. His Udemy profile lists him as a Staff Software Engineer at Meta. It also lists him as a former Senior Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon's cloud platform.

It is a video course with 111 lectures, about 5 hours 31 minutes of video, and five quizzes.

What it covers. The first half covers caching, queues, network protocols, databases, and sharding. Sharding splits one database across several machines.

The second half has ten designs, including Uber, WhatsApp, a web crawler, an auction site, a ticketing system, and Dropbox. The description says interviews check breadth of knowledge before depth, so the theory is kept short on purpose.

Who it fits. The course page names engineers of all levels, senior engineers, and architects. It suits readers who prefer short, focused videos.

What it leaves out. Each design is 12 to 23 minutes long, so the videos show the main decisions rather than every follow-up. The syllabus has no lectures on AI systems.

Rocking System Design (Rajdeep Saha)

Rocking System Design is taught by Rajdeep Saha. His Udemy profile describes him as a former Principal Solutions Architect at AWS. It also says he has presented at AWS re:Invent, AWS Summits, and KubeCon.

It is a video course with 58 lectures, about 9 hours 28 minutes of video, and two quizzes.

What it covers. The first section explains basics like scaling, caching, sharding, and the CAP theorem. The second covers reusable designs, like image storage and security.

The last section has twelve designs, including YouTube, Twitter, Uber, Ticketmaster, Shopify, and a generative AI system. Most design lectures are 16 to 26 minutes long. The course also shows how to build parts of each design with AWS services like Lambda and API Gateway.

Who it fits. It fits engineers who build on AWS and want interview practice at the same time.

What it leaves out. In an interview, you usually name general parts, like a queue, so you would replace AWS product names with general terms. The syllabus also has no lecture on capacity estimation.

How Udemy courses differ from a dedicated interview course

Udemy is an open marketplace, which is a site where independent instructors publish and update their own courses. Udemy does not write the courses, so update frequency depends on each instructor.

When this review was written, one of these six courses had been updated in the past month. Another had not been updated for about two years. Check the "Last updated" date on a course page before you buy.

Udemy's refund policy says eligible courses can be refunded within 30 days, if the request meets its guidelines. Some purchases are refunded only as Udemy credit. Udemy can also deny a refund when a notable amount of the course was already watched or downloaded.

A dedicated interview course comes from a company whose courses focus on interview preparation. Design Gurus is one example. It does not offer refunds, but free chapters let you read lessons before you buy.

For beginners, Grokking System Design Fundamentals teaches the basic parts of large systems. Topics include load balancing, caching, databases, and replication, which keeps copies of data on several machines. Each topic chapter ends with flashcards and an assessment, and the course ends with a final quiz.

Choose by your need

You have an interview soon. Take System Design Masterclass for ten designs that all use one template. Add Frank Kane's course if you want mock interviews that follow the order of a real round.

You want a senior or architect role. Take Michael Pogrebinsky's course for the concepts used in large systems. Add an interview course later for more practice designs.

You are new to system design. Start with Ace the System Design Interview, since it teaches each idea before the case studies. More beginner options are in Best System Design Courses for Beginners: Start Here.

You build on AWS. Rocking System Design shows each design with AWS services.

You prefer short videos. Pragmatic System Design keeps every design between 12 and 23 minutes.

Is Grokking the System Design Interview on Udemy?

No. Grokking the System Design Interview is sold only on DesignGurus.io. It is not listed on Udemy or Coursera.

It is the original system design interview course by Design Gurus. It has four chapters:

1. How to approach a system design interview
2. System design trade-offs
3. Fifteen worked designs, each followed by a quiz
4. A glossary of basics

The designs include a URL shortener, Instagram, Dropbox, YouTube, Uber, and Ticketmaster. Lessons are written with diagrams, and ten of the fifteen designs also have video explanations. It is one purchase with lifetime access, and as of this writing it costs 59 (list price 148).

You can read the free chapters of Grokking the System Design Interview before you decide. For a fuller platform comparison, see Is Grokking the System Design Interview on Udemy? How Udemy's Courses Compare.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best system design course on Udemy?

For interview preparation, the best Udemy course for system design is System Design Masterclass by Sweet Codey. It explains ten designs with one five-step template. For architecture foundations, Michael Pogrebinsky's course is the stronger choice.

Is Frank Kane's system design course good?

Mastering the System Design Interview is a good fit for experienced engineers. Frank Kane is a former Amazon hiring manager, and the course includes six mock interviews. Each mock design is short, so add a course that has more worked designs.

Are Udemy system design courses enough for FAANG interviews?

One Udemy system design interview course can teach a method, but you also need practice on many different questions. The six courses reviewed here include between two and twelve worked designs each. Plan to add practice questions or a second resource, and explain each design out loud.

Is Grokking the System Design Interview on Udemy?

No. Grokking the System Design Interview is sold only on DesignGurus.io. It is not listed on Udemy or Coursera.

Can you get a refund on a Udemy course?

Udemy says eligible courses can be refunded within 30 days if the request meets its guidelines. Some purchases are refunded only as Udemy credit. Subscription plans do not get the 30-day guarantee.

Related reading

• Is Grokking the System Design Interview on Udemy? How Udemy's Courses Compare
• Best System Design Interview Courses Compared
• Best System Design Courses for Beginners: Start Here
• Which System Design Interview Course Should I Take?
• Free system design resources
• System Design Certification: Does It Matter, and Which Ones Count