App Academy vs Flatiron School — Choose Your Coding Bootcamp

Aspiring tech professionals in software engineering, web development, and programming often seek out bootcamps to teach them both the fundamentals and the most up-to-date skills in web and mobile app creation. Not only do you learn the important stuff for your career, you learn it in an efficient format versus a drawn out college degree or other alternatives.

If a bootcamp is on your radar, it’s important to do your research and find the program that works best for your lifestyle, financial situation, and career goals. Two of those programs are App Academy, and Flatiron School, which is of similar age and style to App Academy.

There are some similarities between the two bootcamps but some key differences in curriculum, student outcomes, and teaching style worth considering as you’re choosing the right coding bootcamp for you.

First, the nitty gritty:

App Academy is nearly a decade old, having been founded in 2012. They have over 5,000 bootcamp alumni to boot and tens of thousands more who have participated in the company’s free coding program. App Academy boasts three core programs centered around the software engineering career track: a full-time, on campus immersive program¹, a full-time remote bootcamp, and a part-time remote bootcamp. In addition to those courses, they offer a free, self-paced coding program called App Academy Open. It’s the same curriculum that our on-campus students learn, but it’s free for everyone, everywhere to access.

One major perk App Academy offers is a Bootcamp Prep course. It sets you up for success for not only their bootcamp, but any of the other top coding programs in the country (Flatiron School included). It also guarantees you admission to one of those programs, or you get your money back.

Flatiron School was also founded in 2012, the same time other big players in the space opened their doors during the coding bootcamp boom. Flatiron offers immersive courses in software engineering, data science, cybersecurity, and product design. They also have campuses in New York and San Francisco but boast campuses in a handful of other major US cities, as well.

Flatiron School does not offer a comparable prep course to App Academy’s.

App Academy and Flatiron are relatively close in cost, and they have a similar range of payment options for students including upfront payments. Both schools offer an income share agreement, with Flatiron’s options being limited to students in certain states.

In addition, each school boasts scholarship opportunities to increase diversity enrollments and create more inclusive cohorts of students.

App Academy Curriculum versus Flatiron School Curriculum

There are many similarities between App Academy and Flatiron’s curricula in their software engineering courses. Both courses teach algorithms, HTML & CSS, Git, and SQL, as well as Ruby on Rails (for App Academy’s Campus Hybrid students). Both programs cover JavaScript plus React and Redux, as well.

Now, we can’t say much about the curriculum for their other courses, but their software engineering track resembles App Academy’s curriculum closely.

Online course curriculum differs for students in App Academy’s Remote full- and part-time classes. In addition to the skills listed above, their Online students swap out Ruby on Rails for Python as the primary language. As of late, Python has become one of, if not the most, popular coding languages in the world. App Academy updated their Online curriculum to include it because of its worldwide use case at many top companies.

For students interested in the Python track, App Academy is the better choice. Additionally, for folks looking to focus their career specifically around software engineering, that is what App Academy does best. They narrowed their entire curriculum down to software engineering principles to create only the best possible entry-level SWE candidates.

App Academy Student Outcomes versus Flatiron School Student Outcomes

The average starting salary for App Academy graduates of all programs is $97,328, as of 2021*. In 2019, the school reported a 93% and 95% placement rate for their San Francisco and New York campus graduates, respectively.

Flatiron School boasts a program-wide placement rate of 86% and an average starting salary of $74,962 across all programs (this includes their cybersecurity, product design, and data science tracks) noted in their 2020 jobs report.

App Academy Free Courses versus Flatiron School’s Free Courses

Few things say more about the strength of a coding bootcamp than the free programs they offer. How good is the curriculum on its own when you don’t have instructors and peers to study around?

Flatiron School boasts a free coding course in each of its respective disciplines. The courses, upon doing research on them, are aimed to give you beginner fundamentals with the expectation that you’ll go on to learn more or sign up for additional instruction in their bootcamp. These courses are a great first step in your education, but you won’t be able to take the skills you learned from them and find a job.

On the other hand, App Academy Open is App Academy’s entire 16-week curriculum made available online entirely for free. It’s available worldwide, too, so anyone can access it. They noted how important it is to expand access to this type of education and acknowledge that a bootcamp isn’t a feasible option for everyone.

Tech is everywhere. So chances are, there could very well be companies within your industry that are building something cool that can use your existing skills," said Fares. App Academy Open equips you with skills necessary to become employable in today's various industries. That's what it does. Where I am right now should speak for that. So that's one recommendation I would give to App Academy Open students. Learn to code and then think about where you can apply your programming knowledge while also leveraging your previous experience.

Unlike Flatiron School’s free courses, App Academy Open has the same goal as any of their paid bootcamp programs: get people jobs as software engineers in tech. Luckily, we’ve been able to achieve that a number of times over, including with App Academy Open student Fares Osman:

I paid zero dollars and zero cents," said Fares. I felt like everything in App Academy Open was all I needed to become employable. Based on where I am now, I'd say App Academy Open is definitely a real success for me. It's by far the best resource out there for learning to code, and entirely free. If you want to land a tech career without breaking the bank, App Academy Open might just be for you. Sign up for App Academy Open today and see where your learning can take you.

Conclusion: Two great programs for two different types of students

Both Flatiron School and App Academy have historical success helping students become full-fledged tech professionals. Their Course Report reviews (from actual alumni and former students) are nearly identical — Flatiron School with a 4.57 rating, and App Academy edging them out only just with a 4.67 rating — but where they differ is in their delivery, teaching style, and desired outcome:

If you want results and want a near-perfect guarantee that a job is waiting for you on the other side of your bootcamp, App Academy may be the better choice for aspiring software engineers.

Get your toes wet with App Academy’s curriculum and teaching structure by signing up for App Academy Open, right now, entirely free of charge.

If you like what you see, learn more about our immersive bootcamp programs by downloading our Student Experience Packet.

Footnotes

1. Campus Program Names – NY: Full-Time Software Engineering Track, CA: Full-Time Software Engineering Program