Short answer: No. Grokking the System Design Interview is not on Udemy. It has never been sold there. The official course lives on DesignGurus.io and nowhere else. If you found something on Udemy using that name, it is not our course.
A lot of people search for this course on Udemy, which makes sense. Udemy is where most engineers look first for a technical course, and Grokking is the name they have been told to look for. But the two have never intersected, and the search results are muddier than they should be.
Here is the straight answer about where the course lives, what the lookalikes are, and how to avoid paying for something that is not the real thing.
Why people look for it on Udemy
Three reasons, and all of them are reasonable.
- Udemy is the default. For many engineers, "buy a course" means "search Udemy." It is the biggest marketplace, it has frequent sales, and it is where a lot of technical learning starts.
- Udemy does have system design courses. Several of them, some quite popular. So the search returns plausible-looking results and it is easy to assume one of them is the course people keep recommending.
- The recommendation rarely includes a platform. Advice like "just do Grokking" gets passed around Reddit, Blind, and team chats without a link. People go looking, and Udemy is the first place they look.
None of those results are our course.
Where the course actually lives
Grokking the System Design Interview is published by Design Gurus at designgurus.io. That is the only place to buy the current course.
The current version:
| Lessons | 83 across 5 chapters |
| Quizzes | 237 |
| Study time | About 20 hours |
| Design problems | 15 worked end to end |
| Trade-offs chapter | 23 lessons |
| Price | $148 once, lifetime access |
| Rating | 4.7 from 60,815 ratings |
There is a free tier with introductory lessons, so you can confirm the format works for you before paying anything.
Where it is not
To save you the search, here is the full picture of platforms people ask about.
| Platform | Is Grokking there? | What is actually there |
|---|---|---|
| Udemy | No | Other authors' system design courses, unrelated to us |
| Coursera | No | University and vendor system design content, unrelated to us |
| Amazon / Kindle | No | Other system design books. Grokking is a course, not a book |
| Educative | A different course | A separately authored Educative course with a similar name |
| YouTube | No full course | Clips and summaries by third parties |
| GitHub | Unofficial copies | Scraped text of the old edition, plus our free official companion repo |
| DesignGurus.io | Yes, official | The current, maintained course |
Two of those need more explanation.
The Educative situation
There is a course on Educative called Grokking Modern System Design Interview for Engineers & Managers. It is a real, substantial course, but it is not ours and it is not a new edition of ours. It was written by Educative's own team after we moved our courses off their platform.
The naming overlap is the single biggest source of confusion in this space. I wrote a full breakdown in Grokking Modern System Design Interview vs the original, including a side-by-side of both curricula.
Is Grokking the System Design Interview a book?
No. This comes up almost as often as the Udemy question. Grokking the System Design Interview is an online course with lessons, quizzes, interactive diagrams, and video. There is no official print or Kindle edition, and there never has been.
If you see a paperback or PDF being sold under that name on Amazon or elsewhere, it is not authorized by us. The "Grokking" prefix appears on unrelated books from other publishers as well, which adds to the confusion, and none of those are this course either.
About the PDFs and GitHub copies
You will find scraped copies of the old text-only edition on GitHub and PDF sites. I have written about this honestly elsewhere, and my position is simple: they exist, they are years out of date, and they are missing most of what the course now is, including the trade-offs chapter, the quizzes, the videos, and the interactive diagrams.
We also maintain a genuinely free, official companion repository at design-gurus/grokking-system-design, which is open and legitimate. For the fuller answer on free options, see is there a free version of Grokking the System Design Interview.
How to tell you are in the right place
Four checks:
- The domain is designgurus.io. Not a lookalike domain, not a marketplace listing.
- The author is Arslan Ahmad. If a listing names someone else, it is a different course.
- It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. $148 for lifetime access.
- The lesson count is 83 across 5 chapters. Older scraped copies describe a 66-lesson version, which is out of date.
If you would rather buy on Udemy anyway
That is a legitimate choice and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Udemy has real advantages: aggressive sale pricing, a refund window, and a familiar interface. There are competent system design courses there.
What you give up is the specific curriculum people are recommending when they say "do Grokking," along with the trade-offs chapter and the case study set that curriculum is built around. If your goal is a cheap introduction to system design vocabulary, Udemy can serve that. If your goal is the course the recommendations point to, it is only in one place.
If you want to compare across the whole landscape rather than just Udemy, Hello Interview alternatives covers six resources side by side, and every Grokking course explained maps our own catalog so you buy the right one.
Frequently asked questions
Is Grokking the System Design Interview available on Udemy?
No. It has never been published on Udemy. The official course is on DesignGurus.io only. Any Udemy course using a similar name is by a different author.
Is Grokking the System Design Interview on Coursera?
No. It is not on Coursera, edX, Pluralsight, or any other course marketplace. DesignGurus.io is the only place it is sold.
Is there a Grokking the System Design Interview book on Amazon?
No. It is an online course, not a book, and there is no official print or Kindle edition. Anything sold under that name as a book is unauthorized.
How much does Grokking the System Design Interview cost?
$148 as a one-time purchase with lifetime access, including future updates. There is no subscription and there is a free tier with introductory lessons.
Is the Educative course the same one?
No. Educative's Grokking Modern System Design Interview for Engineers & Managers is a separately authored course. See the full comparison.
Why do so many people think it is on Udemy?
Because Udemy is where most engineers search for courses first, because Udemy genuinely does host other system design courses, and because the recommendation to "do Grokking" almost never includes a link to where it lives.
Are the free GitHub versions legitimate?
Our official companion repo is. The scraped full-course copies are not, and they reflect an old edition missing the trade-offs chapter, quizzes, videos, and interactive diagrams. See the free version post for the honest breakdown.
Related reading
- Is there a free version of Grokking the System Design Interview?. The honest answer on GitHub copies and PDFs.
- Grokking Modern System Design Interview vs the original. Which one is official, and how the two curricula compare.
- Every Grokking course explained. The full catalog, so you buy the right one.
- Grokking the System Design Interview review. Whether it is worth it, with a five-question decision framework.
Ready to start? The official course is here: Grokking the System Design Interview on DesignGurus.io. Start with the free introductory lessons before you decide.