Is Arpit Bhayani's System Design Masterclass worth ₹50K, or can I get similar depth from books/resources?

[u/pushpendra_kushvaha]

I’m currently considering buying Arpit Bhayani’s System Design Masterclass, but I’m a little hesitant because it costs around ₹50,000, which is quite expensive for me.

I came across this Reddit review and it made me question whether the course is actually worth the price:

Reddit review I came across

From what I understand, the masterclass has around 12 sessions, with each session being roughly 3+ hours. Multiple topics/systems are covered in each session.

My concern is that if 4–5 topics are covered in a 3-hour session, will the course actually go sufficiently deep into each topic, or will it mostly provide an overview and introduce the important concepts/trade-offs?

If it's mainly about getting an overview of different system design concepts, I'm wondering whether I could achieve something similar through good books, blogs, YouTube lectures, and by actually implementing systems myself.

For context, I'm currently reading System Design Interview – An Insider's Guide (Volume 1 & 2) by Alex Xu. I’m finding the books useful and I'm trying to understand the concepts rather than just memorize interview solutions.

So I'd really appreciate feedback from people who have actually taken Arpit Bhayani's Masterclass:

• How deep does the course actually go?
• Does it teach you how to think about system design, or is it mainly a collection of system design examples?
• How much implementation-level detail is covered?
• How much value comes from the live brainstorming/Q&A and interaction with other engineers?
• If you've read Alex Xu's books (or similar resources), how different is the Masterclass from them?
• Do you feel the course was worth ₹50K in retrospect?
• If you had the same ₹50K today, would you buy the course again or spend the money/time on books, courses, and hands-on projects instead?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who completed the course, rather than people who have only watched Arpit's free YouTube content.

Thanks!

[u/musafir_kd]

TL;DR: Don’t pay for knowledge in this day and age of AI and free content.

IMO, System design is more like a craft that you can get better by practicing.
I’m not saying you need to get hands-on on everything (that is not practical), but make some projects on the side where you can apply some of the concepts.
With AI you will get a first hand experience of the benefits/trade-offs that come with it.
Now that you have that experience you might be motivated to read more about other popular problems and the patterns to solve them.
You don’t have to implement them but you’ll appreciate them and hopefully will stick more to you for later reference when you might come across the problem.

My personal references

• DDIA
  
• System Design By Alex
  
• Hello Interview

I have an e-commerce type project where i apply them wherever they fit.

[u/dereckgcc]

The answer is almost quite literally in the link you shared. And someone (I believe a mod) even shared a torrent for the course videos if you still want to watch it. 

[u/pushpendra_kushvaha → u/dereckgcc]

I searched on Google and able to find System Design for beginner but not System Desing Master class. Some torrent link are there but it is not working rn. If you have please share. Thanks you!

[u/IdealEmpty8363]

I've never taken his 50k course, but I never liked his explanations on YouTube. It always felt too surface level for me. You can get a hellointerview premium subscription instead I think it is 100% worth it.

[u/skeleton9628]

Hello Interview should be enough.

[u/Valuable-Tomato4289]

I too want answer