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    <span style="font-size:15px;font-weight:700;color:#111111;overflow-wrap:anywhere;">Brain Bytes | Eric Roby | Substack</span>
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Brain Bytes | Eric Roby | Substack versus Exercism
Compare	Brain Bytes \| Eric Roby \| Substack	Exercism
Verdict	Depends	Worth it
Best for	Self-taught developers	Devs practicing a new language
Who it's not for	Teams buying software . nothing to deploy, this is a newsletter	Total beginners needing guided from-zero lessons
Privacy	No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.^⁴	No product breach found; minor CVEs affect the CLI tool, and no dedicated security page surfaced.¹⁴
Support quality	No evidence to score	Volunteer mentors; shortages reported in some languages
Public sentiment	No independent user reviews of this newsletter surfaced in the sources reviewed.^²	Users love it as a free practice tool but repeatedly say it's for practicing, not learning to code from scratch.^⁹
Biggest gotcha	If a paid tier exists, Substack keeps roughly 10% of subscription revenue^⁶	2024 restructure over finances . free product's long-term runway is uncertain.^⁸

Pick Brain Bytes | Eric Roby | Substack when

Self-taught developers
Junior backend engineers
Python learners
Busy devs who skim between tasks

When Brain Bytes | Eric Roby | Substack is not a fit

Teams buying software . nothing to deploy, this is a newsletter
Engineers wanting deep, structured courses or mentorship
Anyone needing certifications or verified learning paths
Non-technical readers

Pick Exercism when

Devs practicing a new language
Self-taught coders wanting free mentor feedback
Career switchers sharpening existing skills
Fans of local-first, open-source tools

When Exercism is not a fit

Total beginners needing guided from-zero lessons
Companies wanting team training features . no Teams product yet
Interview-prep grinders (LeetCode fits better)
Buyers needing SLAs, support guarantees, or SSO

Sources

Brain Bytes homepagecodingwithroby.substack.com
official
About - Brain Bytescodingwithroby.substack.com
official
Here's How I Became a Backend Engineer - by Eric Robycodingwithroby.substack.com
official
Security pagecodingwithroby.substack.com
security
Python tutorial reel by Eric (@codingwithroby)instagram.com
official
Substack Review 2026: Is the 10% Fee Worth It? - PassiveKitpassivekit.com
review
Exercism homepage . 100% free, 83 languagesexercism.org
official
2M users but no money in the bank . Sept 2024 restructureexercism.org
official
Exercism.io isn't for learning to code, but for practicingreddit.com
review
Exercism is great and free . Redditreddit.com
review
2M users but no money in the bank . Hacker Newsnews.ycombinator.com
news
Exercism desperately needs Rust mentorsusers.rust-lang.org
review
Exercism Teams... Coming soon?forum.exercism.org
review
CVE-2025-61723 exercism: Quadratic complexitybugzilla.redhat.com
security