Stephane OR Neal - AWS | MY OPINION | Mr. VAV

Cloud is the new hot IT topic. If you are trying to make a decision as to which AWS course to buy - this video will help you make a wise decision.

A certified AWS Architect Associate compares the two most popular AWS instructors; namely Stephane Maarek and Neal Davis.

After using these two resources comprehensively and passing my exams - I am sharing my opinion on what the strengths and weaknesses of these instructors are. I hope you enjoy.

Remember the point I made about toxicity.

00:00 Introduction
01:47 Price
02:43 Number of students & course duration
03:52 Comprehensiveness
05:20 Language
09:55 Practice test questions
10:49 Conclusion

[alliboson]

I think you are wrong in when you said Stephane pronounce cache in wrong way, in Australia they pronounce cache as he pronounce it.

[StephaneMaarek]

Hey
Thanks for this video! Good analysis :)

Regarding your comment at 9:30 - I used to live in Australia, Sydney for over two years. And there, it's pronounced "Cayche".

✌️

[jonathanorrego]

I've got both at 9.99 each. Stephane is exam oriented, Neal is knowledge oriented. You should buy both.

[rajibdein]

Thanks a lot for your valuable feedback. Your review helped me to choose the correct course I was looking for (Neal's Course). Neal's Pronunciation is crystal clear, so his presentation and demo. This also encourages me to practice parallelly. I believe without the clear concept, there is no point for an Architect to clear this exam. Otherwise he/she may get stuck at a certain point on job. So just clearing the exam should be a goal. Neal also helps to identify the possible exam questions. For clearing concept and passing the exam, for me, it's the best choice so far.

[adrienesquerre]

I am preparing my AWS dev cert, I bought stef and neal courses in Udemy, they are both great. Your insight is very useful as well !

[TON-vzpe]

For some reason I followed Neal Davis and I feel more connected to him due to his In depth explanation style. I passed my SAA yesterday. Neal's course is very straight forward and super hands on. I loved his Presentations and Real world scenarios. Of course Neal's course will be too much to take-in at times. But I preferred him to throw everything at me. The cheat sheets are freakishly helpful. I don't think Neal made any mistakes. Grammatically, I didn't find any, but I also don't care.

Keep in mind that Neal's course PDFs need to be revised atleast once! even though you gone through all his videos. You need to take his practice test seriously and pass it to get the real AWS exam idea.

I don't know anything about Stephanie by the way. So can't tell. I believe he is as good as Neal.

[devshah]

Good comparison. I passed CCP using Neal's course and was very happy overall with his course. Looked at all positive reviews and number of students on Stephan's course for the SAA, thought it must be the best course. I am at lecture 10 and struggling with the speed of delivery. I respect his french background may have some influence though I just can't grasp it. People say you just select the lower video playback speed but it sounds horrible with lower speed. Could anyone advise if I should continue or switch to Neal's course as I bought that as well. I really don't want to spend countless hours NOT grasping much. The way Stephan demonstrates things, it clearly shows he has exceptional understanding about the AWS platform but when you teach somebody, you need to slow down a bit. At times I feel dizzy and have to pause and walk away to relax my brain.

[openupthecloud]

This was a nice summary video, Vav ! Very respectful, honest and thorough in your analysis !

I'm making a video on a similar topic, so I wanted to summarise the key points here for those passing by:

* Vavs background on passing the exams:
* Passed CCP on 5th September 2020
* Passed SAA on 30th September 2020
* Both scores over 900
* Took courses from Neal + Stephane for both courses
* Both instructors have priced their courses the same (sometimes they're $12 sometimes $95)
* Udemy pricing is weird
* Vav recommends waiting for when Udemy discounts
* Number of students + course duration
* 195K students for Stephane and 16K students for Neal
* This typically matters for Udemy courses, but both the courses are very similar
* They both do screen recording in AWS and powerpoint
* Vav prefers Neals presentation aesthetics (not too big of a deal)
* Stephane is 24 hours, Neals is 28 hours
* Comprehensiveness
* Neals is better for learning AWS, as opposed to
* More "aha" moments when watching the courses from Neal then Stephane
* If you want to pass the exams Stephanes are just enough and are less overloading
* Language / English Skills
* Stephane sometimes makes speaking mistakes which felt like it misled vav
* Neals audio quality is slightly lower quality than Stephane
* Conclusion
* Appreciate both the instructors for putting out such affordable education.
* If finance is not a big factor, buy both.

Would you mind if I use a couple of short snippets from your video in my own analysis?

I'd love to share your perspective, and of course link back to this video.

Thanks for making this !

[brianfleming]

This is funny. Those are two of my favs and I would never choose between them. I like the way both talk.

[parikshitanand]

A nice video Mr. VAV. Though opinions are totally personal, you have been extra cautious in putting the facts about both the courses and making things easier for people to choose the course that suits their plans. Thank you very much.

[nupurgautam]

I did struggled with Stephen's accent. Eventually moved to acloudguru. Used Neal's practice exam. My firm paid for these courses, hence I had the choice try multiple options.

[Draghonite]

Thank you for your insights. The fact that you went through both courses helped me decide to go ahead and do both as well (that and hoping that Neal will push me past the 70% average score I keep getting w/ Stephane's practice tests). I've recently completed Stephane's course and as of this writing am ~15% through Neal's course. The language barriers I can understand but will move past that issue as my main concern at the moment is the number of mistakes I'm spotting with Neal's approach. It's probably a result of his effort to clean up and/or update the videos, but I've so far run into a few detours -- most notably, what resulted in a lengthy troubleshooting session only to discover that the video never covered the need to create an "orders.html" file; I can only assume that that specific portion of the video was cleaned out of the course (perhaps to update it for AWS' ever-changing UI/UX). But it's this approach that makes his videos harder to follow than Stephane's videos -- Stephane organizes the content in a more self-contained manner, or at least that's the feel so far. There are also clues along the way that there is extra care paid by Stephane and staff to ensure there's continuity and completeness in the videos. I am not writing off Neal at all as his focus on walkthroughs and hands-on over long theoretical explanations (my take thus far) appeals more to me, at least given the size and complexity of this (AWS) topic. I think in a few weeks, if I am fortunate enough to have passed the CDA, then both Stephane and Neal will have been responsible.

[avalanwa]

I bought both Stephane and Neil's CCP course. Neil's course was BY FAR more informative! He made everything make sense, he taught you how to THINK for the exam. Stephane, mumbles a lot and rushes through some parts, as if he had somewhere to rush to, but wanted to get the recording done quickly before leaving. That's just how I personally perceived it. You could tell the areas where he did BAD edits to try to update certain areas, sounds very unprofessional.

When I took my CCP exam, I scored 946 out of 1000. And I honestly owe it to Neil's detailed and relaxed approach. He gave you rationale and made you understand things, unlike Stephane that would run through demos and mumbles on. it was frustrating. He lacked explanation and rationale.

If you want to be competent and speak confidently amongst your peers. I would strongly advise you take Neil's class! Plus Neil's course was up tp date. Stephane was still behind.

[sidim.aourid]

A good comparison in a polite way. Thank you Mr. VAV

[ayeshaali]

accent is not a problemm, what matters is are they able to breakdown concepts in a easy way for even beginner to understand?

[sharathdunna]

Good!
So do you think.. you have done a perfect video without any mistakes or miss pronunciations?

[acerudate]

Thanks for taking the time - I'm nitpicky as well and your review helped me decide! It is also refreshing to see a critical review that remains diplomatic and friendly. You sure know how to give feedback :-)

[noelcobbi]

I bought both. I like both, Neal is extremely good with his practice exam. I learned more from Neal's practice exams. They actually had me pass the exam.

[djtk]

I just passed my CCP after doing Stephane's course, which was absolutely great and I credit him, no complaints. When I was doing some of my own research whilst learning, I inevitably ended up on Neil's Youtube channel. I found his content excellent as well. I may just go with Neil for my SAA as I can't do both, but I am yet to decide.

[uploadvoice]

I bought Stephane’s Udemy course, didn’t finished it yet but I plan to buy Neal’s one because I feel it goes more in depth and the info graphics are wayyyy better