# CS336: Language Modeling from Scratch

12 Hacker News commenters recommended CS336: Language Modeling from Scratch and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend this Stanford course for in-depth, up-to-date coverage of how LLMs are built and scaled, with rewarding hands-on assignments.

## Why people recommend it

- In-depth theory and scaling coverage (3 comments): "It covers all this curriculum in a lot more depth, introduces you into a lot of theoretical aspects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48018371)) "I think this is the best structured class out there that teaches how to scale LLMs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49419272)) "they cover DPO/GRPO and relevant parts needed to train LLMs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46061949))
- Up-to-date 2026 version (2 comments): "it is great quality and the 2026 version is really up to date with architecture decisions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48367340)) "the 2026 version there is essential" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48360538))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Math Academy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/math-academy.md): 35 recommend
- [Nand2Tetris](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nand2tetris.md): 31 recommend
- [Neural Networks: Zero to Hero by Andrej Karpathy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/neural-networks-zero-to-hero.md): 29 recommend
- [CS193p SwiftUI course by Paul Hegarty](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cs193p-swiftui-course.md): 13 recommend
- [CS50 by Harvard](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cs50.md): 11 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](http://cs336.stanford.edu/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "CS336: Language Modeling from Scratch", https://hackerapproved.com/p/cs336-language-modeling-from-scratch/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).