Math Academy
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 17 online courses
People recommend it for a structured, distraction-free path through math with diagnosed gaps and many practice problems. The most common caveat is that the explanations are often too thin.
People recommend it for a structured, distraction-free path through math with diagnosed gaps and many practice problems. The most common caveat is that the explanations are often too thin.
36 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 35
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 97%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 9 months
Median of the 6 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 35 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 35 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Structured skill tree with prerequisites
“structured learning across an incremental skill tree with practise problems to prove to yourself that you understand”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science” “Math Academy is doing it right. Their neat synthesis of spaced repetition and the knowledge DAG is slick”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “LearnVector – Andrew Ng's AI company building one‑to‑one learning experiences” “support for card order/hierarchy/prerequisite an and encompassing graphs like what MathAcademy does”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Hashcards: A plain-text spaced repetition system” - Comment from 23 Aug 2026 in “Why Sal Khan't: On Learning by Making but Teaching by Telling”
- Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “LLM from scratch, part 28 – training a base model from scratch on an RTX 3090”
Many practice problems with rising difficulty
“I think the problem solving aspect makes it was more useful for bruteforcing your way towards building intuition”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “An Illustrated Introduction to Linear Algebra, Chapter 2: The Dot Product” “I found myself understanding stuff the more I did it. And MathAcademy makes you do a lot of problems on repeat.”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Reflections on 1,000 Days of Math” “no videos. just short texts on how to solve a problem and then a bunch of problems with increasing difficulty.”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Coursera to combine with Udemy” Worth the cost for serious learners
“I'm partial to MathAcademy for learning math as an adult learner. Not cheap but so so so worth it.”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “The 101 of analog signal filtering (2024)” “Easily the most valuable learning resource I've ever spent money on. Highly recommend.”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Reflections on 1,000 Days of Math” “If it improves your learning efficiency by just 10% then it's worth it.”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “LearnVector – Andrew Ng's AI company building one‑to‑one learning experiences” Diagnoses gaps and targets weak spots
“Math Academy will diagnose exactly where your gaps are and build you up in a series of bite-sized lessons”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “Fundamental Theorem of Calculus” “It's good at identifying weak points and generating the problems you need to understand.”
Comment from 21 Aug 2026 in “Berkeley Law prohibits AI use in classes (by default)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Explanations too thin to build understanding
“everything felt quite discrete and I didn't understand the relationships or purposes of what I was doing”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science” “Mathacademy's lesson is very good but the explanation wasn't enlightening for me”
Comment from 19 Jul 2026 in “LLM-Integrated Multivariable Calculus Course” “Each topic seemed to contain too little information to actually grasp it.”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “LearnVector – Andrew Ng's AI company building one‑to‑one learning experiences” Feels like rote drilling, not fluency
“mathacademy is more similar to duolingo than it is to language immersion”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Reflections on 1,000 Days of Math” “You have the rigid intelligence, but not the fluid (internalized?) one.”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Reflections on 1,000 Days of Math”
Other online courses people recommend
The four most recommended other online courses, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Math AcademyThis page | 35 | 1 | 97% | 12 | 9 mo6 owners | Approved |
| Nand2Tetris | 31 | 3 | 91% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Neural Networks: Zero to Hero by Andrej Karpathy | 29 | 2 | 94% | 9 | — | Approved |
| CS193p SwiftUI course by Paul Hegarty | 13 | 1 | 93% | 2 | 11.9 yrs5 owners | — |
| CS336: Language Modeling from Scratch | 12 | 1 | 92% | 5 | — | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 59 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I bet 99% would have better understanding and fluency with math than they do now”
“B) Use Math Academy the way my son does: skip the explanation and worked example and immediately attempt the first problem.”
“You have the rigid intelligence, but not the fluid (internalized?) one.”
“Easily the most valuable learning resource I've ever spent money on. Highly recommend.”
“I found myself understanding stuff the more I did it. And MathAcademy makes you do a lot of problems on repeat.”
“mathacademy is more similar to duolingo than it is to language immersion”
“as a program it's a serious and complete secondary school to undergraduate university math program”
“my son has been using Mathacademy and the results have been incredible”
“It's pretty darn good. I did like 2 hours a day for 90 days and went from Math Foundations I(70% completed) to Math Foundations III(74% completed).”
“I'm also an early fan and customer of Math Academy and am glad to see something like this focused on micro skills”
“There are some truly excellent initiatives leveraging AI as teachers, rather than as cognitive crutches”
“It uses a knowledge graph so that it knows whether you've satisfied prerequisites for a topic”
“It's good at identifying weak points and generating the problems you need to understand.”
“If it improves your learning efficiency by just 10% then it's worth it.”
“Math Academy is doing it right. Their neat synthesis of spaced repetition and the knowledge DAG is slick”
“After a quick look I signed up and it is fantastic - exactly what I wanted.”
“I think the topics and curriculum are more serious, and I would definitely recommend it if you have kids or are in highschool/uni.”
“Each topic seemed to contain too little information to actually grasp it.”
“As a daily user of Anki and Math Academy, I'm very excited about how software can help us learn.”
“Mathacademy's lesson is very good but the explanation wasn't enlightening for me”
“I think they are right in many many aspects perhaps except the behavioral motivation ones.”
“But you can design a system to do it, which is what the Math Academy folks have done.”
“it will teach you the “shut up and calculate” version of math really well”
“Math Academy will diagnose exactly where your gaps are and build you up in a series of bite-sized lessons”
“I recommend Math Academy + Mathematica + YouTube + ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude Opus”
“I was fascinated by Math Academy and wanted to build the same system”
“no videos. just short texts on how to solve a problem and then a bunch of problems with increasing difficulty.”
“I am ok with minimal gamification like Math Academy does with experience points”
“remains a calm and distraction-free learning environment that still actually teaches anyone who shows up to regularly and consistently do the work”
“support for card order/hierarchy/prerequisite an and encompassing graphs like what MathAcademy does”
“mathacademy has a full zero to everythign you need pathway that you can follow to mastery”
“in practice I never felt confident in my understanding or execution”
“Math Academy is a good option, but I wrote about the issues I had with it”
“everything felt quite discrete and I didn't understand the relationships or purposes of what I was doing”
“Mathacademy is great and there is no way OP would be able to just jump into university-level math courser without re-learning prerequisites”
“structured learning across an incremental skill tree with practise problems to prove to yourself that you understand”
“I'm partial to MathAcademy for learning math as an adult learner. Not cheap but so so so worth it.”
“If you're looking to get back into it efficently, checkout mathacademy.com.”
“I think the problem solving aspect makes it was more useful for bruteforcing your way towards building intuition”
“I signed up 9 months ago in the hopes of replacing my NYT Crossword habit with something more productive”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.