6 best HackerRank alternatives for hiring teams in 2026_

Codility is the HackerRank alternative for enterprise hiring teams that need trustworthy information for every technical hiring decision. CodeSignal, HackerEarth, iMocha, TestGorilla and Karat each fit a narrower need, set out below.

HackerRank has a large task library, with more than 7,500 questions on its Enterprise plan, an AI interviewer called Chakra and 22+ applicant tracking system (ATS) integrations.

Teams still look elsewhere. The reasons buyers give are plagiarism flags they cannot explain, questions that feel academic, and a library that does not fit specialized roles.

Codility publishes this page and ranks itself first. Every fact about another vendor links to a public source, read between September 23 and 30, 2026.

The six alternatives, with the job each one does best:

1. 01Codility: decisions that have to hold up to a candidate, a regulator or a client
2. 02CodeSignal: agentic AI assessments and an AI interviewer
3. 03HackerEarth: high-volume technical hiring plus hackathons
4. 04iMocha: workforce skills intelligence, with hiring assessments alongside
5. 05TestGorilla: self-serve screening across many roles, with a free plan
6. 06Karat: outsourced first-round technical interviews

What does HackerRank offer in 2026?

HackerRank’s products include Screen, Interview, Chakra, SkillUp and Engage. Hiring teams use Screen for take-home assessments and Interview for live technical interviews.

HackerRank sells three plans. Starter and Pro are self-serve. Enterprise is priced by quote and carries the full library, certified assessments and the most integrations.

Screen

HackerRank Screen runs take-home assessments. The Enterprise library holds 7,500+ questions, Pro holds 4,000+ and Starter holds 2,000+. Certified assessments cover 80 roles.

Interview

HackerRank Interview runs live coding interviews in HackerRank’s own browser-based integrated development environment (IDE). Every plan includes an agentic AI assistant, and candidates can choose Claude, Gemini or GPT.

Chakra, the AI interviewer

Chakra is HackerRank’s AI interviewer, launched on February 12, 2026. Chakra builds an interviewer from a job description, then runs an adaptive voice and video interview. HackerRank includes Chakra in all plans.

How much does HackerRank cost?

HackerRank’s self-serve plans cost $948 to $5,028 a year, and Enterprise is priced by quote. The figures below are for annual billing, read on HackerRank’s pricing page on September 23, 2026.

Each attempt beyond the allowance costs $20 on Starter and Pro. Other articles quote older figures from earlier HackerRank tiers.

Why do teams look for a HackerRank alternative?

Buyer reviews and HackerRank’s own documentation point to four problems.

1. Plagiarism flags that a recruiter cannot explain.

2. Questions that feel academic.

3. Pricing for smaller teams.

4. Integrity evidence that ends in a label. HackerRank’s help center says the Desktop App gives the reviewer a rating of High or Medium. The same page says content protection is “temporarily unavailable” in the Desktop App.

Candidates notice the same gaps. HackerRank’s Trustpilot rating is 1.7 out of 5 from 19 reviews. One candidate wrote that plagiarism was detected and that HackerRank support gave “no response.”

Data location is a fifth issue for European teams. HackerRank documents no EU hosting option, and its data processing addendum allows processing in the United States “and anywhere else in the world.”

What should a HackerRank alternative do better?

A HackerRank alternative has to fix the problems above. Six tests separate the vendors below.

1. 1Explain every result. The vendor publishes its method, and the reviewer has evidence to show a candidate who challenges the outcome.
2. 2See the AI tools a browser cannot. Some AI helper apps hide from screen sharing. Catching them takes a view of the whole computer, resolved into one level a person reviews.
3. 3Test real work, and build the exact task when the library falls short.
4. 4Let candidates use AI the way the job does, and keep a record of how they used it.
5. 5Fit your volume and your data rules. The pricing unit matches how you hire, and your data stays in the region you choose.
6. 6Give you a partner who answers. A CodeSignal buyer quoted below names inconsistent support follow-up, and HackerRank candidates on Trustpilot report tickets with no reply. Ask each vendor for named contacts and help building your first assessments.

HackerRank alternatives at a glance

Each entry below restates these facts in full. Ratings were read on September 23 and 30, 2026.

Entry plans compared

Codility Starter includes 120 invites a year, twice the volume of HackerRank Starter and CodeSignal Build. That works out at $10 per included assessment on Codility, against $15.80 on HackerRank and CodeSignal.

Each vendor counts usage in its own unit, such as an invite, an attempt or a credit, so treat the price per assessment as a guide.

iMocha and Karat publish no prices. TestGorilla also offers a free plan.

The 6 best HackerRank alternatives in 2026

Codility comes first. The other five follow in order of how closely they match HackerRank’s product.

1. Codility

lockapp.codility.com/screen/reports/alex-morgan

Dashboard Screen Interview Skills Intelligence PS

Screenchevron_rightBackend engineer, Pythonchevron_rightAlex Morgan

Alex Morgan

[email protected] · Completed Sep 24, 2026 · 90 min

check_circleCompleted

Summary Deep dive Integrity Timeline

Score

82%Total score

Rate limiter python100%

Event log query sql76%

Fix the checkout bug python70%

Integrity RiskwarningModerate

4 signal groups · 1 needs review

touch_app

Behavioral

2 tab switches, 18 s in total

Low

badge

Identity

Photo matched at start and end

Verified

desktop_windows

Device

Hidden overlay app at 14:32 · View evidence

Detected

difference

Similarity

No match with other submissions

Not found

Review evidence Mark as reviewed

The product. Codility is a technical hiring platform with three products: Screen for assessments, Interview for live technical interviews, and Skills Intelligence for your current workforce. Screen and Interview work together in a seamless flow, and each also runs on its own.

Core capabilities

• check_circle1,300+ validated tasks, designed with occupational psychologists
• check_circleWork simulations in a full VS Code environment, with a terminal and running services
• check_circleAI Copilot and Claude Code across Screen, Interview and Skills Intelligence
• check_circleOne Integrity Risk level per candidate, with the reviewable evidence attached
• check_circleAI for Business, which assesses AI skills in business roles such as sales, customer support, product management and finance
• check_circleData hosting in the US or the EU

Differentiator 1: coding agents in the work, a deterministic score in the decision.

Engineers now build with coding agents, so hiring teams need to see how a candidate directs one. Codility runs Claude Code, Anthropic’s coding agent, inside the same VS Code environment the candidate works in, alongside a terminal and running services such as databases, caches and queues. The candidate prompts the agent, reads what it produces, runs the tests and ships.

Claude Code runs across Screen, Interview and Skills Intelligence. The same agent-assisted work can be assessed in hiring and across your current engineering team.

You decide where AI belongs. AI Assistance switches on or off per task in Screen and Skills Intelligence and per interview in Interview, so a build task can allow the agent while a fundamentals task keeps it off. One account-level switch sits above every AI feature.

Every interaction is saved to the candidate record as reviewable AI activity, next to the score and the integrity signals. Your reviewer sees what the candidate asked and what the agent returned. AI Follow-Up Questions also ask the candidate about their own solution. The answers go to the reviewer as extra evidence and are never scored.

Codility scores each task deterministically, against criteria fixed before the task is released. The agent helps the candidate build. No AI sits in the pass or fail decision, and a person on your team makes it.

The same approach extends to business roles. AI for Business gives candidates a real deliverable to produce with an AI assistant and scores it deterministically.

HackerRank also allows AI on every plan. In Codility, the AI activity, the integrity signals and a score with no AI in it sit in one candidate record.

Claude Code runs on Custom plans. The agentic AI Copilot is included in Starter and Scale.

Fix the checkout bug python · task 3 of 3 auto_awesomeAI Assistance on timer41:18 Submit

foldersearchdnsauto_awesome

Explorer

▾ checkout

api.py

cart.py

payments.py

▸ tests

docker-compose.yml

README.md

Services

postgres:5432

redis:6379

rabbitmq:5672

cart.pypayments.py

14def apply_discount(cart, code):

15 discount = cache.get(f”promo:{code}”)

16 if discount is None:

17 discount = db.fetch_promo(code)

18 cache.set(f”promo:{code}”, discount, ttl=300)

19 total = cart.subtotal – discount.amount

20 return max(total, Decimal(0))

TerminalProblemsOutput

candidate@codility:~/checkout$ pytest tests/

collected 18 items

tests/test_cart.py ……..

tests/test_payments.py ……….

18 passed in 2.41s

terminalClaude Code

>Totals go negative when a promo is bigger than the cart. Find the cause and add a test.

descriptionRead cart.py, test_cart.py

apply_discount subtracts the promo amount without a floor. I clamped the total at 0 and added a regression test.

cart.py +2 −1

– return cart.subtotal – discount.amount

+ return max(total, Decimal(0))

check_circleRan pytest · 18 passed

>

commitmain3 services runninghistoryAI activity recorded

Differentiator 2: every result can be explained.

The same answer always earns the same result, because the scoring criteria are fixed before a task is released.

Codility publishes its Technical Manual. You can hand it to legal, or even better, to your assessment science or industrial-organizational (IO) psychology team. That record answers the plagiarism-flag problem HackerRank reviewers describe above.

Technical Manual

Assessment design, validity and scoring

Edition 2026

Scoring criteria

rate-limiter · v3

lockLocked before release

Criterion

Check

Pts

Allows requests under the limit

unit test

20

Rejects bursts over the limit

unit test

20

Refills tokens after each window

unit test

20

Thread-safe under concurrent load

load test

25

p95 latency under 5 ms

performance

15

verifiedScoring: deterministic100 pts

Differentiator 3: one integrity level, with the evidence attached.

Integrity signals are the evidence that shows whether a candidate worked within the rules. Codility combines behavioral, identity, device and similarity signals into one Integrity Risk level: None, Low, Moderate or High.

The Codility Desktop App surfaces AI helper tools that hide from screen sharing, such as InterviewCoder and Cluely. A person on your team reviews that evidence before any decision.

HackerRank’s Desktop App also works at the operating-system level. For your reviewer, the difference is one level with the evidence behind it, against a High or Medium label.

Assessment integrity

Alex Morgan · Backend engineer, Python

Integrity RiskModerate

None

Low

Moderate

High

SignalEvidenceStatus

Behavioral

Focus changes2 tab switches, 18 s in totalLow

Paste activityNo external pasteNone

Identity

Photo ID matchMatched at start and end of sessionVerified

Device

Desktop App scanWindow hidden from screen share at 14:32play_circleView recordingDetected

Displays1 display connectedNot found

Similarity

Code similarityNo match with other submissionsNot found

person_check Decision pending review by Priya Shah Reject Pass to next round

Differentiator 4: the exact task in about 10 minutes.

HackerRank has more ready-made questions, 7,500+ against Codility’s 1,300+. Codility closes the gap on demand. Your team can build a task with AI from its own IDE in about 10 minutes, and every task is version-controlled.

codility-tasks — task.yaml

folder search commit auto_awesome

Explorer

▾ rate-limiter

task.yaml

README.md

solution.py

▸ tests

▸ event-log-query

▸ checkout-bug

1title: Token bucket rate limiter

2version: 1

3difficulty: medium

4duration: 60m

5language: python

6ai_assistance: enabled

7scoring:

8 type: deterministic

9 tests: tests/test_limiter.py

10 criteria:

11 – correctness: 60

12 – concurrency: 25

13 – performance: 15

auto_awesomeCodility task builder

Build a medium Python task: a token bucket rate limiter for an API gateway, 60 minutes.

Created 4 files in rate-limiter/

check_circleReference solution passes 14 of 14 tests

check_circle3 incorrect solutions fail as expected

check_circleCommitted as version 1

Publish task Preview

commitmainrate-limiter v1Built in 9 min 42 s

Falls short on

• do_not_disturb_onNo AI interviewer. Codility has decided not to build one, for the reasons set out below.
• do_not_disturb_onNo physical-based engineering tasks. The library does not cover disciplines such as mechanical, electrical, hardware or CAD work.
• do_not_disturb_onNo learning or certification content. Codility measures skills and connects to your learning tools. HackerRank SkillUp sells learning content.

Why Codility does not build an AI interviewer

Codility has decided not to build an AI interviewer, and there is a specific reason.

• An AI interviewer makes sense when async screening is unreliable and passes too many candidates to the next round. Codility Screen is built to be reliable. Every task is validated with occupational psychologists, and every result is scored deterministically against criteria fixed before the task is released. Integrity signals, including AI tools that hide from screen sharing, resolve into one level a reviewer checks. The candidates who reach the live interview have earned their place on evidence.
• An AI interviewer has hidden costs. Each candidate gets different questions, so results are hard to compare. A recruiter still has to review every transcript and recording. Candidates dislike them: in a Greenhouse survey of 2,950 candidates published in May 2026, 38% said they had walked away from a hiring process because it included an AI interview.
• Automated decisions carry legal risk. In the EU, GDPR Article 22 gives candidates the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing.
• Codility invests in the screening step instead. Screen is a validated async work sample, reviewed with integrity evidence, so the first live conversation starts with a stronger shortlist.

Best for: enterprise hiring teams, especially in regulated industries or under EU data rules, that need trustworthy information for a decision they will have to defend.

Pricing: Starter costs $1,200 a year for 120 invites and 1 user. Scale costs $6,000 a year, or $600 a month, for 25 invites a month and 3 users. Custom plans are priced by quote.

Buyer reviews: 4.6 out of 5 on G2, from 904 reviews. 4.6 out of 5 on Capterra, from 43 reviews.

“

“The platform is also simple to set up, contributing to its ease of use, which was a significant reason for switching from HackerRank.”

Codility helps teams move from another vendor, including HackerRank. See Codility vs HackerRank for the side-by-side comparison.

2. CodeSignal

The product. CodeSignal sells technical assessments, live interviews, an AI Interviewer and learning content. CodeSignal is the closest match to HackerRank’s product: screening, interviews and an AI interviewer from one vendor.

Best for: teams that want agentic AI assessments and an AI interviewer across technical and go-to-market roles.

Leads on

• add_circleAgentic assessments, where candidates build with Claude Code, Cursor or Codex, launched in April 2026
• add_circleA strong identity check: government photo ID, face match and human review
• add_circleAn AI Interviewer for technical and non-technical roles

Falls short on

• do_not_disturb_onCodeSignal’s integrity page lists video, audio and screen recording in the browser. The page lists no desktop app and no view of other applications running on the candidate’s computer.
• do_not_disturb_onCodeSignal’s AI Interviewer page describes calibrating the AI against your reviewers during a pilot. We found no published reliability or validity figures for its scores.
• do_not_disturb_onAdvanced fraud prevention sits on the Pro plan only.

Codility’s answer: Codility runs Claude Code too, across all three products. Codility’s identity check is lighter, to support compliance across more countries, and the Desktop App covers the computer beyond the browser. See Codility vs CodeSignal.

Pricing: Build costs $79 a month and Grow costs $479 a month, both billed annually. Pro is priced by quote. Each extra credit costs $20.

Buyer reviews: 4.5 out of 5 on G2, from 1,408 reviews. 4.6 out of 5 on Capterra, from 48 reviews.

“

“Response times and follow up from the customer support could be more consistent when adressing questions or technical issues.”

3. HackerEarth

The product. HackerEarth sells technical assessments, interviews and hackathons. HackerEarth also runs a developer community, which makes it the most HackerRank-like offer in shape.

Best for: high-volume technical hiring that also uses hackathons for employer branding.

Leads on

• add_circleSmart Browser, a desktop app that blocks other applications during the test
• add_circleIdentity checks with liveness detection
• add_circleNew languages added on request, according to one buyer

Falls short on

• do_not_disturb_onHackerEarth’s science page lists no validity study and no adverse impact data. Compliance documentation is available on request.
• do_not_disturb_onWe found no single aggregated integrity level in HackerEarth’s documentation.
• do_not_disturb_onPricing depends on the number of users and jobs.

Codility’s answer: Codility publishes its Technical Manual openly, so your team can review the method before a contract. See Codility vs HackerEarth.

Pricing: Growth costs $990 a year and Scale costs $3,990 a year, as listed on HackerEarth’s discounted pricing page. Enterprise is priced by quote.

Buyer reviews: 4.5 out of 5 on G2, from 608 reviews. 4.7 out of 5 on Capterra, from 26 reviews.

“

“The pricing is based on users and number of jobs rather than a flat rate. So it could be a con depending on how companies plan to use it and how much they know about their hiring.”

4. iMocha

The product. iMocha positions itself as a skills and work intelligence platform. Skills assessment is one module inside it.

Best for: enterprises buying skills intelligence for their workforce, with hiring assessments alongside.

Leads on

• add_circle10,000+ assessments, including 5,000+ coding problems
• add_circleTara, a conversational AI interviewer
• add_circleSOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 certification

Falls short on

• do_not_disturb_onEvery pricing page leads to a demo request. iMocha publishes no prices.
• do_not_disturb_onThe secure browser and ID verification have to be switched on through iMocha support. The secure browser does not support file-upload questions.
• do_not_disturb_oniMocha’s primary data center is in Virginia, USA. We found no EU hosting option.

Codility’s answer: Codility Skills Intelligence measures workforce skills on validated assessments, against a published proficiency scale. Codility also publishes self-serve pricing.

Pricing: quote only.

Buyer reviews: 4.4 out of 5 on G2, from 276 reviews. 4.5 out of 5 on Capterra, from 30 reviews.

“

“Most of the imocha / AI Logic Box test-cleared candidates are not selected in technical interviews, conversion ratio is less.”

5. TestGorilla

The product. TestGorilla sells pre-employment tests across cognitive ability, personality, language and technical skills. Coding is one part of a much broader library.

Best for: self-serve screening across many non-technical and technical roles, starting on a free plan.

Leads on

• add_circleA free plan
• add_circleAI interviews scored on a 0 to 5 rubric from the transcript
• add_circleWebcam snapshots, a candidate behavior monitor and full-screen mode on every plan

Falls short on

• do_not_disturb_onATS integration, API access and ID verification need the Plus plan, from $4,800 a year. ID verification then costs 1 credit per candidate.
• do_not_disturb_onTestGorilla lists scientific validation on its Enterprise plan only.
• do_not_disturb_onBuyers describe the technical tests as uneven.

Codility’s answer: Codility tests real engineering work in a full development environment, and AI for Business covers AI skills in business roles. See Codility vs TestGorilla.

Pricing: Free, then Core at $1,704 a year and Plus from $4,800 a year. Enterprise is priced by quote.

Buyer reviews: 4.5 out of 5 on G2, from 1,449 reviews. 4.1 out of 5 on Capterra, from 267 reviews.

“

“However, over time, we’ve realized that the tasks on the platform don’t quite meet our expectations and are unable to fully assess our candidate’s technical skills. They are either too simple or too difficult”

6. Karat

The product. Karat is a service. Karat’s own interview engineers run your first-round technical interviews and send your recruiter the interview recording.

Best for: teams that want to hand first-round technical interviews to an outside company.

Leads on

• add_circle500+ trained interview engineers, with interviews available the same day, in the evening and at weekends
• add_circleNextGen interviews, launched in December 2025, where candidates work with an AI assistant
• add_circleSOC 2 Type II

Falls short on

• do_not_disturb_onKarat charges per interview and publishes no prices.
• do_not_disturb_onYour own engineers do not run the conversation, so they do not meet the candidate in the first round.
• do_not_disturb_onKarat’s privacy policy names data centers in the United States only. We found no ISO 27001 certification.

Codility’s answer: Codility Interview gives your own engineers a realistic environment and a shared rubric, so the team runs the interview and keeps the decision.

Pricing: not published. Vendr, a software buying platform, estimates $200 to $450 per standard technical screen.

Buyer reviews: 4.2 out of 5 on G2, from 12 reviews, all written in 2023. Capterra lists no reviews.

“

“Questions are designed to prioritize speed over optimization.”

Other HackerRank alternatives

AI assistants also name these vendors for the same search. Codility has not reviewed them in this edition.

• Coderbyte
• CoderPad
• Qualified
• SkillPanel, formerly DevSkiller
• Vervoe
• CodeSubmit
• Equip

Developers who want to practice for a HackerRank test need a different kind of tool. LeetCode, Codewars and Exercism are built for practice.

How we built this list

Inclusion:

each vendor was named in Google’s top results or in Perplexity’s answers for “HackerRank alternatives” on September 23, 2026, and sells to hiring teams.

Sources:

each vendor’s pricing, product, trust and help pages, read between September 23 and 30, 2026. Ratings come from G2, Capterra and Trustpilot. Quotes come from attributed reviews on G2, Capterra and Software Advice.

Limits:

we did not run hands-on trials of competitor products. Pricing and ratings change, so we check them at every update.

Ratings:

we show each vendor’s rating and do not rank by it, because gaps of a few tenths of a point are noise.

Affiliation:

Codility publishes this page and ranks Codility first.

What is the best HackerRank alternative?

Codility is the best HackerRank alternative for enterprise hiring teams that need to explain every technical hiring decision, because Codility tests candidates on real work with coding agents such as Claude Code, scores deterministically against a published method, and resolves integrity signals into one level a reviewer can check.

The tests above map to Codility like this:

• check_circleTest how candidates work with coding agents: Claude Code inside the candidate’s VS Code environment, scored deterministically
• check_circleExplain every result: deterministic scoring and a published Technical Manual
• check_circleSee beyond the browser: the Desktop App and one Integrity Risk level with evidence
• check_circleTest real work: work simulations in VS Code, plus a custom task in about 10 minutes
• check_circleAllow AI where the job does: AI Assistance on or off per task or per interview, under one account-level switch
• check_circleFit your data rules: hosting in the US or the EU

The other five fit narrower needs. Choose CodeSignal for an AI interviewer, Karat to outsource first-round interviews, TestGorilla for a free multi-role plan, and iMocha for workforce skills intelligence.

HackerRank alternatives: FAQ