Hyperskill vs SwirlAI: which AI engineering bootcamp fits you?
Both programs teach working engineers to take LLM apps from prototype to production: RAG, agents, evaluation, deployment, with a project you present at Demo Day. They cost about the same. The differences are in how the live part works, how your work gets checked, and which parts of the stack get the most time.
We run the Hyperskill AI Engineer Bootcamp, so we're not neutral. Everything about SwirlAI below comes from its Maven page, checked on October 21, 2026.
At a glance
| Hyperskill AI Engineer Bootcamp | SwirlAI End-to-End AI Engineering Bootcamp | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2,499 ($2,299 with code AUTUMN), 3-payment plan | $2,200, 20%+ off for 2+ teammates |
| Length | 10 weeks | 8 weeks |
| Time per week | 10–12 hours | 10–12 hours |
| Live part | 1 live session a week (about 2 hours), 1:1 calls with an AI engineer you can book, support in chat | 2 live sessions a week (Tue and Thu, 2 hours each, afternoon UTC), plus optional office hours |
| Recordings | sessions recorded, available during and after the program | lifetime access to recordings and content |
| How your work is checked | autotests on projects, instructor review of GitHub projects | live reviews, Q&A and feedback sessions |
| Projects | a hands-on project in every module + graduation project at Demo Day | capstone built sprint by sprint, presented at Demo Day |
| Career help | CV review and mock interview with the Hyperskill HR team | SwirlAI Talent Collective (connects top students with companies) |
| Credits | OpenAI credits for the whole program, 1 year of Hyperskill Premium | $500 in Modal compute credits |
| Instructors | Nikolay Vyahhi (Hyperskill founder, MIT lecturer), Nikalina Ogorodova, Ruslan Davletshin, Ivan Rodin | Aurimas Griciunas (SwirlAI founder, ex-CPO at Neptune.ai) |
| Who it's for | software developers, tech leads, architects; basic Python recommended | software engineers, ML engineers and data scientists, technical founders |
| Refund | full refund until the end of week 1 | Maven Guarantee |
| Reviews | Course Report, Trustpilot | 4.9 from 115 reviews on Maven |
| Next start | Nov 23, 2026 | current cohort Oct 19 – Dec 13, 2026 |
Where they're the same
Both run about 10–12 hours a week, so both fit next to a full-time job. Both cover RAG, agents, MCP, evaluation, observability and deployment with FastAPI and Docker, and both end with a project you present at Demo Day. Neither needs an ML background.
Where they differ
How the live part works. SwirlAI has more group live time: a review on Tuesday and a build lab on Thursday, two hours each, at fixed times. Hyperskill has one two-hour live session a week, and you can book 1:1 calls with an AI engineer whenever you get stuck. Pick SwirlAI if you learn best in a group with a fixed rhythm, Hyperskill if you'd rather get one-on-one help on your own code.
How your work is checked. Hyperskill projects run against autotests, and projects on GitHub get a review from an instructor. SwirlAI gives feedback in live reviews, Q&A and feedback sessions.
What gets the most time. SwirlAI goes further into infrastructure: Kubernetes, the A2A protocol, evaluation gates in CI/CD. Hyperskill starts agents from first principles, with an agent you write from scratch before touching a framework, and gives two full weeks to evaluation and monitoring: Langfuse, Ragas, DeepEval, LLM-as-a-judge, human annotation and user feedback.
Many projects or one. Hyperskill has a separate project in every module, from a CLI chat to a deployed RAG service, plus a graduation project. SwirlAI builds one capstone sprint by sprint.
Pace. Hyperskill deadlines are soft, with no penalty, and there's a shorter core track if you fall behind. SwirlAI follows a weekly sprint rhythm.
Who's in the room. SwirlAI is also built for data scientists, ML engineers and founders. Hyperskill is built for software developers, tech leads and architects.
Choose SwirlAI if
- you want two group sessions a week at fixed times
- you care most about Kubernetes, A2A and CI/CD evaluation
- you want one capstone that grows all course long
- you'd rather finish in 8 weeks
Choose Hyperskill if
- you want 1:1 time with an AI engineer on your own code
- you want to understand agents from scratch before using frameworks
- you want many smaller projects and deeper work on evaluation
- your schedule changes and soft deadlines help
- you want help with your CV and interviews at the end
FAQ
Last checked: October 21, 2026. Spot an error? Email nik.kononov@hyperskill.org.