Understanding Difficulty Levels
Frontend Mentor organizes challenges into five difficulty levels, from Newbie to Guru. Understanding what each level entails helps you choose appropriate challenges and plan your learning progression. This guide breaks down each level and provides a recommended path for skill development.
Premium Challenges: A Step Above
At each difficulty level, premium challenges take things a step further than their free counterparts. Premium projects are typically more complex, more polished, and more representative of real-world work you would encounter professionally.
Why premium challenges stand out:
- More comprehensive scope - Premium projects often include additional pages, states, or features that make them closer to production applications
- Better portfolio pieces - These challenges are designed to impress employers and showcase your abilities at their best
- Professional-grade designs - Premium challenges come with Figma files, giving you experience with the exact workflow used in professional teams
- Real-world complexity - The additional complexity better prepares you for the challenges you will face in a development role
Tip: If you are building a portfolio to land a job, prioritizing premium challenges at your skill level will give you the most impressive projects to showcase.
Newbie Level
Perfect for: Complete beginners and those new to Frontend Mentor
What to Expect
Newbie challenges focus on fundamental HTML and CSS skills. These projects are typically small components or simple layouts that can be completed in a few hours.
Skills Practiced
- Semantic HTML structure
- Basic CSS styling
- Simple layouts (single column, centered content)
- Typography and color application
- Box model understanding
Example Projects
- Single-card components
- Simple landing page sections
- Static profile cards
- Basic forms
What You Will Learn
Completing Newbie challenges teaches you to:
- Translate a design file into code
- Write clean, organized HTML
- Apply CSS styles effectively
- Pay attention to design details
Tip: Do not skip Newbie challenges even if you have experience. They are excellent for warming up, trying new CSS techniques, or practicing with unfamiliar tools.
Junior Level
Perfect for: Developers with basic skills seeking more practice
What to Expect
Junior challenges introduce more complex layouts and may include simple JavaScript functionality. These projects require a solid understanding of CSS and often involve responsive design basics.
Skills Practiced
- Multi-column layouts
- Flexbox and CSS Grid
- Basic responsive design
- Simple JavaScript (toggles, form validation)
- CSS transitions and animations
Example Projects
- Multi-section landing pages
- Interactive cards with hover states
- Multi-input forms
- Navigation components
- Simple calculators or converters
What You Will Learn
Junior challenges help you:
- Create more complex layouts confidently
- Implement basic interactivity
- Think about different screen sizes
- Combine multiple techniques in one project
Intermediate Level
Perfect for: Developers comfortable with basics, ready to grow
What to Expect
Intermediate challenges are substantially more complex. They require strong responsive design skills, meaningful JavaScript interactivity, and careful attention to user experience.
Skills Practiced
- Advanced responsive design techniques
- Complex CSS layouts
- JavaScript DOM manipulation
- Event handling and state management
- Form handling and validation
- Local storage
- CSS animations and transitions
Example Projects
- Multi-page websites
- Interactive dashboards
- E-commerce product pages
- Applications with multiple states
- Web-based games
What You Will Learn
Intermediate challenges develop your ability to:
- Build fully responsive, polished interfaces
- Implement complex interactive features
- Manage application state
- Handle edge cases and error states
- Write maintainable, organized code
Note: Intermediate is where many developers spend significant time. Do not rush through this level. The skills you develop here form the foundation for advanced work.