Blind 75 vs NeetCode 150 vs Grind 75: picking the list that fits your weeks
Search for Blind 75 or "the best coding interview list" and the same three names come back every time: Blind 75, NeetCode 150 and Grind 75. They look like three rival curricula you have to choose between, and the choice feels load-bearing — like picking the wrong one costs you the offer. It mostly isn't. Two of the three share an author, one list literally contains another, and all three are teaching the same dozen coding interview patterns. The real question is not which list is "best" but which one matches the number of weeks you have and the level you are interviewing at.
This guide lays out what each list actually is — who built it, how many problems, how it is organised — then compares them head to head and tells you which to pick by timeline and by level. At the end it covers the one thing every list leaves out, the thing that decides the round once you are actually in it. Treat it as coding interview prep triage: pick a list fast, then spend your real energy on the part the list can't reach.
What each list actually is
The three lists are more related than the "versus" framing suggests. Grind 75 was written by the author of Blind 75 as its successor, and NeetCode 150 is Blind 75 plus seventy-five more problems. Knowing where each came from tells you what it is good for.
Blind 75 — the original, compact core
Blind 75 is a curated set of roughly 75 LeetCode problems chosen to cover the most important data-structure and algorithm patterns without making you grind hundreds of questions. It was put together by Yangshun Tay, then an engineer at Meta, and shared on Blind, the anonymous professional forum — the name comes from the forum, not from any company. The problems are grouped into ten topics: array, binary (bit manipulation), dynamic programming, graph, interval, linked list, matrix, string, tree and heap. The difficulty mix skews medium: about 19 easy, 49 medium and 7 hard.
Its strength is efficiency — it was explicitly built for people who did not have time to do everything. Its weakness is that it is static: it can't adapt to your timeline, and its topic mix reflects what was common when it was assembled rather than now. Most people finish it in three to five weeks.
NeetCode 150 — the expansion with a video for every problem
NeetCode 150 is a set of 150 problems created by Navdeep Singh, the engineer behind the NeetCode YouTube channel. It includes every Blind 75 problem and adds 75 more to fill the gaps, then reorganises the whole thing by pattern rather than by data structure — eighteen categories, from arrays and hashing through to advanced graphs and two-dimensional dynamic programming. The categories are laid out as a dependency tree: you start with arrays and hashing, branch into two pointers and stack, and unlock the harder topics later. Every problem has a free video walkthrough, which is why self-taught candidates gravitate to it.
The additions matter. Compared with Blind 75, NeetCode 150 adds a proper stack section (including monotonic-stack problems like Daily Temperatures and Largest Rectangle in Histogram), advanced graphs (Dijkstra-style shortest path, minimum spanning trees), more backtracking, and a greedy section. The difficulty mix is heavier — roughly 28 easy, 101 medium and 21 hard — and most people take eight to twelve weeks. It assumes you already know the basic data structures going in.
Grind 75 — the schedule generator
Grind 75 is Yangshun Tay's updated answer to Blind 75's limitations, hosted on his Tech Interview Handbook. The important difference is that it is a generator, not a fixed list. You tell it how many weeks you have, how many hours a week you can study, your difficulty preference and your topic focus, and it produces a week-by-week plan. The default plan is 75 problems ordered so earlier weeks build the foundations; if you have more time, the pool extends to 169 problems ranked by popularity, frequency, coverage and rating.
It also fixes Blind 75's ordering: easy problems come before hard ones within a topic, and topics are interleaved so you revisit a pattern across several weeks instead of finishing it once and never seeing it again. The default-75 difficulty mix is about 24 easy, 42 medium and 9 hard, and it fits a three-to-eight-week window depending on your settings.
How the three compare at a glance
The same dozen leetcode patterns sit underneath all three lists — sliding window, two pointers, BFS and DFS, heaps, dynamic programming. What differs is size, structure, how much hand-holding you get, and whether the list bends to your calendar. The counts below are the current (2026) figures from each list's own page.
| Dimension | Blind 75 | NeetCode 150 | Grind 75 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creator | Yangshun Tay | Navdeep Singh (NeetCode) | Yangshun Tay |
| Problem count | ~75 | 150 | 75 default, up to 169 |
| Structure | 10 topic groups | 18 pattern categories (roadmap) | Week-by-week schedule |
| Customisable | No | No | Yes — weeks, hours, difficulty, topics |
| Solutions | Community discussions | Free video for every problem | LeetCode links, no official video |
| Advanced graphs (Dijkstra, MST) | None | Yes | Some in the extended pool |
| Difficulty mix | 19E / 49M / 7H | 28E / 101M / 21H | 24E / 42M / 9H (default) |
| Typical time | 3–5 weeks | 8–12 weeks | 3–8 weeks |
| Best for | Fast refresh | Deepest pattern coverage | A fixed interview date |
Two rows matter more than the rest. NeetCode 150 is the only list with explicit coverage of advanced graph algorithms, and Dijkstra-style shortest-path problems do show up at Google and in senior loops. Grind 75 is the only one that adapts to your calendar — which is decisive if your onsite is already booked and you have exactly nine days.
Which list should you use?
Stop comparing spreadsheets and pick by two things: how much time you have, and where you are in your career. Everything else is noise.
By timeline
- Under 3 weeks. Grind 75, configured to your real weeks and hours so it trims to the highest-value problems. Accept that you will skip some topics; prioritise arrays, strings, hash maps, trees and graphs.
- 3 to 6 weeks. Grind 75 on its default plan — this is exactly the window it was designed for, and its priority ordering protects the important problems when a busy week eats your hours.
- 6 to 10 weeks. NeetCode 150, for the broadest pattern coverage, or the extended Grind 169 pool if you prefer its ordering.
- 10 weeks or more. NeetCode 150 first, then company-tagged problems for the places you are actually interviewing.
By level
- New grads, interns and career switchers. NeetCode 150. You need breadth, and the per-problem videos accelerate the learning. If data structures are still shaky, spend the first week or two on fundamentals before starting.
- Mid-level engineers refreshing. Grind 75. You already know the patterns and need targeted reps on a schedule, not a 150-problem completion project.
- Senior and staff engineers. Grind 75 or Blind 75 as a refresher. Your loop weights system design and behavioural rounds far more heavily, so do not sink all your prep time into algorithms.
On a real round the interviewer rarely stops when your code passes. "Good — that's O(n log n). Now suppose the array is a hundred million elements and arrives as a stream. What changes?" No list prepares you for that sentence. The problems do; the follow-up doesn't come with them.
Coding
Company-agnostic · Onsite coding · 45 min
Run a timed onsite coding round with follow-ups out loud
Finishing a list isn't the same as owning it
Here is the part the "which list" question hides. A green checklist says nothing about whether you can solve an unfamiliar problem. A checkmark might mean you derived the solution, reconstructed it after a hint, copied the code, or just remembered the video. Only the first two are evidence you are ready.
Use a four-part ownership test on every pattern that matters:
- Solve an unseen variation without being told its category.
- Explain the invariant, the complexity and the alternatives you rejected before you write any code.
- Produce clean code and test the edge cases while speaking your reasoning aloud.
- Re-solve a problem you missed several days later, from scratch, without looking at the answer.
The trap the lists build is recognition instead of transfer. When the page is headed "Sliding Window", recognising the pattern proves almost nothing — real interviewers don't label the problem. After every three to five topic-grouped problems, hide the topic and attempt one mixed, unseen, time-limited question. If you can't decide whether it needs a heap, a binary search or a graph traversal, your gap is pattern selection, not syntax, and no amount of extra problems fixes that on its own.
This is why 2026 interviews have drifted. Because these lists are so widely circulated, interviewers now take a known problem and add a twist (Two Sum on a stream; Course Schedule that must return the actual order), pile on follow-ups about space, scale and "what if it doesn't fit in memory", and ask you to explain why your approach works rather than whether it passes. Candidates who memorised solutions stall on the first follow-up. The ones who get the offer treat the list as a pattern curriculum and can defend any one of them out loud.
That defence is exactly what a scored mock round grades, on four dimensions: problem solving (do you reach an optimal approach and name the pattern), communication (can you narrate the plan before you type), technical execution (clean, correct code under the clock) and time management (do you finish two problems in 45 minutes). Reading this list teaches you the answers; it does not teach you to deliver them while someone changes the constraint.
Coding
Company-agnostic · Phone screen · 45 min
Rehearse the phone screen out loud, with a follow-up after every solution
A simple plan that actually works
You do not need to finish all three lists — doing so is mostly repetition that proves you can complete a famous spreadsheet, not that you can solve something new. Here is the best way to practise coding interviews with whichever list you picked:
- Pick one list by your timeline (above) and commit to it. Switching lists halfway is how a week vanishes.
- Master patterns, not problems. Keep an error log of the pattern you missed and the earliest point your reasoning went wrong — not just which problem you failed.
- Test transfer early. For each weak pattern, solve one problem from outside the list with the category hidden. If the approach appears but your code is slow, drill implementation; if no approach appears, go back to the concept.
- Rehearse out loud under a clock. In the final two weeks, do timed 45-minute rounds — two problems, narrating the plan and the complexity — because communication is scored in every real round.
- Then widen the loop. Once coding is stable, move time to company-specific formats, system design and behavioural rounds instead of adding a fourth problem list.
If you want raw volume to drill the problems themselves — especially the SQL and data-heavy variants — PipeCode is a sister platform built for exactly that kind of structured practice; use it for reps, then come back here to rehearse defending them out loud.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between Blind 75, NeetCode 150 and Grind 75?
Blind 75 is a fixed list of about 75 LeetCode problems curated by Yangshun Tay and first shared on the Blind forum. NeetCode 150, by Navdeep Singh, contains the Blind 75 plus 75 more problems, organised into eighteen pattern categories with a free video for each. Grind 75 is Yangshun Tay's updated successor to Blind 75 — a customisable schedule drawn from a pool of 169 problems that adjusts to how many weeks and hours you have. They overlap heavily on purpose; they are not three independent curricula.
Is Blind 75 enough to pass a FAANG interview in 2026?
For some candidates, yes; for most, not on its own. Blind 75 covers the core patterns but is light on a few that show up regularly now — monotonic stacks, advanced graphs like Dijkstra, and greedy problems. If you can solve every Blind 75 problem deeply and explain each solution, you are in decent shape for many mid-level loops. For Google, Meta or senior roles, expanding to NeetCode 150 or the full Grind 169 pool is the safer bet.
Should I do NeetCode 150 or Grind 75?
Choose NeetCode 150 if you have eight or more weeks, want strong coverage of every major pattern, and learn well from video explanations. Choose Grind 75 if you have less time or want a plan that adapts to your available hours — its priority ordering protects the high-value problems when a week gets busy. Grind 75 is the better planning tool; NeetCode 150 is the better curriculum for building pattern recognition from the ground up.
How long does it take to finish each list?
Roughly: Blind 75 in three to five weeks, Grind 75 in three to eight weeks depending on your settings, and NeetCode 150 in eight to twelve weeks at ten to fifteen hours a week. Those are completion times, not readiness times. A better signal than "150 of 150 done" is whether you can solve an unseen medium problem in about twenty to twenty-five minutes and explain it cleanly.
Do curated LeetCode lists still work in 2026?
Yes, with a caveat. Large companies still run algorithm rounds, and the patterns these lists teach are still the backbone of them. What changed is that interviewers, knowing the lists are everywhere, add twists and follow-ups and ask you to justify your approach rather than just pass the tests. The lists work only if you treat them as a pattern curriculum — memorise templates, understand solutions — not as an answer key.
How do I practise these problems out loud?
Reading a solution is not the same as defending it while someone changes the constraint. On Zynter, the Coding track runs live voice rounds modelled on how real company loops run — a 45-minute round, a real editor where your code compiles and runs, and a voice interviewer that asks the follow-ups one at a time, then gives you a debrief on problem solving, communication, technical execution and time management. You can get genuine mock-coding-interview feedback on demand, and the score is a practice signal, not a hiring decision.
Practise it on Zynter
You can finish all three lists. The round is still won on the follow-up your checklist never covered.
Pick a coding round, write code that runs in a real editor, and defend it out loud to a voice interviewer that keeps asking "what's the complexity?" and "now the input doesn't fit in memory — what changes?" — then read the debrief. Zynter.ai is on-demand mock interviews modelled on real company loops, with 150+ rounds across 20 companies (Sep 2026) — about $8–$12 for a full 60-minute mock, and two free credits to start.
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