Lately I have been participating in various competitive programming contests online, and there are some major platforms available now, that were not there several years ago. I have decided to compile a benchmark for these platforms: hopefully it might be useful for other contestants as well. This list is by no means exhaustive, and more contests can be found through the following link, although information provided there is not always complete/accurate: www.hackerrank.com/calendar
| CATEGORY | CodeForces | TopCoder | HackerRank | CodeChef |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SHORT CONTEST NAME & DURATION | Codeforces Round: 2 hours | Single Round Match (SRM): 1.5 hour | 101 Hack: 2 hours, HourRank: 1 hour | Cook-Off: 2.5 hours |
| # OF DIVISIONS | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| # OF PROBLEMS PER CONTEST | 5 | 3 | 5 and 4 respectively | 5 |
| PARTIAL POINTS | NO | NO | YES | NO |
| ACCESS TO COMPETITORS' CODE | YES: Hacking | YES: Challenge | NO: only after contest, and only to those problems that you have solved as well | NO: only after contest |
| PROBLEMS AVAILABLE IN: | English, Russian | English | English | English, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese |
| COUNTRY OF ORIGIN | Russia | USA | India | India |
| ... | ||||
Leave a comment if you think I should add more information to this table, or perhaps there are some other good platforms that I don't know about yet.
Personally, I prefer HackerRank-style competitions, because they grant points for partial solutions (similar to IOI). Thus, even solutions that are not the best in terms of time complexity can help you move up in the ranking, as long as they are correct. This is not the case with other platforms, where BOTH correctness AND time efficiency are essential.
