Is 1Point3Acres Worth It? An Honest 2026 Review
Short answer: yes if you read Chinese and want the raw, newest reports, and probably not if you just need English interview questions for a specific loop. Here is how to decide, from a team that indexes the forum for a living.
We should be upfront about the conflict of interest: LeakCode aggregates and translates 1Point3Acres reports, so we have a stake in this question. That is also why we know the forum well. This page tries to answer it the way we would answer a friend.
The 30-second verdict
| Your situation | Worth it? |
|---|---|
| You read Chinese comfortably and job-search for months | Yes. The community, offers, referrals and newest posts are the value. |
| You target a niche company or team with few public reports | Often yes. Long-tail coverage is the forum's strength. |
| You do not read Chinese | Rarely. You pay for access you cannot use without translating every post. |
| You have one interview in the next two weeks | Probably not. A forum thread is not a prep product. |
What 1Point3Acres is good at
Long history, huge volume. The forum has been collecting interview reports since 2010, and the interview section covers nearly every notable tech employer. For a mid-size company that has almost no coverage on English sites, it is often the only place a real report exists.
Fresh, candidate-written detail. Posts are written by the person who just interviewed, usually with round structure, the exact problem, and the outcome. That recency is hard to get from curated lists.
Everything around the interview. Offer comparisons, salary threads, referrals, visa and school discussion sit next to the interview reports. If you want the whole job-search conversation, not just the questions, nothing in English matches it.
Where it falls short
The language barrier is the main cost. Almost all content is in Mandarin, with technical terms mixed in. Browser translation works for the gist but mangles problem statements, and a mistranslated constraint is exactly the kind of error that wastes an evening of practice.
Many of the useful posts are gated. Full access depends on forum points, reputation or a paid membership, and the details change over time, so check the current terms on the site before paying. Free access mostly shows previews.
A thread is not a study plan. Reports tell you what happened, not how often a question recurs or what to practice first. You end up scanning replies, deduplicating by hand and guessing which reports are recent.
Self-reported data has bias. People write up memorable and unusual rounds more than routine ones. That is true of every source, including ours, so treat any single report as a data point, not a rule.
When a translated aggregator is the better fit
If your goal is "what is Amazon actually asking this year," the useful unit is not one forum post but all the reports for that company, translated, deduplicated and sorted by round and recency. That is what LeakCode builds from 1Point3Acres plus LeetCode Discuss, Reddit, Blind, Glassdoor and other sources. You can see the full source list and a side by side on LeakCode vs 1Point3Acres.
We do not replace the forum. We do not carry its offer threads, referrals or community, and a brand-new post may appear there before it reaches us. If you want those, use 1Point3Acres directly. If you want English, searchable question data by company and round, start from a company page such as Amazon or Google, or the 1Point3Acres alternative guide.
A simple way to decide
- Search your target company on an English source first. If there are dozens of recent reports, you may not need the forum at all.
- If coverage is thin, check whether 1Point3Acres has reports for that company before paying for anything.
- If you read Chinese and will be searching for months, a membership can pay for itself. If not, prefer a translated source.
- Whatever you use, favour reports from the last 12 months. Question pools rotate.
Frequently asked questions
Is 1Point3Acres legit?
Yes. It is a long-running community forum founded in 2010 with a large active user base. The usual caveats apply to any forum: reports are self-reported and not verified.
Do I need to read Chinese to use it?
For practical purposes, yes. Nearly all content is in Mandarin, and machine translation of problem statements is unreliable enough that you should double check details.
Is there an English alternative?
There are English aggregators and communities. LeakCode translates 1Point3Acres reports and combines them with other sources; LeetCode Discuss, Blind and Glassdoor are free, smaller-scope options.
Are the interview questions leaked from NDAs?
They are candidate reports of what people were asked. Companies treat some of this as confidential, which is why you should use reports to understand patterns and topics, not to memorise answers.