LeetCode China (leetcode.cn) is the Chinese edition of the LeetCode online judge, operated by Lingkou Network (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. It addresses the same core need as the global site — preparing for coding interviews by practicing algorithm and data-structure problems — but wraps it in a Chinese-language product: a problem set with bilingual problem statements, a Chinese discussion community, weekly contests, and interview question banks organized by company. The verifiable differences from leetcode.com are that it is hosted in mainland China, its interface and community are Chinese-first, and the two sites run on entirely separate account systems.
At a Glance
- URL: https://leetcode.cn/ (the former domain leetcode-cn.com now 301-redirects here)
- Type: Online judge (OJ) and coding-interview preparation platform
- Cost: Free account covers the core problem set; Plus membership is ¥499 for 365 days, ¥199 for 90 days, or ¥79/month for the first two months of a rolling monthly plan (¥59/month thereafter), as of 2026-09-01 — see the payment page
- Registration: Browsing public problems and discussions requires no account; submitting code, entering contests, and posting content do. Sign-up supports phone/email plus WeChat, GitHub, QQ, Weibo, and Apple ID (per section 2.1 of the Terms of Service)
- Interface language: Simplified Chinese; problem statements can be toggled between Chinese and English
Background
According to the official brand page, LeetCode originated in Silicon Valley in 2011 and repositioned itself as a tech-career growth platform in 2015. Lingkou Network brought LeetCode to China in February 2018, when the Chinese platform went live in beta; paid membership launched in May 2019, followed by the official mobile app in December 2019.
LeetCode China and leetcode.com are two independently operated systems under the same brand, and accounts are not shared between them. An official help-center article explains that users can run a one-way sync tool to copy a leetcode.com account's progress, submissions, favorites, notebooks, Playgrounds, and points into a LeetCode China account — membership status is not transferred. Site staff have confirmed in community replies that syncing in the reverse direction (China to global) is not supported.
Problem Set and Online Judging
The problem set is the core of the site. As of 2026-09-01, the problem list page shows 4,429 problems across three difficulty tiers, filterable by topic tags such as array, string, dynamic programming, and binary search, with each problem's global acceptance rate shown inline. The online judge supports more than a dozen mainstream languages (the brand page says 16) and returns verdicts with runtime and memory distributions immediately after submission. Problem statements are bilingual, while the discussion area is almost entirely in Chinese.
A sidebar on the problem page offers company-tagged question banks — ByteDance, Amazon, Huawei, Tencent, and others, each with a problem count — which is the site's signature job-hunting feature.
Contests and Learning Tools
LeetCode China runs a weekly contest every Sunday morning and a biweekly contest on alternate Saturday evenings, awarding rating points and global rankings (per the brand page). A virtual-contest mode lets you replay past rounds outside contest hours. As of 2026-09-01, the weekly contest had reached its 518th edition.
Beyond the problem set, the platform includes:
- LeetBook: structured study tracks by topic (e.g., beginner algorithms, machine learning); basic content is free, some tracks are Plus-only;
- Playground: a zero-setup online coding environment — free accounts get 5, Plus removes the limit;
- Mock interviews: complete 1–3 problems against a timer for a chosen target company and receive an interview report; the company question banks are aggregated from user votes (per the brand page). Single-question custom mocks are free; multi-question and company mocks require Plus;
- Community ("圈子"): solution write-ups, problem discussions, and career talk — the official figures cite tens of thousands of editorials and millions of discussion posts.
Free vs. Plus Membership
A free account can browse and submit the entire core problem set, read basic LeetBooks, use 5 Playgrounds, and run single-question mock interviews — everyday practice costs nothing. Plus membership (benefits as published on the membership page and payment page, as of 2026-09-01) adds: 3,000+ interview questions tagged to well-known IT companies, exclusive LeetBook content and discounts, unlimited Playgrounds, multi-question custom mocks, company mock interviews, per-company question-frequency data, a priority judging lane, a smart editor mode, a debugger, and a 10% points bonus. University students and teachers can get the 365-day plan at 30% off after education verification.
Two rules from the membership agreement are worth knowing: memberships are generally non-refundable once purchased, and sharing, lending, or reselling a member account is prohibited.
Copyright and Content Policy
LeetCode China mixes platform content with user-generated content (UGC), and its Terms of Service treat the two differently:
- Platform content: problems, LeetBooks, the interface, and brand assets are owned by LeetCode China or its licensors; copying, redistributing, mirroring, or vertically scraping platform content without written authorization is prohibited (section 3.1.6). Bulk-reposting its problems to other sites or question banks is a breach of these terms.
- User-uploaded content (editorials, discussions, comments): posters must warrant they own the copyright or are authorized; publishing grants the platform a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license covering reproduction, distribution, adaptation, translation, compilation, sublicensing, and enforcement rights (section 5.3). This is a broad grant that contributors should read before publishing solutions.
- Content rules and complaints: community content is governed under Chinese regulations including the Provisions on the Governance of the Online Information Content Ecosystem; the terms enumerate prohibited categories and penalties ranging from content removal to permanent bans. An "infringement complaint" entry appears in the site footer, and the legal contact address published in the terms is law@lingkou.com.
On privacy, the privacy policy states that personal information is stored within mainland China, that the app integrates third-party SDKs (GrowingIO and Umeng), and that an account-deletion channel is provided.
Who It's For
- Candidates preparing for technical interviews who want to practice by company or by topic;
- Competitive programmers who use weekly and biweekly contests to stay sharp and track a global ranking;
- Users who prefer a Chinese interface and solution community, or who find leetcode.com slow to reach from mainland China.
Limitations
- Accounts and memberships are not interchangeable with leetcode.com; an existing leetcode.com subscription does not carry over, and data migration only works one way.
- Discussions and editorials are Chinese-dominant; English-language discussion and internationally oriented content are concentrated on leetcode.com, which remains the better source for interview trends at overseas companies.
- The job-hunting features — company question banks, question-frequency data, mock interviews — sit behind the paywall.
- The license granted to the platform over user-published content is broad; creators who care about this should weigh it before posting.
