Mike Holt side-by-side review (review 7)

Two tools, two jobs

Mike Holt built his reputation on training. Books, videos, instructor programs, continuing education. His material is thorough, cross-referenced, and widely respected. If you sat for your journeyman or master exam in the last twenty years, odds are you studied his stuff.

Ask BONBON is a reference app. You pull it out on the roof, on the lift, in the basement with one bar of signal. You ask a question, you get the article and the answer. Different shape, different purpose.

This review is about what each one does well when you are actually working, not reading. I use both. Here is how they compare.

Looking up a code article

Say you need to verify receptacle spacing in a dwelling hallway. NEC 210.52(H) says any hallway ten feet or more needs at least one receptacle. With Mike Holt material, you are pulling up a PDF, a book, or a course module. You find the section. You read the commentary. It is correct and detailed.

With BONBON, you type "hallway receptacle" and it returns 210.52(H) with the ten foot threshold and the measurement rule. Thirty seconds versus three minutes. On a service call that difference matters.

Tip: measure hallway length along the centerline of the passage, not wall to wall. A short jog in the wall still counts toward the ten feet.

Learning the code versus using the code

Mike Holt wins on depth. If you want to understand why GFCI protection expanded to cover outdoor outlets under NEC 210.8(A)(3), or the history behind the 2023 changes to 210.8(F) for HVAC equipment, his illustrated guides walk you through it. The diagrams are excellent. The exam prep is probably the best in the industry.

BONBON does not try to teach you the code from scratch. It assumes you already know how to be an electrician and you need the specific answer right now. Grounding electrode conductor sizing under 250.66. Box fill under 314.16. Conduit fill per Chapter 9 Table 1. Ask, get, move on.

If you are studying for a test, use Mike Holt. If you are making a living and need answers in the truck, use BONBON.

What each costs in time and money

Mike Holt pricing varies by product. A full NEC illustrated library can run a few hundred dollars. Exam prep packages more. The material is worth it if you study it, but it lives on a shelf or in a PDF viewer.

BONBON is a subscription app on your phone. Cheaper monthly, useless for exam prep, excellent for jobsite recall. Different budget line entirely.

• Mike Holt: deep learning, exam prep, continuing education credits, classroom material
• BONBON: fast lookup, offline-friendly, voice search, article pinning
• Overlap: both cite NEC articles accurately and stay current with code cycle updates

Accuracy and code cycle updates

Both sources update with each NEC cycle. Mike Holt publishes revised editions for 2020, 2023, and so on. His team is meticulous about tracking changes and flagging what moved. If you need to know exactly which subsection was renumbered between cycles, his change summaries are the gold standard.

BONBON updates its reference database against the current NEC and lets you toggle between cycles depending on what your AHJ has adopted. That matters because not every jurisdiction is on 2023 yet. Some are still on 2017. Ask your inspector before you quote an article.

Tip: before a rough-in inspection in a new jurisdiction, confirm the adopted code cycle with the building department. I have seen guys get red-tagged for citing 2023 rules in a 2020 town.

Where each one falls short

Mike Holt material is not built for one-handed use on a ladder. You cannot voice-search a PDF. You cannot pin 250.122 for quick recall while you are pulling EGC conductors. The content is great. The format is wrong for live work.

BONBON is not a replacement for training. It will tell you what the code says. It will not explain the theory behind bonding and grounding the way a Mike Holt video will. If you try to learn the NEC from a lookup tool, you will miss the connective tissue that makes the code make sense.

The honest answer: buy both if you can. Study Mike Holt at home, carry BONBON on the job. They are not competitors in the way people assume. One teaches you the code. The other helps you apply it when the clock is running.

My recommendation

If you are an apprentice, prioritize Mike Holt. You need the fundamentals, the diagrams, the exam-focused structure. A lookup app will not build your foundation.

If you are a journeyman or master with ten or more years in, your foundation is solid. What slows you down now is recall under pressure. Article numbers, table values, exception language. That is where a fast reference earns its keep.

1. Apprentice or exam prep: Mike Holt first, BONBON later
2. Working electrician with solid code knowledge: BONBON daily, Mike Holt for code cycle updates
3. Shop foreman or estimator: both, used for different parts of the day

Neither tool replaces the codebook itself. Keep a current NEC in the truck. The apps and the books help you find the answer faster, but the book is what the inspector is holding.