This free guide, Prim's Algorithm: Quick Guide with Examples, an accessible introduction to one of graph theory’s most important optimization techniques. It covers the fundamentals of graphs, weights, spanning trees, and minimum spanning trees, and then demonstrates how the algorithm incrementally builds a network by always selecting the lowest-cost edge that expands the tree.
The guide is written by Jim Markus, who manages Hackr.io and other sites at VentureKite. He brings a background in data analysis and communication, having also hosted the Frugal Living podcast. His experience in explaining technical topics in an approachable way makes the material accessible to both beginners and professionals exploring graph algorithms. The Hackr.io community values this guide because it combines clear explanations with practical code examples in both Python and Java. Readers can not only understand the theory but also run and adapt the code themselves, making the learning experience hands-on.
Prim’s Algorithm is a greedy method for finding a Minimum Spanning Tree in a weighted, undirected graph. By starting at an arbitrary node and repeatedly adding the cheapest available edge, it guarantees an MST with the lowest total cost. Its efficiency makes it especially effective for dense graphs, and its applications span infrastructure planning, data science, and computer engineering, making it a core algorithm for anyone working with optimization or connectivity problems.