April 3, 2024
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Udemy is a popular e-learning destination where millions of learners take online courses. However, many e-learning alternatives and robust competitors exist. This post will explore sites like Udemy that are excellent for online learning, training, education, and certifications.
Udemy Overview
Udemy offers classes in multiple languages and 10+ categories, such as software development, business, marketing, photography, design, and test prep. Many of Udemy’s top-rated free and paid courses focus on app development, programming, software, and other tech courses.
Anyone can create a course, self-publish, and teach on Udemy. That self-publishing approach helps Udemy attract new instructors daily and content creators who want to make extra money. On the other hand, Udemy’s open-door policy can attract unqualified teachers who produce subpar content. Moreover, some instructors crank out second-rate tutorials only to turn a quick buck without concern for learning outcomes. For example, one instructor taught a course about passive income with his shirt off, whereas another taught an offensive course called “How to Hack a Girl.” Udemy has since removed that content.
Udemy wants to provide an enriching platform and continues to raise its content standards. It must do so in a lucrative and highly competitive e-learning sector, where many worthwhile competitors offer similar classes and content. Secondly, Udemy is a department store of subjects with over 100 subcategories. That allows specialty and niche education sites to differentiate and gain competitive advantages.
Best Websites Like Udemy and Alternatives
Let’s explore similar and reputable alternatives to Udemy for online education, including programming, app development, e-commerce, business, marketing, finance, industry training, art, and creativity classes. The following e-learning platforms compete with Udemy and target all types of learners of all ages. Many provide course completion certificates.
Coursera (Top Choice)
Coursera partners with 200+ leading universities and organizations to offer flexible, affordable, and job-relevant online learning. It supports 80+ million learners, 100+ Fortune 500 companies, and 6,000+ entities. University partnerships include Stanford, Duke, Yale, Illinois, Columbia, and Penn. Instructors on Coursera are typically highly educated professionals, thought leaders, and subject matter experts with the qualifications to deliver excellent educational content.
Coursera has a comprehensive library of courses (7,000+), degrees, specializations, and professional certificates in 10+ subjects, such as data & computer science, business, IT, languages, and personal development. Moreover, career-changing professional certifications from Google, IBM, Facebook, and Salesforce are available in UX design, project management, data analytics, and social media marketing.
Many classes on Coursera are free. However, payment plans exist to access course completion certificates. Coursera Plus is a premium monthly or annual subscription plan offering unlimited learning. Additionally, there are enterprise, government, and campus plans.
Coursera is the best alternative to Udemy for high-quality online education, professional development, and certificates employers will recognize.
edX
edX partners with 160+ leading universities to deliver high-quality education for everyone, everywhere. Their roster includes Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Brown, Cornell, and Stanford. It supports 42+ million learners globally. Instructors on edX are typically highly educated professionals, thought leaders, and topical experts.
edX offers an extensive course catalog (3,600+), degrees, specialty programs, and boot camps in 30+ subjects, such as data analysis & statistics, business & management, law, communication, medicine, and music.
MOOC.org is an extension of edX that provides Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), free online courses that anyone can enroll in. However, edX payment plans offer access to course completion certificates and additional resources.
Emeritus
Emeritus is an online education platform offering high-quality online courses from top-rated universities. It collaborates with over 50 top-tier universities across the United States, Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and India, including Columbia, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Stanford, and INSEAD.
Emeritus offers management, marketing, finance, AI, coding, data science, health care, project management, digital transformation, and technology courses.
Alison
Alison is a for-profit social enterprise allowing anyone to study anything for free online. It offers thousands of free online courses (3,500+) with certificates and diplomas. Diplomas take 15 to 20 hours to complete and provide a comprehensive subject overview. Certificates take about 90 minutes to three hours to finish, with videos in bite-sized chunks. Alison’s courses are accredited by Continuing Professional Development (CPD UK) and external organizations.
Alison’s main categories include IT, language, sales and marketing, management, business, health, engineering and construction, personal development, and teaching and academics, with over 100 subcategories.
Users can answer five questions to get course recommendations. For example, what is their primary goal at Alison: to upskill their career, change their field, or explore hobbies and interests? Career guides help students discover career paths and introductory classes.
Alison is free, and payment plans are available to access premium features, remove adverts, and purchase certificate/diploma hardcopies.
AWS Skill Builder
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. It’s one of the leading cloud service providers globally.
AWS Skill Builder offers 500+ free digital courses and classroom training for AWS, including advanced networking, security, database, video streaming, analytics, DevOps, and machine learning. Furthermore, educational content is available in multiple languages.
Users can select courses by role, skill level, subject, partner, and language. Learning Plans feature a collection of lessons to achieve a specific goal. For instance, the Game Tech Learning Plan helps game producers, developers, and operators master game production in the cloud.
AWS certification helps learners build credibility and confidence by validating their expertise with an industry-recognized credential. That also helps organizations identify skilled professionals to lead AWS cloud initiatives.
CBT Nuggets
CBT Nuggets offers 390+ courses, 2300+ skills, and 70+ practice exams on IT, project management, and office productivity for business, government, and cybersecurity industries. Their certification categories include Cisco, Microsoft, CompTIA, AWS, ISC 2, Juniper, Linux, VMware, ISACA, Salesforce, Google Workspace, and PMI. Individual and team pricing is available for monthly and annual subscriptions.
Cisco Learning Network
The Cisco Learning Network is a social learning community focusing on IT. Its mission is to provide learning tools, training resources, and industry guidance to anyone interested in building an IT career through Cisco certifications. There are five certification levels: Entry, Associate, Specialist, Professional, and Expert. In addition, learners can choose from 20+ certifications, such as CCT, CCNA, CCNP, and CCIE. Course pricing ranges from hundreds to thousands.
Codecademy
Codecademy offers free and paid web development, programming, and data science courses to 50 million learners across 190+ countries. Users can take classes in HTML, CSS, Python, Java, JavaScript, SQL, Bash/Shell, Ruby, and more. Goal-based learning allows students to choose their reason for studying, i.e., build a career, gain a skill, learn a programming language, or explore a subject. Alternatively, you can take a short quiz to get career advice and course recommendations.
Pricing is available for individuals, students, and businesses/teams. Paying learners can access member-only content, real-world projects, step-by-step guidance, and completion certificates.
CreativeLive
CreativeLive has classes for the creator in all of us, with over 2,000 courses in photography, videography, design, music, audio, and other creative categories. Over 10 million learners take free and paid lessons. As a “by creators for creators” platform, instructors consist of bestselling authors, top creators, iconic entrepreneurs, Pulitzer prize winners, and award-winning artists. Learning paths are curated courses for specific career interests, such as becoming an outdoor photographer.
Domestika
Domestika is a creative community where top experts share their knowledge and skills through e-learning. Course categories include illustration, craft, marketing, design, photography, animation, architecture, fashion, and more. Upon course completion, learners get personalized certificates signed by their teachers. Most courses on Domestika cost less than $100.
Economist Education GMAT Tutor
GMAT Tutor’s online learning platform uses innovative technology to identify your learning habits and patterns. It tailors practice questions and solution strategies to significantly improve your studying and results. Plans include private tutoring sessions, score improvement guarantees, official practice tests, and expert assessments. Pricing starts at $449.
ExpertRating
ExpertRating offers online certification and training services to individuals and companies globally. Over 25 million people have benefited from ExpertRating online certifications, tests, and assessments. Learners can choose self-study and instructor-led classes. Most self-study courses cost $69.99, whereas most instructor-led training costs $129.99. Educational subjects include fitness, healthcare, business & management, personal development, entrepreneurship, arts, childcare, computer applications, graphic design, and more.
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Fiverr
Fiverr is the largest online market for freelancer services, starting at five dollars. Its e-learning division, Fiverr Learn, allows freelancers and business owners to acquire practical skills and learn from industry leaders. It has courses and programs in digital marketing, graphic design, writing, business, video, and photography. Individual classes cost $20 to $50, whereas specialty program pricing ranges from $100 to $300.
Google Skillshop and Cloud Skills Boost
Google Skillshop offers free online courses for marketing products, such as Google Ads and Google Analytics. Certifications are available upon passing course assessments.
Google Cloud Skills Boost focuses on cloud training. Learning paths are courses and labs curated to boost your cloud skills in a specific area. The catalog includes bite-sized videos, documents, labs, and quizzes. Users can earn badges for completed assignments. Google also has multiple courses and professional certificates on Coursera.
HubSpot Academy
HubSpot Academy is a worldwide leader in free online training for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service professionals. It has comprehensive certifications, singular-topic courses, and bite-sized lessons for professionals looking to grow their careers and business skills. HubSpot Academy instructors work at HubSpot, and content is available in six languages. Learners can choose from ten certifications: Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Digital Advertising, and Digital Marketing. Over 200,000 professionals have taken HubSpot courses to advance their careers.
IAP Career College
IAP Career College offers online certificate courses for various fields, including fitness club owners, florists, travel consultants, graphic designers, and more. Pricing starts at $149, and students can complete most certificates in as little as six weeks.
Investopedia Academy
Investopedia provides investment dictionaries, advice, reviews, ratings, and comparisons of financial products. The Investopedia Academy offers 30+ financial, investment, crypto, and trading classes. Popular courses include Become a Day Trader, Investing for Beginners, Technical Analysis, and Trading for Beginners. Pricing ranges from $19.95 for individual classes to $447 for bundles/packages. Furthermore, Investopedia handpicks industry veterans to teach on their platform.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy provides free instructional videos, practice exercises, and personalized learning dashboards that empower learners to self-study in and outside the classroom. Their main subjects include math, science, computing, history, art, economics, life skills, and personal finance. Their resources are available in more than 30 languages. As a non-profit, the Khan Academy is supported by contributions.
LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning is a subsidiary of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking platform. LinkedIn Learning targets three subject areas, i.e., business, creative, and technology. Business topics include strategy, finance, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Creative categories include AEC, animation, illustration, audio, and video. Technology tutorials include cloud computing, data science, DevOps, web & mobile development, and security. LinkedIn Learning has monthly and annual subscription plans.
Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation provides free and paid courses in Linux, cloud computing, blockchain, web development, embedded systems, DevOps, machine learning, and more. Many well-respected developers and experts in the open-source community teach on the platform. Their 20+ certifications cost $250 to $410 and are available in multiple languages. The Cloud Engineer Bootcamp prepares absolute beginners to learn the most in-demand cloud computing skills in as little as six months.
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MasterClass
MasterClass courses are taught by world leaders, celebrities, business titans, influencers, authors, professional athletes, and award winners. It’s where Lewis Hamilton, Ringo Starr, Shonda Rhimes, Levar Burton, Gordon Ramsay, Steven Martin, and many others share insights into their crafts. MasterClass offers classes in 11 subjects, including entertainment, lifestyle, music, business, writing, food, design, sports, government, wellness, and tech. Students can choose from three subscriptions: Standard, Plus, and Premium.
Pluralsight
Pluralsight provides thousands of premium courses authored by a network of industry experts. They mainly focus on IT, software development, cloud computing, and cybersecurity technology content. Learners can take free skill assessments to understand their knowledge gaps.
Pluralsight’s Certification Prep Center is a centralized hub for leaders to discover more about certifications and the best ones to pursue. In addition, the Pluralsight Technology Index aggregates 23 billion data points monthly, highlighting the growth rate of 850+ technologies and ranking their relative popularity.
Shopify Learn
Shopify is a leading global commerce company that provides tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business of any size. Shopify Learn offers free online training from 90+ industry leaders, real-world entrepreneurs, and Shopify employees. Business classes cover strategy, product sourcing, drop shipping, finance, customer service, and entrepreneurship. Marketing and sales training includes email, SEO, content, social media, paid ads, and branding.
Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of free and paid classes for curious people on creativity, business, technology, and lifestyle. Members come together to find inspiration and take the next step in their creative journeys. Skillshare offers monthly and annual subscription plans for unlimited access to classes. Team plans are also available.
Springboard
Springboard prepares students for the tech industry’s most in-demand careers with comprehensive, mentor-led online programs in software engineering, data science, cybersecurity, UI/UX design, and more. Its community includes tens of thousands of students and alums, more than a thousand expert mentors, dozens of career coaches, and hundreds of employer partners.
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The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review provides college and graduate prep, admission counseling, and private tutoring to help students achieve their academic goals. Academics include math, science, social studies, and English. College tests include the SAT, ACT, PSAT, and AP. Graduate exams include the GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT, DAT, and OAT. Fees range from hundreds to thousands.
Udacity
Udacity began as an experiment in online learning when Stanford instructors Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig offered their “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” course online to anyone for free.
Udacity offers programs and nanodegrees in artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, cloud computing, cybersecurity, data science, programming, and product management. It provides solutions for individuals, businesses, and the government.
WordPress
WordPress is a versatile, open-source content management system (CMS) that powers millions of websites globally. It enables users to create, customize, and manage blogs, e-commerce sites, and other online platforms without extensive coding knowledge. WordPress offers a plethora of themes and plugins, allowing for extensive customization and functionality.
WordPress offers free tutorials to get hands-on with its software.
YouTube
YouTube isn’t only about music, pranks, and unboxing videos. Millions of people visit the site for how-to, educational, and instructional content, from website development to playing musical instruments. Content on YouTube is free, with the option to pay a monthly fee for ad removal.
The YouTube Creator Academy offers courses and education for content creators.
