Whether you’re five or ninety-five, the internet has a lot to offer. Particularly when the topic is education, the resources on the internet are endless.

You can use these free online learning platforms to learn, achieve your academic goals and land your dream job. Best of all, many high-quality sites are completely free. You need to be a continuous learner if you want to get ahead in life.

As the saying goes, if you aren’t moving forward, you are falling behind. The world never ceases from moving forward. The only way to keep up is by learning something new every day. From history to coding, excellent, free online education awaits on these free educational websites.

• Top 11 Sites for Free Online Education
• What is the Best Free Online Education?
• Which Site is Best for Online Learning?
• Is Khan Academy Good?
• How can I be Educated for Free?
• What Are the most Popular Free Online Courses?
• Why is Khan Academy Free?
• Is IXL or Khan Academy Better?
• Which is the Largest Online Learning Platform?
• Are Udemy Courses Free?
• What is Better than Udemy?

Top 11 Sites for Free Online Education

Here are the best online learning platforms:

1. Coursera

Coursera is just about the best online learning platform out there, as well as one of the most popular. They collaborate with over 190 top companies and universities, such as Google, IBM, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania, and they have thousands of courses and specializations to study completely online.

Read Also: Top 10 Sites for Your Career

On top of the regular free online learning courses, you can also earn professional certificates and full university degrees for a nominal fee. Or, you can join Coursera Plus, which is around $59/month, where Coursera offers unlimited access to take as many courses and classes as you want with full certificate benefits!

Some options on their online learning platform include:

• Google IT Support Professional Certificate
• Negotiation, Mediation and Conflict Resolution Specialization
• Master of Computer and Information Technology
• Introduction to Physical Chemistry

2. edX

Just as powerful and feature-rich as Coursera, with some top-tier schools in their course catalog, edX offers more than 2,500 massive open online courses (MOOCs). With courses put on by MIT, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and Boston University, you can get a world-class education from the comfort of your own home.

Besides their standard courses, they also offer professional certificates, a MicroBacherlors program, a MicroMasters program, and their Global Freshman Academy. Definitely, one of the best online learning platforms out there, though you’ll have to pay to take some of their university-level certificate and degree programs. But if you want to learn a new skill from one of the best video-based course platforms, edX is hard to beat!

Some options on their online learning platform include:

• Marketing Analytics: Competitive Analysis and Market Segmentation
• Instructional Design and Technology
• Cosmic Rays, Dark Matter, and the Mysteries of the Universe

3. Khan Academy

Khan Academy is one of the most popular online learning platforms on the internet, serving just about everyone, from preschool through to adult learners. As well as all the free online classes you or your children can take, they offer the site in Spanish, French, and Portuguese, and they are currently translating their online resources into more than 30 other languages.

During the coronavirus crisis as everyone is working and studying from home, they even have daily learning schedules and resources for children aged 2–18, so high school students, middle school students, and their younger counterparts can effectively learn online, as well! All are free courses you can do self-paced, a perfect online education for busy students and young professionals!

Some options on their online learning platform include:

• Macroeconomics
• Trigonometry
• AP Biology
• Finance & Capital Markets

4. Udemy

Udemy’s goal is to disrupt and democratize the world of education by enabling anyone to teach and learn online. It seeks to dramatically change education by empowering millions of experts around the world to teach & share what they know. Whether you want to learn excel, business & entrepreneurship, academics, the arts, health & fitness, language, music or technology, there is a comprehensive course for you.

5. iTunes U

If you’re a student who uses Apple devices, you will be happy to know that you have access to iTunes U, which gives you access to different educational courses from all leading universities for free! Did you dream of studying at MIT, Oxford, Yale, or Cambridge? This is your chance to learn various subjects from the best colleges and universities in the world.

6. MIT OpenCourseWare

Similarly, MIT offers a variety of free courses. The school has a comparable number of courses to the schools above, and it includes very in-depth course materials on the subjects available. MIT also offers free RSS feeds, a convenient way to continue learning.

7. Stanford Online

Your hub for all the online offerings from Stanford University, Stanford Online offers self-paced and session-based courses. While Coursera features some courses from Stanford, many classes are only available via other hosts. Some courses require iTunes, but most are completed in your web browser.

Stanford Online is a great site for high-quality courses, though the topics are somewhat limited compared to sites partnered with more than one school. If you’re looking for free courses, make sure to mark the “free” option on the left-hand side.

8. Codecademy

Codecademy is a website dedicated specifically to teaching coding. Where other coding sites follow an example/practice session workflow, Codecademy includes a live practice window. This means you can practice coding while still viewing the lesson material.

The courses at Codecademy are well-written and easy to follow, and the website is organized very nicely. Codecademy features a centralized dashboard where you can monitor your progress, and it organizes lessons into complete modules. This lets you learn an entire language without needing to pick the next course manually.

9. iCt iitr

Electronics & ICT Academy IIT Roorkee (E&ICT IITR) is an initiative supported by MeitY, Govt of India to deliver short courses/FDPs/certificate courses in online as well as offline mode. Their courses lay emphasis on bridging the gap between industry demand and academic approach to learning and provide a foundation to build your career in the industries related to the ICT sector.

All their courses have projects with real-life problems to give industry insights into learning. They have assimilated academic as well as industry experts to formulate the most effective courses that help professionals/students/faculty to upgrade their skills without disrupting their regular schedules.

10. ict iitk

Electronics & ICT Academy (E & ICT Academy) at IIT Kanpur has been mandated to provide industry-focused and industry-driven, hands-on courses in Electronics & ICT. It strives to narrow the gap between the academic approach to Electronics & ICT domains as currently provided by the educational institutions and the practically oriented approach as demanded by the industry.

It is working towards enhancing the domain expertise of interested faculties with a special focus on the faculties of the three northern states of U.P., Haryana, Punjab, and the two union territories of Delhi and Chandigarh, through a continuous engagement model with courses upgraded regularly.

11. NPTEL

The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning is an online learning platform founded in 2003 by the coming together of seven Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. NPTEL offers university-level courses in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic subjects. The platform is funded by the Indian Ministry of Human Resources and Development.

NPTEL courses are created by adapting material from lectures given by professors from the participating institutions. The platform boasts the world’s largest online repository of courses in engineering, basic sciences and selected humanities and social sciences subjects. NPTEL’s YouTube channel is also the most subscribed-to educational channel on the platform.

NPTEL is the most accessed library of peer-reviewed educational content in the world and has teamed up with Alison to create a suite of courses across five core disciplines: civil engineering, computer science, electronics, communication and mechanical engineering.

What is the Best Free Online Education?

Whether you’re aiming to learn some new marketable skills or just want to explore a topic, online learning platforms are a great solution for learning on your own schedule. You can also complete courses quickly and save money by choosing virtual classes over in-person ones. In fact, individuals learn 40% faster on digital platforms compared to in-person learning. 

Some online learning platforms provide certifications, while others are designed to simply grow your skills in your personal and professional life. Including Masterclass and Coursera, here are our recommendations for the best online learning platforms you can sign up for today.

• Best Overall: Coursera
• Best for Niche Topics: Udemy
• Best for Creative Fields: Skillshare
• Best for Celebrity Lessons: MasterClass
• Best for STEM: EdX
• Best for Career Building: Udacity
• Best for Data Learning: Pluralsight

Which Site is Best for Online Learning?

1. ALISON

ALISON has a large range of free, comprehensive classes on technology, languages, science, financial literacy, personal and soft skills, entrepreneurship, and then some. It targets all kinds of learners, from professionals and managers to teachers and freelancers. You can also search by the career you have or would like to have to find the courses most useful to you.

2. Udemy

Udemy has plenty to offer for the learner on a budget, from completely free courses taught by experts, professors, entrepreneurs, and professionals, to frequent discounts and specials on its paid classes. In addition to classes in tech, business, design, and marketing, you can also explore options in productivity, health, hobbies, lifestyle, and the arts.

3. Coursera

If you want to take college-caliber courses without the high cost of college tuition, Coursera is the best stop. This website offers amazing classes in all kinds of fields—from professional development and job skills to psychology, history, and literature. And they’re all created and taught by professors at top institutions nationally and across the globe, including Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and plenty more.

Coursera gives you the ability to audit thousands of classes for free or take the full class and earn a certificate starting at $29. If you want to earn one of their “specializations” or “professional certificates” you can do so for less than $50 a month.

4. edX

Just like Coursera, edX offers anyone, anywhere the chance to take university classes in various departments—and get certified. Also, like Coursera, auditing most classes is free, but to earn a certificate and complete assignments, it’s going to cost a bit more ($50 to $300). Some of edX’s big partners include Harvard, Berkeley, Dartmouth, Georgetown, and the University of Chicago.

5. Udacity

Udacity focuses on software development, offering free courses in programming, data science, web development, and other areas of tech like product management, marketing, and cybersecurity. The website also offers a nanodegree program for individuals who want to master a skill set or pursue a full-time career in tech—albeit for a higher price.

6. LinkedIn Learning

By subscribing to LinkedIn Learning, you’ll have access to thousands of courses in business, design, art, education, and tech as well as career and personal development. You can display completed certificates right on your LinkedIn profile and gain insight into what others in your network are learning. Plus LinkedIn Learning offers a free one-month trial so you can test the waters!

7. General Assembly

As a coding bootcamp and technical education provider, General Assembly offers both online and in-person classes as well as full-time and part-time options. But these options are a bit pricey.

What earns General Assembly a spot on this list is its free workshops—that give you an intro to topics like digital marketing, software engineering, data science and analytics, and design—and Dash, a free basic coding class, all of which can give you a taste of new skills before you commit to a longer course.

8. Skillshare

Skillshare provides “bite-sized” classes so you can learn something new even if you only have 15 minutes a day. It has more than 27,000 free and premium classes to choose from on topics such as film, writing, tech, visual arts, productivity, and entrepreneurship. Skillshare will give you a free seven-day trial (which is long enough to complete several short classes), and then costs about $14 a month.

9. Codecademy

Codecademy wants to teach you how to, well, code—often for free. It covers all kinds of programming, including JavaScript, Ruby, HTML, CSS, and Python.

10. Pluralsight

After subscribing to Pluralsight (or using its free trial!), you’ll be able to explore classes in software, 3D development, VFX, design, game design, web design, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and CAD software among other topics.

11. Adobe

Not sure how to use Photoshop or InDesign? Don’t worry, Adobe will walk you through its programs with its free Creative Cloud tutorials.

12. Google SkillShop

In a similar vein, Google Skillshop offers free certifications on Google’s many web, software, and hardware tools—including YouTube, Android, and Waze—for a range of careers like cybersecurity, marketing, design, teaching, and data analysis. There are also free courses on digital skills and growing your business.

13. FutureLearn

All of FutureLearn’s classes have a tier that’s completely free. You can find a range of course types taught by universities and special organizations, covering subjects like e-business and management; creative arts and media; law; literature; IT and computer science; healthcare and medicine; science, engineering, and math; politics and society; psychology and mental health; study skills; and teaching.

14. Academic Earth

And if you’re looking solely for academic classes, this website is perfect for you. It has courses in the arts, science, humanities, economics, computer science, and more, all for free.

Is Khan Academy Good?

Khan Academy is built around video lectures, short readings, interactive quizzes (usually multiple choice), and comment threads. When you enroll in a course, you get access to all the video lectures and other materials that are in that course, and they’re presented in a sequential order. Typically, a course contains units, which contain lessons, and within the lessons are videos, readings, and quizzes.

In many cases, the sequence of lessons and units matters because you need to acquire foundational skills before you can advance your knowledge. Math courses are a good example. If you already have a particular skill, however, you’re free to skip ahead.

In some courses, it might make sense to jump into the material you want to learn or review, rather than plow through each and every lesson in order. For example, if you already have a strong understanding of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, you might skip ahead to the second.

Some educators might dispute whether the term “course” is misleading in Khan Academy. It’s a term used by both accredited institutions and more casual places of learning. The courses in Khan Academy refer to a group of learning materials.

Some of the courses may have instructors who reply to comments, but you don’t get an assigned instructor to give you personalized attention when you enroll in a course. Likewise, you don’t have formal classmates or a timeline in which you need to work through the material. Khan is entirely self-paced.

Khan Academy is a reliable and highly useful source of academic learning. While it caters specifically to students in primary school through the college prep phase, anyone with a hunger to learn can benefit from Khan. While it may not cover everything, it does offer well-made lessons for the majority of basic academic subjects US students must learn—apart from foreign languages.

How can I be Educated for Free?

Free education is education funded through government spending or charitable organizations rather than tuition funding. Many models of free higher education have been proposed. Primary school and other comprehensive or compulsory education is free in many countries (often not including primary textbooks). Tertiary education is also free in certain countries, including post-graduate studies in Nordic countries.

It’s important to research all the ways you can avoid paying much — if anything — to attend college. Here are the top strategies you can pursue.

1. Apply for grants and scholarships

There are thousands of programs, institutions, companies and organizations that give away free money. In general, grants are based on need, while scholarships are based on academic, artistic or athletic merit.

You can apply for grants and scholarships at the federal and school level by completing the FAFSA. Ask your high school guidance counselor or college financial aid office if you’re eligible for any local programs or institution-specific scholarships.

Scholarship search engines are an easy way to find scholarships outside of your college offerings. You can customize your search based on any number of factors, including:

• Race.
• Ethnicity.
• Gender.
• Financial need.
• Potential major.
• Military affiliation.
• Religion.
• Physical disabilities.

The earlier you start your search, the more free money you could qualify for. Many grants and scholarships are available on a first-come, first-served basis, so the sooner you apply, the more money you could score.

2. Serve your country

The U.S. Coast Guard, Air Force, Military (West Point), Merchant Marine and Naval academies offer free college opportunities to students who serve after college. Scholarships are also available through local Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs.

Offered at more than 1,700 colleges and universities in the U.S., the ROTC program provides a paid college education and guaranteed post-college career to participants in exchange for committing to serve in the military after graduation.

If you’ve served on active duty on or after Sept. 11, 2001, you may also qualify for the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which helps cover the cost of in-state tuition and fees and provides an allowance for living expenses, books and supplies. Those who qualify for the program’s maximum benefit will have the full cost of public in-state tuition and fees covered for 36 months. There are funding limits for private and foreign schools.

AmeriCorps is another national service organization that offers education awards in exchange for community work. The award amount varies among AmeriCorps programs, but a person cannot earn “more than the aggregate value of two full-time national service education awards.” The full education award is equal to the maximum Pell Grant value for that year. Members also receive a living stipend while serving in the program.

3. Work for the school

Many schools offer free or reduced tuition for employees and staff of the school. In addition, if a student’s parent works for a college, a full or partial waiver may be available for that student. The terms vary by the institution, since there’s no minimum standard, but many full-time workers qualify for tuition-free classes. Future students can find out about their school’s policy by calling the admissions office.

4. Waive your costs

Some students can get a free pass based on academic performance or other factors.

“Tuition waivers may be available for (current or former) military and talented students,” says Manuel Fabriquer, founder of College Planning ABC, a financial aid and admissions counseling firm in San Jose, California. “Even families that have substantial income can get tuition waivers if [the student] has the right test scores.”

Some schools also offer waivers for Native American students, though this policy varies by school. To find out what a school offers, contact the financial aid office.

5. Have your employer pick up the costs

There’s a long list of companies that offer tuition reimbursement, including Chegg, Google and Hulu. Ask your employer if they’re willing to provide full or partial tuition reimbursement. Up to $5,250 in tuition reimbursement each year is tax-free for both employees and employers.

6. Choose an in-demand career

Another great way to attend college for free is to find a high-need field of study. If you’re trying to cut the cost of college, this is something to consider before you even enroll.

Math, science, nursing, teaching and social work are all subjects that colleges may incentivize through scholarships. There are additional opportunities available through organizations like Teach for America and the Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program, and you can earn a TEACH Grant of up to $4,000 per year in exchange for a commitment to teach at a low-income school or educational service agency for four of the first eight years after graduation.

7. Attend a work college

A work college is another way to get a free or substantially discounted college education. These schools, which are generally four-year liberal arts institutions, provide educational opportunities as well as valuable work experience.

Be aware that all students must participate in a comprehensive work-learning service for all four years of enrollment. In other words, all resident students have jobs. Often the jobs are located on campus, but off-campus jobs are also possible. Specific program details vary by college.

All participating work colleges are approved and supervised by the U.S. Department of Education and are required to meet specific federal standards.

8. Choose a school that pays you

Some schools will pay you to focus your studies on a single subject, which they select. Schools like the Webb Institute and the Curtis Institute of Music offer a select range of academic programs and pick up the tuition cost for every student.

However, it’s important to think through the decision before you commit to this course. You don’t want to get caught up in taking free college courses only to graduate and realize that you’re not interested in the subject anymore.

9. Attend a community college with a free tuition program

There are many community colleges that now offer free tuition programs; Tennessee, Oregon, California, New York and Washington are all examples of states that have implemented some version of free community college.

In many states, you have to graduate from an in-state high school and enroll full-time to qualify for the free tuition program. You may also have to commit to staying in the state for several years after graduation. Even though tuition will be free, you may still have to pay for textbooks, supplies and room and board.

10. Look into online tuition-free degree programs

Community colleges aren’t the only schools that offer tuition-free programs. Some employers provide free college courses to employees. For example, Starbucks has partnered with Arizona State University (ASU) to provide workers with full tuition for their online programs and degrees.

The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and Berea College in Kentucky are two schools that offer online tuition-free programs. You can do a Google search for more online tuition-free degrees, which may be especially suited for students who want to continue living at home.

What Are the Most Popular Free Online Courses?

Learning new skills can be both time-consuming and challenging. In fact, according to Josh Kaufman, international bestselling author of The Personal MBA, it takes 20 hours to go from knowing nothing about a particular subject to being pretty good at it. Of course, if you want to become an expert, that takes even longer.

Online courses allow you to get a head-start on the fundamental skills you need to grow in your career or switch to a new field. Here are the absolute best ones:

• Fundamental Marketing: Inbound Marketing Certification by HubSpot Academy
• Content Marketing: Content Marketing Certification by HubSpot Academy
• Social Media Marketing: Social Media Marketing Course by HubSpot Academy
• Email Marketing: Cold Email Masterclass by Mailshake
• SEM: Google Ads by Google Skillshop
• Sales: Inbound Sales Certification by HubSpot Academy
• Ecommerce: How to Start a Dropshipping Business by Shopify Academy
• Coding: Intro to HTML and CSS by Udacity
• Personal & Professional Development: Conquering the Fear of Public Speaking by Udemy
• Design: Graphic Design Course by HubSpot Academy
• Business & Finance: The Fundamentals of Business by Smartly
• Writing: Good with Words: Writing and Editing by University of Michigan
• Communication: Communication Skills – Persuasion and Motivation by Alison
• Entrepreneurship: How to Build a Startup by Udacity
• Humanities: Introduction to Digital Humanities by Harvard University
• Languages: Basic Spanish 1: Getting Started by the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

Why is Khan Academy Free?

Khan Academy’s website aims to provide a free personalized learning experience, that are built on the videos, hosted on YouTube. The website is meant to be used as a supplement to its videos because it includes other features such as progress tracking, practice exercises, and teaching tools. The material can also be accessed through mobile applications.

Brought to you by a team of software engineers, program managers, and expert content creators with backgrounds in their respective subject matter, Khan Academy offers classes at multiple grade levels in a wide variety of subjects, including (but not limited to) math, science, art, and even humanities.

“Created by experts,” its website says, “Khan Academy’s library of trusted, standards-aligned practice and lessons covers math K-12 through early college, grammar, science, history, AP®, SAT®, and more.”

It’s all free and a reminder that the value of education doesn’t have to be tied to the commodification of skills. There’s a real joy in learning for the sake of it, and it’s nice to know there are plenty of ways to continue our education no matter our background.

Is IXL or Khan Academy Better?

Khan Academy is absolutely the best FREE resource for this. IXL (or TenMarks, or Kumon, or Study Island, or other options) are better in some ways than Khan Academy — but that’s a moot point in most public schools, because there’s no way they can shell out $20 per student per year.

IXL (from “I excel”) is a math & language arts practice website for K-12 (subscription based). It has unlimited questions on thousands of math topics and a comprehensive reporting system. … Overall, the layout is very good, and navigation within the site is very easy.

Khan Academy and IXL take fairly different approaches to helping students review and get a better understanding of subject areas. 

Khan Academy, uses recorded videos that review and demonstrate concepts on a virtual whiteboard with a voice over. 

These videos are usually fairly short, ranging from a couple of minutes to 20 or more, depending on topic complexity and the instructor. 

Videos are created by Khan Academy’s team of content specialists and most are teachers in schools and universities, although some are tutors or test prep specialists. 

After each lesson there are some practice problems (usually a couple sets of 4) and periodic topic quizzes and unit tests as well, to reinforce learning.

IXL, on the other hand, has built in lessons and mini lessons for each skill that help students review material.  These are step by step lessons that introduce concepts and are text-based for the most part, although students can turn on a read aloud function. 

They also include interactive components that encourage kids to answer questions or fill in the blanks at times, giving IXL’s lessons a more active, learn by doing style rather than a video lecture. 

After these lessons, kids can engage with a practically unlimited number of computer generated practice questions on each skill. 

Given that there are thousands of skills to work on, that’s quite a lot.

These questions are also adaptive, meaning the program assesses in real time how the student is performing and changes in difficulty of presented questions depending on how many questions the student is answering correctly. They thereby provide increasing challenge to students, developing their skill more precisely and progressively.

If you’re looking for free supplementary help for a K-12 student, Khan Academy is certainly one of the best choices out there and you certainly won’t go wrong. 

Khan Academy has helpful videos for practically all subjects in the K-12 curriculum and offers questions, quizzes and student progress tracking to help create a personalized learning experience. 

However, on the whole, IXL offers more features that can help parents (as you might expect from a paid service). 

It offers real time diagnostic assessments, which it uses to help parents and teachers create specific and up to date learning paths for their students. 

Its questions adapt to the student’s responses, giving more targeted practice than traditional question banks, and it offers real time suggestions of related skills that the student should work on. 

Finally, IXL’s analytics offer far deeper insights into a student’s strengths and weaknesses, including how their current skill and knowledge compares to grade-level and state standards. 

Therefore, if you’re willing to pay for a supplemental educational platform for K-12, its our opinion that IXL is probably the better pick, especially for homeschoolers and parents who are interested in creating a custom learning experience for their child.

And in the end, if a child prefers video learning to interactive text/audio, nobody says you can’t use and integrate both services into their learning.

Which is the Largest Online Learning Platform?

More and more companies are using external online courses to train their employees. This does not necessarily require their staff to click through dull presentation slides any more. Today, various learning platforms offer high-quality courses based on modern video content and in-course interaction.

Below, we present an overview of the 5 most important e-learning providers for companies of all types – from medium-sized to large organizations.

1. Coursera

The world’s largest platform for online courses from universities and other institutions. Some courses have already exceeded one million enrolled learners.

For companies, Coursera for Business offers access to their professional learning portal. LMS integration is available upon request. You can compile courses for your employees yourself or with the help of Coursera experts. Learning analytics tools can be used to evaluate the learning behavior based on data reports.

There are various pricing plans available (Basic / Team / Enterprise), starting at approximately $100 per user per year for small businesses. For larger companies, individual agreements can be negotiated. Reference customers include L’Oréal, Philips, Infosys and Pfizer.

2. EdX

EdX is well-known for its high-quality video courses from top U.S. universities such as Harvard and MIT. It is the only non-profit organization among the major course providers.

With edX for Business, thousands of courses are accessible to corporate customers. Similar to Coursera, courses can be integrated with your own Learning Management System and in-depth learning analytics data is available. Price quotes need to be requested and negotiated individually.

3. FutureLearn

The most important European provider of online courses based in the United Kingdom. Part of Open University, the largest distance learning university in Britain.

Their corporate business (FutureLearn Workplace Learning) is still in its infancy. Most customers are headquartered in their home market in England, such as the retail chain Marks & Spencer. Prices need to be requested individually.

4. Udemy

Unlike the three course platforms mentioned above, content at Udemy does not come from universities, but from independent experts in their respective fields.

Learning and development departments will find the relevant content at Udemy for Business. Here, companies can get access to the 2,500 most relevant training courses from the Udemy range. There are different pricing plans (Team / Enterprise / Nonprofit) from about $240 per user per year for companies up to 20 employees. Reference customers include Apple, PayPal, Volkswagen and Adidas.

5. Skillshare

Skillshare offers a large number of short, practical video lessons (often less than an hour long). It’s not so much about lengthy educational courses, but more about instantly adding specific skills needed for day-to-day tasks.

With Skillshare for Teams, organizations can choose from over 15,000 short video lessons, starting at $99 per user per year for small businesses. Reference customers include Disney, Adobe and Virgin Media.

Are Udemy Courses Free?

Many courses are free. You can join those courses and many free courses are very good on Udemy. Many course creators distribute a few coupons which can get you the entire course free or get a good discount. Search for these coupons on Google.

If both those options don’t work, please pay for the course. At least once or twice a month you will find Udemy reduced the prices.

If none of the above happens for the course you want, please pay for it. Course creators spend lot of time, energy and expertise. Respect that. Pay for the courses. They are cheaper than the cost of an equivalent book.

With Udemy Coupons, you may receive paid courses for free. There are free online courses available in various subjects, including photography, web development, programming, personal development, and others.

Also there are some free course on Udemy. You can alter on searching on the Udemy.

What is Better than Udemy?

Udemy is an online learning marketplace that allows edupreneurs to create and publicly list their courses in different categories. It is one of the world’s biggest online learning platforms, having helped over 56K instructors teach 155K+ courses to more than 40 million students worldwide since 2009.

Clearly Udemy has some pretty valuable characteristics that any platform positioning itself as an alternative will need to respond to in one way or another.

So, let’s move on to the list of contenders.

1. Coggno

With Coggno, you can create courses or upload existing content – and, unlike most Udemy alternatives, including SCORM files. You also have the option to deliver these courses privately or to distribute them through the Coggno marketplace.

Coggno also provides the useful twist of enabling organizations to use a branded instance of the Coggno platform for free to offer courses to their target audience (e.g., employees, members) – thus providing yet another distribution option for your content (i.e., more of a business-to-business, or B2B, marketplace).

Organizations that use the LMS in this way pay only for the content they use. For course developers looking to sell their content, pricing starts at $34.95 per month. Coggno also takes a percentage of sales. This varies depending on the price of the course and how it is sold, so be sure to check out the pricing page.

2. Curious

Like Udemy, Curious is video-focused, providing a set of tools to help teachers organize their videos and add exercises and other types of interactivity. With respect to marketing your content out to its base of learners, the company touts a “multi-channel approach – and classic marketing techniques like organic search (SEO), paid advertising (SEM), direct marketing and most importantly, social media.”

Teachers earn money through revenue sharing (Curious says 70% goes to teachers), tips, and what the company calls “referral bounties.” Details can be found on the company’s Teacher Payment page.

3. Learning.ly

Learning.ly is a relative newcomer among Udemy alternatives, but give that it has the backing of The Economist Group (publishers of the widely-read financial magazine), you can expect it to be a strong contender. Presumably, given its publishing background, the group already has pretty good reach into a well-educated learner based that is likely to be receptive to lifelong learning opportunities.

Courses at Learning.ly consists of a combination of video, audio, and presentations (i.e., slides) and the company offers the interesting option of hiring “a personal concierge who is dedicated to building learning experiences from your content.” (It’s unclear how much this costs – is anyone has done it, please comment.) Teachers earn 50 percent of the revenue on all courses sold.

4. OfCourse

OfCourse describes itself as a lifestyle and self improvement online learning platform that hosts and promotes video-led courses to over 9 million people across the UK, in addition to large audiences in Australia, The UAE, and Scandinavia.

Read Also: Top 10 Tech Skills in Demand

The company is not clear about the terms  that it offers to teachers, but claims there is the potential to “earn £1,000’s in passive income every month.” To get started you have to “register interest,” but it’s not clear what happens after that.

5. Skillshare

Skillshare is probably the best known among Udemy competitors. It provides instructors with tools to create online courses composed of video lessons and a “class project.” (All classes are have these two elements.) Classes are normally 10-25 minutes long, broken down into short videos, and they are all pre-recorded and self-paced.

Once you have enrolled more than 25 learners in a class, you become eligible for participation in Skillshare’s Partner Program and can earn money through the royalty pool managed by the company – usually $1-2 per enrollment, according to the company.

Once you are a partner, you’ll also get compensated for new Premium Members ($10 per) you bring to Skillshare through your Teacher Referral link. The Skillshare site reports that “Top teachers make up to $40,000 a year.”

Finally

Online learning provides a chance for anyone to continue their education and sharpen their skills. We hope you’ve found this list helpful and are excited to pursue knowledge and grow. Good luck in your classes and studying, and wherever this new information may take you.