Udemy vs Skillshare vs LinkedIn Learning, you want to take an online course?

Udemy, Skillshare, and LinkedIn Learning are one of the top online learning platforms aimed at professionals and students. With millions of students and thousands of courses available taught by amazing instructors, who are continuously rated by students, these platforms have removed physical classrooms’ necessity to a much extent. Here is our quick review of these platforms that can help you to choose your next course.

Udemy

Udemy is a leading and the largest learning platform that provides courses on almost each and every category of skill set and topic. The edtech platform has more than 35 million students and 57,000 instructors teaching courses in over 65 languages. There have been over 400 million course enrolments. Students and instructors come from 180+ countries and 2/3 of the students are located outside of the U.S.

Anyone can join Udemy and start offering courses in the field of their expertise. They also offer corporate or team programs that are available for academic, business, and government use. Some of the topics that Udemy courses cover are:

• health and fitness
• photography 
• copywriting and content writing
• marketing
• web development 
• graphic design
• personal development 
• cooking 
• office productive and more

Pricing and Refunds 

The pricing for Udemy is a little inflexible, considering that you need to purchase each course individually. We personally find it to be risky that in case if you purchase a course and you don’t like it, you’re stuck with it. However, the one advantage that they do offer is a 30-day refund. 

Purchasing a course at Udemy means having lifetime access to it, and it’s costing varies from $10 to $150 and more. The courses here also go on sale at times, offering you to take courses at a huge discount. 

We would recommend that if you’re only looking to take up a limited number of courses, maybe 1 or 2, choosing Udemy is the best option. But before taking up any course, do review the ratings, reviews, and a number of students who have already taken up that certain course to save you from wasting any money.

Accreditation and Certification

You will learn the skillset that you required from here, but unfortunately, other than providing you with completion certificates, Udemy’s courses are not accredited. Companies do value the skills or courses you’ve done through Udemy; but, mentioning its name on your CV won’t be the same as mentioning a university’s name or degree. 

Learning on the Go

Since Udemy courses are a one-time purchase, this means there are no time constraints that come along with it. So, you can work around them at your own pace once the course has been purchased. Udemy doesn’t offer offline access. 

Skillshare

Skillshare focuses more on providing creative topics, more than 27,000 courses. Let say you want to learn about some specific niche of photography like iPhone photography or interested in learning negotiation in business; Skillshare is your place.

The instructors on Skillshare are more professionals and are well-known in the industry as compared to Udemy. The list of notables includes Guy Kawasaki, Aaron Draplin, Jessica Hische,  Yuko Shimizu, Roxane Gay, and Simon Sinek.

The kind of topics they offer courses on are:

• creative
• business
• lifestyle
• entrepreneurship
• technology and more

Pricing and Refunds 

Unlike Udemy, you don’t pay for each course. Skillshare’s pricing is comparatively flexible, considering that it’s subscription-based either on $15 monthly or $8.5 ($99 annual plan) if yearly. Personally, we find it to be more reliable that in case if you purchase a course and you don’t like it, you can just leave it and move on to the next. However, they don’t offer any refunds. 

Purchasing an annual subscription comes with perks like offline access. It also allows users to avail discounts on services like Squarespace, Shutterstock, or Adobe Premiere Pro. However, not all courses are available as part of a subscription. There are few premium courses for which you may need to pay extra.

We’d recommend that if you’re someone who is only looking to take up multiple courses, then Skillshare would be more suitable; it’s cheaper, but the time constraint may come in between if you take a monthly subscription instead of a yearly. But before taking up any course, do review the ratings, reviews, and the number of students who have already taken up that certain course to save you from wasting any money.

Accreditation and Certification

Just like Udemy, Skillshare courses are not accredited either. They do not offer completion certificates. 

Learning on the Go

Due to time constraints, Skillshare courses may feel less flexible; however, it does offer offline access. 

LinkedIn Learning

Previously known as Lynda, LinkedIn Learning focuses more on practical courses and has a collection of more than 5,000 of them being offered. Each week more courses get added to the collection. The kind of topics they offer courses on are:

• business
• technology
• creative

They also offer corporate or team programs that are available for academic, business, and government use. All of the courses are also available on Apple TV.

READ: The 20 Most Popular LinkedIn Learning Courses of the Year ↗

Pricing and Refunds 

The pricing for LinkedIn is similar to Skillshare; however, their prices are higher than theirs. The monthly subscription for LinkedIn Learning is for $29.99, and their annual subscription of $239.99 will make it $19.99/mo. They are equally reliable as Skillshare because if you purchase a course and don’t like it, you can leave it and move on to the next. However, they don’t offer any refunds. 

Purchasing a subscription with them opens unlimited access to their course library, personalized course recommendations, offline mobile-app viewing, and premium career features. 

We would recommend that if you’re only looking to take up multiple courses, then LinkedIn should greatly help you; it’s cheaper, but the time constraint may come in between if you take a monthly subscription instead of a yearly. 

Accreditation and Certification

LinkedIn Learning courses, however, are just used for training purposes and are not accredited. But taking on such courses, do add on to your LinkedIn profiles, and recruiters there do consider them when reviewing your profile. Most of the courses they offer are available in different languages i.e., English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin, and Portuguese. 

Learning on the Go

Due to time constraints, LinkedIn courses may feel less flexible; however, it does offer offline access. 

Are there any other better online learning platform?

All of these platforms i.e., Udemy, Skillshare, and Linkedin Learning, are amazing, popular, and valued highly in the market. However, they are targeted towards providing courses that you can complete in a short span of time, like hours or days. They are not accredited but give the recruiter a message that you are lifelong learners and have a thirst to be better. These courses can help you quickly grasp a skill if you have been promoted to a new role or interested in polishing a specific skillset.

READ: Top Edtech Trends in the 2020s – AI, AR, VR, Gamification, more

However, if you want to learn something deep and detailed, and instead of professionals, you desire to learn from world-class professors or corporate leaders, then you can explore platforms like Coursera or Edx. Coursera and Edx are usually longer. They offer accredited courses, months-long specializations, micro-masters, and even full-fledged online bachelor’s and master’s degree programs from the world’s best institutes. They offer a mixture of theoretical and practical content. Some of the courses they offer can even help you count towards your university degree if you are enrolled.