Online Learning is one of the biggest markets right now, and it couldn’t come at a better time. With internet speed and access at an all-time high worldwide, people are hungry for the ability to extend their education without dipping into their savings, taking out hefty loans, or spending months or years on an expensive degree.
At the top of the online learning industry though, two platforms have emerged to become viewed as the best in the business: Udemy and Skillshare. People often wonder which one is better, and the major differences between the two platforms.
So if you’re someone who wonders the same thing, let’s break it down quickly to discuss which one is probably right for you if you’re still in doubt deciding which platform to go with.
Skillshare Review
Skillshare by and large is perhaps the more popular of the two platforms simply because it’s larger and has a more diverse amount of classes offered through its Basic and Premium packages.
What separates Skillshare from Udemy though is how it approaches the way you pay for classes. Udemy offers courses as a one-time payment that ranges from $5 to $200 and works more as a sort of specialized store for lessons that you can do. Contrast this with Skillshare which operates off of a subscription model where you can get classes either for Free, or pay $20 a month, or $100 for yearly access.
This means that classes with Skillshare are all on offer to you straight out of the box as long as you’re paying the subscription each month/year.
Another useful feature of Skillshare that many people seemingly enjoy is also the fact that you can retake courses at your leisure. So if you complete a course and feel you haven’t gotten everything out of it that you wanted, you can simply load it up, start back from the first lesson, and work your way through it again repeatedly.
When it comes to user interface and community though? Skillshare does have Udemy beat in the fact that there are just so many different ways to connect with other users in the community. Considering that Skillshare reaches out to popular YouTube personalities and other Online Influencers, you can be sure that if you use Social Media (such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) you’ll find that there are a lot of people out there to communicate with.
Of course, the biggest difference between Skillshare and Udemy really comes down to the type of courses that are available. Udemy offers courses that range from a myriad of different topics, and while Skillshare does similarly, it’s more geared towards people who want to pick up either Creative Skills or Life improvement skills and want to self-improve simply because they want to. So if you’re someone who wants to take on creative endeavors – such as Photography, Art, Video Editing, etc. – or pick up Life-based skills to help you improve productivity – such as Organizational Work, Investing Knowledge, Cooking information, etc. – then you’re probably better using Skillshare.
With that said though, Udemy does offer a lot of things that are different from Skillshare that make it an excellent platform to use, so let’s take a look at that real quick.
Udemy Review
As mentioned above, Udemy’s payment plans are different in that you actually purchase classes and coursework individually instead of purchasing a monthly (or yearly) subscription plan.
Now, this has several benefits that make this vastly different from Skillshares. For starters, the price that you pay could potentially be a lot lower over time than Skillshare. With Skillshare, if you purchase a monthly plan and don’t log onto the platform, you’ve essentially spent $20 on nothing, and it can get expensive if you’re not a frequent user of the platform. With Udemy though, once you purchase a course it’s yours. This means that if you don’t plan to take it in a month, it still costs you whatever you spent on it initially.
Since the course is yours then, that means that – like Skillshare – you can retake the course again and again as much as you want without additional cost.
The other biggest difference is that Udemy offers a LOT more Free Courses than Skillshare does. Skillshare right now offers roughly 2,500 free courses with its basic subscription plan, whereas Udemy offers around 11,000+ free courses. This is around 5x what you would get with Skillshare alone, and many of the courses are in varied fields such as Music, Lifestyle, Teaching, Language, and more so you have a wide variety of free courses to choose from.
Now, another thing that Skillshare doesn’t offer that should be touched on is the fact that Udemy does offer a printable certificate of completion whenever you finish an entire course. This is useful as a sort of way to gauge what courses you completed and when, but it should be stated straight out that this is NOT an alternative for proper accreditation from an accredited school. Mostly the reason for Udemy’s inclusion with this is as more of a formal way to physically track your progress instead of all digitally and all online, so if you’re someone who likes to have physical proof of completing tasks and goals then this might be for you.
All in all, though, Udemy is pretty much similar to Skillshare in the most meaningful ways. They both offer comparative levels of Customer Support, they both offer classes in varied languages (Though Udemy does offer courses in languages that Skillshare doesn’t), and they both are relatively easy to use and navigate.
Final Thoughts Skillshare vs Udemy
Honestly, no matter what you go with, you’re still learning, and that’s what’s important. Neither platform is more legitimate than the other one, and they all have courses that are similar in design. What you’re going to have to mostly focus over is whether one is more reasonably prized for your needs than the other one, since you will end up paying more over time if you want to master a skill or knowledge area.
All in all, though, the best thing to do starting is just make an account with both, go over the free courses that they offer, and try them out for yourself. That way you have nothing to lose but time.
