Every online learning platform has unique features that can make it appealing to a specific group of people.
It may be hard at first to choose one among all the current options in the market. With the current high demand for online courses, many platforms compete to see which one offers the best deals for you.
In this article, we compare Udemy vs. Skillshare to see which one is best for you!
Can’t Wait? Here’s Our Verdict
| Udemy | SkillShare | |
| Courses on Offer | X | |
| Student Experience | X | X |
| Instructor Quality | X | X |
| Course Quality | X | |
| Flexibility and Commitment Needed | X | X |
| Price | X |
Both sites are very similar in the interface, instructor quality, and time commitment. However, Skillshare is the winner of this competition since it offers a higher-quality experience and an overall more complete learning process.
<h2class=”cus-codecademy-heading”>Product Backgrounds
Udemy
Udemy is an online platform for learning about any kind of topic. It was founded in 2009, and its goal is to provide an intuitive and accessible platform for students who are looking to start enrolling in online courses.
Udemy also provides a feature for people who want to upload their content easily, so it’s a platform both for students and instructors.
Udemy has over 100,000 available courses on any topic from Technology to Lifestyle. If you are looking to gain experience on a particular topic, Udemy is a great option.
Skillshare is an online course platform launched in 2012. Its approach is to people who want to enhance existing skills or learn new ones. Currently, Skillshare provides access to both paid and free online courses in a lot of different categories.
As of today, Skillshare has over 27,000 online courses, and it also offers instructors the chance to upload their content.
Keep in mind that Skillshare is only for people who want to learn new things or improve skills. The platform doesn’t provide a completion certificate for any of its courses.
Courses on Offer
Udemy
Udemy currently hosts over 100,000 online courses that cover many topics. You can find free courses, as well as paid courses that you can find for a reasonable price.
Udemy provides a search engine that makes looking for a course more comfortable. You have the option to filter by name or by category. You can look at all the available categories below:
- Personal Development
- Design
- Marketing
- Lifestyle
- Photography
- Development
- Business
- Finance & Accounting
- IT & Software
- Office Productivity
- Health & Fitness
- Music
- Teaching & Academics
The categories that hold most online courses are the ‘Programming’ courses. You can find a wide variety of instructors offering beginner-to-advanced level courses on a specific topic.
You can find instructors that deliver their content in audio, video, text, presentations, documents, and a mashup of every method. You have to check the course’s landing page to see what delivery methods it offers.
Skillshare currently has over 27,000 online courses that you can look into. As with Udemy, Skillshare provides a good amount of free and paid online courses.
Skillshare divides its online courses into three main sections: Create, Build, and Thrive. You can use the search engine to check each category individually, see recommended classes, student projects, or groups.
You can check all the Skillshare categories below:
Create
- Animation
- Creative Writing
- Film & Video
- Fine Art
- Graphic Design
- Illustration
- Music
- Photography
- Web Development
- UI/UX Design
Build
- Leadership & Management
- Business Analytics
- Freelance & Entrepreneurship
- Marketing
Thrive
- Lifestyle
- Productivity
Since its creation, Skillshare has added new features to enhance its learning experience, you can read more about these features below:
Live Classes: You can watch a class in real-time, hosted on Zoom. In there, you can participate and ask questions to your instructor.
Skillshare Groups: In these groups, you can connect with other Skillshare users and discuss specific topics of interest. You can find four categories in there: ‘Lifestyle,’ ‘Technology,’ ‘Creative,’ and ‘Business.’
Skillshare Workshops: If you are a Premium user, you can take a class on a previously designated schedule alongside many other Skillshare students.
Winner
Skillshare is the winner in this category since it has more variety of courses, and it also offers three new ways to learn on its platform. Udemy has a massive number of courses, but Skillshare has many other ways to provide its content to students.
Student Experience
Udemy
Udemy provides a basic platform to navigate its available online courses. When you log in, you can see a promotional banner or a discount banner, a list of categories and courses, and some user reviews.
An online course’s landing page shows you a promotional video, general information about the course, and user reviews for the course and the author.
If you want to enroll on a course, you have to add the course to your cart, choose a payment processor, and you’re ready to learn! Udemy’s platform is pretty standard, but it works just fine.
Skillshare’s platform is very intuitive and straightforward. When you sign up for the first time, you may see some promotional banners and a list of categories for you to browse.
When you visit an online course’s landing page, you are greeted by a promotional video. If you scroll down, you can see general information, related courses, and information about the instructor.
Using Skillshare is as easy as it gets; it offers an intuitive platform that takes you directly where you want to go without much hassle.
Winner
In this case, both platforms offer very similar user interfaces. They are both easy to use, and down to the point, so for this section, it’s a tie.
Instructor Quality
Udemy
The instructor’s quality can vary a lot because anyone can upload their course on Udemy. There are many excellent instructors on the platform, but there are also bad ones that offer poor content.
To check if a specific instructor is good, you can check their reviews on the course’s landing page. You must research your instructor well enough to guarantee a pleasant experience.
The situation with Skillshare is similar to Udemy’s. However, Skillshare doesn’t require any applications or approvals. If you want to upload a course, you can click on the ‘Teach’ tab on the main page and start uploading your content.
This means that anyone can be an instructor on Skillshare as long as the course follows Skillshare’s ‘Class Guidelines.’ You can find good instructors and bad ones. To be entirely sure that you are not wasting your time, you can check the user reviews made to your instructor.
Winner
This case is a tie between the two competitors since both platforms offer the option to upload an online course to anyone. This makes it difficult to determine the quality of the instructors because you can find good ones and bad ones.
Course Quality
Udemy
There are a lot of courses on Udemy, so it makes it a bit complicated to determine the overall quality of its courses. However, Udemy’s platform has often received mixed reviews regarding its courses.
While most courses are decent, you can find courses with very poor quality since Udemy doesn’t provide a quality-check filter for everyone. If you want to know if a course is worth your time, your best bet is to check the reviews.
Skillshare has generally received positive reviews for most of its online courses. However, some users report that some of the course descriptions are vague, and some instructors don’t explain if the course is aimed at beginner or advanced users.
Nonetheless, most courses are very informative and professional. You can look at the user reviews for the instructor to be sure, but you can likely have an overall pleasant experience with the content on the site.
Winner
The winner, in this case, is Skillshare since most of its courses are of good quality, whereas in Udemy you can find good courses, but you can also find awful ones.
Flexibility and Time Commitment
Udemy
Udemy offers you the option to complete an online course whenever you want. If you buy the course, you get to keep it forever unless Udemy loses the license rights to the course.
Every course page tells you approximately how much time you can take with the course and the daily recommended time that you have to take for it. However, it’s just a suggestion; you can complete it at your own pace.
Once you enroll in a Skillshare course, you can complete it at your own pace. You have complete control over how you want to watch the classes.
Skillshare’s courses are – on average – 20 to 60-minute courses broken down in a series of two to five-minute videos. The course’s landing page tells you how long the course is, but you can decide when you want to take your classes.
However, if you decide to take on a workshop, then you have to take the class at a specific time designated by your instructor.
Winner
For this section, we have a tie. Both platforms allow you to take your online course whenever you see fit.
Price
Udemy
You can find online courses in a wide range of prices. On Udemy, prices range from nine dollars to $200 per course. However, the platform provides seasonal discounts to all users so that you can get guaranteed discounts at any point throughout the year. You can see our article on Udemy discounts to learn more.
If you’re a new user, Udemy automatically detects it and offers you discounts in some of their courses. With that many discounts available, you might pay just $10 for an online course you’re interested in.
To register to Udemy, you’re not required to pay anything. You can create your account for free and browse the free catalog. If you want to pay for a course, then you have to add a payment processor to your account.
Skillshare has three types of memberships: Free, Premium, and Team accounts.
The ‘Free’ version allows you to watch free classes and download resource materials, but it gives you ads from time to time. The ‘Premium’ version removes ads and allows you to access the entire Skillshare platform and to download your classes to watch offline.
The ‘Team’ membership is the same as the Premium one, with the difference that the Team membership is made for organizations that want to give its employees a Skillshare account.
The Premium membership costs $19 per month or $99 per year. The Team membership costs $99 per person per year.
Winner
While Udemy offers excellent discounts for its students, the winner, in this case, is Skillshare. For a single payment of $19 per month or $99 per year, you can get complete access to every single course on the site, whereas, on Udemy, you have to pay for each paid course.
Final Verdict
Udemy – 0
Skillshare – 3
Tie – 3
Winner – Skillshare
While both platforms have very similar user interfaces and content, Skillshare offers a more complete, high-quality experience overall.
Keep in mind that Udemy gives completion certificates. Still, the site itself is not seen as an accredited institution, and Skillshare doesn’t give completion certificates at all, just an URL that you can showcase on your resume.
However, the best thing that you can do is to check both sites out to see which one is better for you.
| Udemy | SkillShare | |
| Courses on Offer | X | |
| Student Experience | X | X |
| Instructor Quality | X | X |
| Course Quality | X | |
| Flexibility and Commitment Needed | X | X |
| Price | X |
