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Walter Spicer
Yes this is an old post but it deserves updating. It's still a comparison of apples to oranges to watermelons and depends entirely on your own learning style.
Coursera
Coursera is both free (audit) and a pay for Coursera-issued webcam dependent certificate service from top universities. The topics are limited by the content available at those universities or departments that are pushing online content. For example, you won't find language learning on Coursera. Most are US based institutions. This can be limiting, with engineering classes for example, especially when the instruction doesn't use metric! I think only a few courses so far are open ended, (ie CS50), in that you have until Dec to finish the course and get Coursera credit for finishing it. Otherwise for the majority of courses, you are on the university schedule for assignments and if not completed you obviously don't receive credit for doing so. If you don't have the time to work on their schedule, you can still sign up and audit the information at your own pace.
Personally working a class online is harder than a real class as your time and motivation have to be higher if you want to complete it. They offer an hours per week estimate but I find it unrealistic.
With hundreds of thousands of students per class in some cases, Coursera whether under audit or going for a Coursera certificate probably has the most users.
Udacity
Udacity differs in the timeframe, in that you work at your own pace not the class. Topics are also from universities but much fewer than Coursera. They also tend to be computer science focused as well. They have some free courses but most of the time it's a monthly subscription model at $150/month. This removes the hundreds of thousands of free users Coursera has to contend with.
Udemy
Udemy also is user focused for completion, has more than just computer science courses, (languages, marketing, photography, whatever) with more free options than Udacity, but fewer than Coursera.
Udemy seems to be more of a market for instructors with timely skills rather than a long and boring institutional setting online. Of the three I feel it's the one that understands that the Internet is not a classroom. They have star based reviews of courses where Udacity and Coursera do not. Prices vary from free to hundreds of dollars per course, but it averages out to about $0-$40. Since you paid for the course you don't have to pay for it again every month.
Conclusion
Of the three, Coursera wins on number of institutions. Udemy wins on breath of topics, specific skills, and market driven reviews. Udacity has useful courses that can be completed at your own pace, but by giving preference to a monthly fee it's equating all courses as equal. This might not be the case.
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Yes this is an old post but it deserves updating. It's still a comparison of apples to oranges to watermelons and depends entirely on your own learning style.
Coursera
Coursera is both free (audit) and a pay for Coursera-issued webcam dependent certificate service from top universities. The topics are limited by the content available at those universities or departments that are pushing online content. For example, you won't find language learning on Coursera. Most are US based institutions. This can be limiting, with engineering classes for example, especially when the instruction doesn't use metric! I think only a few courses so far are open ended, (ie CS50), in that you have until Dec to finish the course and get Coursera credit for finishing it. Otherwise for the majority of courses, you are on the university schedule for assignments and if not completed you obviously don't receive credit for doing so. If you don't have the time to work on their schedule, you can still sign up and audit the information at your own pace.
Personally working a class online is harder than a real class as your time and motivation have to be higher if you want to complete it. They offer an hours per week estimate but I find it unrealistic.
With hundreds of thousands of students per class in some cases, Coursera whether under audit or going for a Coursera certificate probably has the most users.
Udacity
Udacity differs in the timeframe, in that you work at your own pace not the class. Topics are also from universities but much fewer than Coursera. They also tend to be computer science focused as well. They have some free courses but most of the time it's a monthly subscription model at $150/month. This removes the hundreds of thousands of free users Coursera has to contend with.
Udemy
Udemy also is user focused for completion, has more than just computer science courses, (languages, marketing, photography, whatever) with more free options than Udacity, but fewer than Coursera.
Udemy seems to be more of a market for instructors with timely skills rather than a long and boring institutional setting online. Of the three I feel it's the one that understands that the Internet is not a classroom. They have star based reviews of courses where Udacity and Coursera do not. Prices vary from free to hundreds of dollars per course, but it averages out to about $0-$40. Since you paid for the course you don't have to pay for it again every month.
Conclusion
Of the three, Coursera wins on number of institutions. Udemy wins on breath of topics, specific skills, and market driven reviews. Udacity has useful courses that can be completed at your own pace, but by giving preference to a monthly fee it's equating all courses as equal. This might not be the case.
See Questions On Quora
Continue reading...