Udemy vs Skillshare: Which One Is Right for You?

When I started looking for online resources to help me top up my graphic design game, two names came up frequently: Udemy and Skillshare. But I wasn’t sure which one of the two was the best, in fact, I didn’t know what each exactly offered.

Of course, both providers offer courses on many topics other than graphic design (what I was looking to learn). So, what is it like to use their platforms? And more importantly, which one will be the best choice for you?

To answer these questions, I’ve created an in-depth Udemy vs Skillshare comparison. I’ll tell you all about their prices, course quality, instructors and much more.

Let’s make a Start!

Udemy Vs Skillshare Summary

Udemy is one of the most popular online learning platforms on the market, offering a big pool of courses more than 210K+ which covers a wide range of topics. Its wide range of topics include Development, Business, Music, Cooking and much more, there is something to suit everyone. Skillshare, on the other hand, focuses on creative topics like Graphic Design, Photography, Animation and much more, offering 34,000+ courses. Its focus is to learn creative skills, so learners can achieve personal and professional goals. Udemy does offer a bunch of its courses for free, be mindful that most are for complete beginners and come with limited features. Its paid courses range between $19.99 and $199.99 and if you prefer subscription-based learning, its Personal Plan starts at $16.58 USD per month, which includes a 7-day free trial and access to 8,000+ courses. Skillshare solely offers a subscription-based plan costing $168 annually including a 1-month free trial is included when you first sign up. If you are looking to explore a wider range of topics, then Udemy would be a better fit. Whereas if a hands-on creative learning experience is what you are looking for, Skillshare would be the best option.

Let’s dive in and examine both providers in detail, so by the end of this comparison, you’ll know if Skillshare or Udemy is right for you.

Round 1: Which One Is More Popular?

As you can see in the Google Trends screenshot below, when it comes to popularity, there’s one clear winner: Udemy

Udemy and Skillshare popularity at Google Trends

Udemy is the biggest and one of the most popular online learning platforms on the market. Udemy has grown to have 57+ million learners and offers 210,000+ courses in 75 languages available. Its wide variety of categories means there is something for everyone.

Skillshare’s numbers seem very humble when compared to Udemy’s. Skillshare has grown quite a bit since it was first founded in 2010: it has over 34,000+ classes and more than 8 million students – not bad if you think they target a smaller niche (creatives and entrepreneurs).

Round 2: Ease-of-Use & Interface

Alright, we all want easy to follow and intuitive interfaces and straightforward workflows, so let’s find out which one provides the easiest to use system. Shall we?

Registration

The registration process at Udemy is very simple To create an account you’ll only need your name, email and set a password. After that, you’ll only need to confirm the email that they send you.

Udemy registration process

Skillshare works similarly.  You can create your account by simply adding an email account and a password. On top of that, you are also allowed to create an account using your Gmail or Facebook account.

Backend & Design

Once you log in at Udemy you’ll realize that an effort has been made to keep the interface intuitive and well-designed. I like how easy it is to create your own ‘Collection’ of courses organized using the same topics (e.g. programming, design, etc.).

The actual course interface is also very smartly designed. Besides the usual video player options (playback speed, video quality, subtitle management, etc.), you also can add a note to a certain moment of a video (see image below).

Udemy adding a note to a lesson

It’s also very convenient how the course lessons are organized in the right-hand sidebar (above image). It provides easy access to each chapter and lesson of the course. You can also tick or untick each lesson to keep track of your progress.

Access Udemy using your favourite internet browser on laptops and desktops, or download the iOS or Android app to watch courses on the go.

Skillshare also offers a way to create course lists to keep your resources organized and adding notes to your courses. I would say that its design is good, but maybe not as modern-looking as Udemy’s (not a big issue though).

Skillshare video player options

The Skillshare’s video player isn’t as advanced as Udemy’s, it lacks some options like being able to set up the video quality or managing captions. The course sidebar with the lessons is also a more simple version of Udemy’s.

As with Udemy, Skillshare is available for desktops and laptops using a browser, and via apps for iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices. You won’t be able to watch courses offline with the free version.

Round 3: Udemy Vs Skillshare Courses

A couple of questions that you’ll need to ask yourself before choosing between Udemy or Skillshare are: What platform has more choice? Which one allows you to choose easily?

Course Information

A big issue of these platforms is how to filter the vast offering they have. With thousands of online courses available, you could spend days choosing your next class. So they all make efforts to make your life a bit easier.

Skillshare offers some categories to browse its library, you’ll be able to narrow down your searches by topic (currently it has 16 categories). There are also a couple of filters that will offer a more defined search: free vs paid courses when the course was created and the class duration. There is also a section with ‘Recommended Classes’, a selection of internally picked Skillshare classes.

Skillshare filters

All Skillshare courses come with information about the class structure, access to resources and a presentation video about the course and the instructor. There is also an easy way to assess the course level (e.g. beginner, intermediate or advanced), this is based on students’ feedback. Finally, the review section of each course will allow you to read what other students think about a certain course – this is a bit basic as it doesn’t have an aggregated value.

Udemy offers a similar approach. All its courses are classified into topics (13 categories and dozens of subcategories). Udemy’s filters are much more advanced as you have more flexibility, filter by level, student rating, language, duration, available resources and more.

Udemy filters

There is also the ability to read reviews from other users, a video presentation of the course and the instructor and a useful summary of the available resources (e.g. assignments and quizzes).

In terms of the number of courses, Udemy offers a 6 times larger class repository (150,000) and 8,000 free courses versus 2,500 complementary courses from Skillshare and over 25,000 premium courses.

The course quality is difficult to assess, as pretty much everyone can publish on both elearning platforms. Both Udemy and Skillshare have formal requirements instructors must meet (e.g. HD videos, minimum length and educational goals). However, some of the courses at Skillshare are produced internally and by big companies (e.g. Moz, Adobe or Mailchimp), so maybe they offer a tiny bit more.

Popular Skillshare & Udemy Courses

Let me mention a couple of popular Udemy and Skillshare courses to get an idea of what types of topics they cover:

Round 4: Free Courses at Udemy & Skillshare

I have to say that some of the questions I get asked a lot are related to free courses. What platform is better for free courses?

Browse Udemy Free Courses

Udemy offers close to 600 free courses which are a simplified experience with limited features. For example, you won’t receive a certificate of completion when you complete the course and additional features like Q&A and direct messaging aren’t available. Which means, although Udemy is generous to offer free courses, you won’t necessarily get the full learning experience.

Skillshare recently stopped offering any free classes and now the only way to check out the platform and its classes is by signing up for the premium plan, which will give you access to a free trial. The free trial will give you full access to the platform and its 34,000+ creative classes. By registering for the premium plan, you will get the full learning experience of the platform and are free to cancel before the trial ends so that you won’t be charged anything. Skillshare’s current free trial offer is for 1-month which gives you plenty of time to test the waters and decide if it’s worth keeping.

Round 5: Available Languages At Skillshare & Udemy

Alright, I promise this will be a short round.

Whilst Skillshare encourages teaching in any language, the reality is that their community is primarily English speaking. It does have several language learning courses (e.g. for Spanish, German or French), but I haven’t been able to find courses about other topics in other languages than English.

Udemy courses in other languages

On the other hand, Udemy does offer courses in many other languages, even some of the English courses have subtitles in Spanish, German or French. In fact, Udemy incorporates a filter to find courses in several languages (see image above).

Round 6: Udemy Vs Skillshare Certificates

Certificates are good to make your CV more appealing or to hang them on your office, they can help you get a better job or a juicy promotion. However, they have to be issued by a credible institution.

Once you complete an Udemy course, you’ll be able to print a completion certificate. However, Udemy is not an accredited institution, so there’s no real formal value for you. Note that free courses don’t include completion certificates.

Example of Udemy certificate

Skillshare doesn’t provide a certificate after you complete a course, fair enough.

Round 7: Skillshare Vs Udemy Teachers & Community

Udemy is open to anyone who is willing to put in a huge effort to create a course, of course, you have to meet some requirements, and you can’t just put together a poor quality 10-minute course about a topic. But yes, if you are willing to put the effort and create a course, you’ll be able to sell it on Udemy. Udemy itself creates its own courses (known as Udemy official courses) that are produced by the Udemy Instructor team.

And with Skillshare it is the same case. This elearning platform is open to anyone who is eager to teach a course. Like Udemy, Skillshare also produces some of its own courses (known as Skillshare Originals), and they team up with very successful professionals and companies to push some amazing classes.

SEO course from Moz at Skillshare

For example, you can find a beginner SEO course taught by Rand Fishkin, one of the most important SEO experts in the world – equivalent to having Michael Jordan teaching you basketball fundamentals.

Both Skillshare and Udemy have a way for students to communicate and interact with each other. Having a narrower range of topics and working on a subscription model, I think benefits Skillshare here and its community is a bit more engaged.

Round 8: Is Skillshare or Udemy’s Support Better

Alright, one thing that we all get frustrated with is slow support and bad customer care, right?

Udemy has a well-organized knowledge base with tutorials and guides on how its platform works, it’s also easy to find the information you need about the prices and terms of use.

Udemy support

It’s not easy to contact Udemy with your questions, you can try contacting Udemy’s support via email at support@udemy.com or pestering them on social media.

On the other hand, Skillshare’s knowledge base is a bit more rudimentary, and sometimes I found its support articles a bit thin (not detailed enough). However, reaching out to their support is easy (by email at help@skillshare.com) and I always had a good experience with them – support seems slower when you have a free account, but hey, it’s free.

Round 9: Which One Is Better for Businesses

Elearning platforms are a great way to have your team or company improving skills and learning new drills, especially for fast-changing industries such as marketing or development.

Skillshare offers a Team plan that gives employees unlimited access to 34,000+ courses. The plan is designed for teams of any size, and costs $159 per user annually.

Skillshare teams plans

Udemy offers 3 different business plans. The Team plan is for 5 – 20 users, costing $360 a year per user. Then there is the Enterprise plan for more than 21 users which is custom priced and finally the Leadership Development Program, again custom priced.

Round 10: Udemy Vs Skillshare Pricing

Probably the most important category is the pricing, it’s great if a platform comes with all the blows and whistles, but if you are not able to afford it won’t be useful for you.

Both Udemy and Skillshare have different pricing models, so let me explain to you how much they are.

Unless you have an Udemy Business plan (not cheap), you’ll have to pay for each Udemy course ($19.99 – $199.99 a course) you’d like to enrol. If you only need a couple of courses that’s OK, but if you are planning on becoming an expert in a field, you will most likely need several resources to get your game up. That’s when Udemy could get a bit expensive. Saying that, Udemy does often run sales and discounts on its courses, giving out codes and coupons which then makes the platform more affordable.

On the other hand, Skillshare’s premium plan gives you access to the full library of classes for $167.88 working out at just $13.99. When you consider the number of classes you can access and the free trial, it seems too good to be true.

Bonus Round: Udemy & Skillshare Alternatives

There are a bunch of cases in which Udemy and Skillshare aren’t good matches. For example, you need accredited certificates, or when you are looking for career advice and help to write your CV.

So let me mention a couple of alternatives you should consider:

Coursera

Coursera is one of the most prestigious online learning platforms, that has partnered with 300+ top Universities and Organizations to create its courses and learning programs. If you are looking to earn a verified certificate, Coursera maybe your answer.

Coursera is a good alternative to Skillshare and Udemy

Coursera offers thousands of courses for free, but if you want a certificate you’ll have to purchase a paid version. Coursera has several types of learning options: Guided Projects (Starting at $9.99 USD), Specializations (Starting at $49 USD), Professional Certificates (Starting at $49 USD), MasterTrack Certificates (Starting at $2,000 USD), Degrees (Starting at $9,000 USD) and Coursera Plus ($59 monthly or $399 annually USD).

Read Coursera Review

Visit Coursera.com

edX

Similarly to Coursera, edX offers courses from leading universities like Harvard, The University of Texas, MIT or Berkeley. You’ll be able to earn accredited certificates too for industries such as business, computer science, engineering or humanities.

edX can be a good alternative to Udemy or Skillshare

There are several free courses, but if you’d like to get a certificate from edX, you’ll need to pay for the course ($50 to $300 depending on the course).

Read edX Review

Visit edx.com

Udacity

Udacity doesn’t offer as many courses as Udemy or Skillshare, but it creates its own resources partnering with leading companies for all their courses (e.g. Google, Mercedes or Nvidia). The list of topics they cover is also limited (mainly business and technology), but the areas are almost Sci-fi (from AI to autonomous driving).

Udacity career advice

There are also a bunch of free courses (about 200). It groups its courses into Nanodegrees, a bundle of 4 to 10 subjects that will let you deepen in a topic. Career advice is also offered and its certificates, even if they are not accredited, certificates are taken seriously by many companies.

However, it won’t be cheap, a Nanodegree will cost you between $700 to $2,000 depending on its duration.

Read Udacity Review

Visit Udacity.com

Final thoughts: Udemy vs Skillshare

Alright, after this long and detailed comparison, I hope it has helped you choose the right platform for you. To conclude, I have highlighted each platform’s strengths and weaknesses.

Udemy Pros

Udemy Cons

Skillshare Pros

Skillshare Cons

Please leave a comment below if you have any questions, and I’ll do my best to help you out.

Review Updates:

09/06/23 – Coursera Alternative Updated

08/07/23 – Udemy Vs Skillshare Summary Updated

07/03/23 – Skillshare Pros Updated

05/22/23 – Udemy Vs Skillshare: FAQ

03/16/23 – Udemy Vs Skillshare Pros & Cons

02/17/23 – Udemy Vs Skillshare Summary Updated

01/15/23 – Udemy Vs Skillshare Update

11/26/21 Udemy Vs Skillshare Quiz

10/01/21 Skillshare Pricing

05/19/21 Free Courses at Udemy & Skillshare

Catherine Cooke

Hey. I am Catherine and I have been working as a freelancer for many years now. In 2005, I graduated from a BA honours in Art & Design from BCU and then went onto complete a Master’s Degree in Teaching from UEL. The skills I gained from learning and teaching have led me to create Upskillwise, a place for learners like myself to find the best possible resources and courses to train and upskill themselves, either personally or professionally. If you have a question, please feel free to ask me anything or leave me a comment.