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Whether you're looking to get ahead in your schoolwork, improve a business skill, edit video, or even master French pastry, the top online learning sites we've tested can help.
ByJill Duffy
Jill Duffy
Columnist and Deputy Managing Editor, Software
My Experience
I've been contributing to PCMag since 2011 and am currently the deputy managing editor for the software team. My column, Get Organized, has been running on PCMag since 2012. It gives advice on how to manage all the devices, apps, digital photos, email, and other technology that can make you feel like you're going to have a panic attack.
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UpdatedDecember 19, 2023
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Our Top 9 Picks
Best for Inspiration Jump ToDetails Best for Free Academic Learning Jump ToDetails Best for Free Access to University Courses Jump ToDetails Best for Quizzes and Games Jump ToDetails Best for Creatives Learning Practical Skills Jump ToDetails Best for Programming and Vocational Skills Jump ToDetails Best for Curious Minds Jump ToDetails Best for Business Skills Jump ToDetails Best for Taking One-Off Courses Jump ToDetails MasterClass
Khan Academy
Coursera
Kahoot!
Skillshare
Udacity
Wondrium
LinkedIn Learning
Udemy
Online learning sites enable us to expand our minds and creative spirit. No matter where you are in the world or how little prior experience you have with a subject, you can learn just about anything, so long as you have an internet connection. We test and review dozens of online learning platforms, and here we list the best ones for all kinds of non-matriculated learning.
"Learning" isn't limited to the education taught in school. There are sites where you can pick up new software skills, become a better manager, study the art of memoir writing, watch a tutorial on how to set up a sewing machine, and listen to a world-renowned master in their field explain how they got there. Are you looking for practical skills? Business skills? Professional development? Inspiration? Or are you a student who needs tutoring in AP History? You can learn any of these things and more.
Read on for the top services we've tested, followed by everything you need to know about online learning.
You Can Trust Our Reviews
Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions.Read our editorial mission & see how we test.
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
MasterClass
Best for Inspiration
4.5 Outstanding
Why We Picked It
Everything about MasterClass deserves an A+. Instructors are among the top names in their fields. Each class is designed in painstaking detail. The production quality is superb. And what you learn from MasterClass is a combination of practical skill and inspiration.
Who It's For
MasterClass is for anyone who has a curiosity and desire to learn, from teenagers on up. It's for people who want insight into a chosen field, as well as those open to learning what they can from the highest achievers in other fields. Whether you're passionate about standup comedy, filmmaking, leadership, baking, music, or scholarship, you can find wonderful insight from MasterClass.
PROS
- A-list celebrity instructors
- Supremely high production values in videos
- Well-thought-out course structure
- Great breadth of topics
CONS
- Video and course run times and year filmed should be clearer
- Ads for other MasterClass classes are frustrating and senseless
SPECS
Name | Value |
---|---|
User Created Classes | |
Some Celebrity Instructors | |
Some Courses Free |
GET IT NOW
Learn More
MasterClass Review
Khan Academy
Best for Free Academic Learning
4.5 Outstanding
Why We Picked It
Khan Academy is one of the best online learning sources because it clearly and strategically helps you learn academic subjects for free. Whether you need to master a mathematical concept or advance your understanding of macroeconomics, Khan has you covered. The videos, readings, and interactive components it uses to teach are well thought out and delivered with care.
Who It's For
Khan Academy focuses on learning materials for students in kindergarten through early college. That doesn't mean other people can't use it or find immense value in it. When you look at the available courses, however, you will notice that many of them closely map to the US education system. So for example, there are courses under the heading High School Physics. Khan Academy is especially adept at teaching math, science, computing, economics, history, and personal finance, among a few other subjects. You get sequential material, too, so you can work through one lesson at a time in order until you've learned what you need to know.
PROS
- Free
- No account necessary
- Uses video lectures, readings, and quizzes
- Impressive test-prep and college-prep resources
- Generous language support
CONS
- Missing some subjects, such as foreign languages and music
- Caters uniquely to the US education system and needs
SPECS
Name | Value |
---|---|
User Created Classes | |
Some Celebrity Instructors | |
Some Courses Free |
GET IT NOW
Learn More
Khan Academy Review
Coursera
Best for Free Access to University Courses
4.0 Excellent
Why We Picked It
Coursera is different from many other online learning sites because it hosts real courses from prestigious universities and makes many of them available for free. In other words, you can get all the lectures (recorded to video) and reading materials from a class at, say, Yale University without paying anything at all. Coursera has other kinds of classes, too, but the university material is really what sets it apart. For some courses, there are options to pay for it and earn a professional certificate, bachelor's degree, or master's degree. If you don't pay, you still get the exact same learning materials, but you don't get any interaction with instructors or any grades on your assignments.
Who It's For
Coursera is for people who want access to real university classes and have the self-discipline to follow through on all the assignments, which can often take weeks or months to complete. You mostly learn through videos, readings, quizzes, and assignments. If you use Coursera for free, you may be able to get feedback on your assignments from other learners, but not the instructor. Coursera is best for learners who can handle college-level course material.
PROS
- Offers real courses from universities for free
- Partners with private corporations for job-specific skills
- Reasonably priced certificate courses
CONS
- Interface dated in some areas
SPECS
Name | Value |
---|---|
User Created Classes | |
Some Celebrity Instructors | |
Some Courses Free |
GET IT NOW
Learn More
Coursera Review
Kahoot!
Best for Quizzes and Games
4.0 Excellent
Why We Picked It
We picked Kahoot! as one of the best online learning platforms because it lets you create games, quizzes, and other interactive content for your learning materials. Whether you are designing games and quizzes or playing them, Kahoot! is easy to use. We love that it adds engagement to all kinds of get-togethers, whether in the classroom, meeting room, or living room.
Who It's For
Kahoot! is an ideal platform for businesses that need to teach something, as well as educational instructors who want to make their content more engaging. Once you have an account, you'll see other fun ways to use the platform to create, for example, trivia for family gatherings or activities at conferences
PROS
- Encourages interaction in a fun way
- Variety of uses, from business training to student learning
- Easy to use as creator or player
- Players don't require an account
CONS
- Strict 120-character limit on question text field
- No auto-advance option; host must manually move to next question or slide
SPECS
Name | Value |
---|---|
User Created Classes | |
Some Celebrity Instructors | |
Some Courses Free |
GET IT NOW
Learn More
Kahoot! Review
Skillshare
Best for Creatives Learning Practical Skills
4.0 Excellent
Why We Picked It
Skillshare's videos teach you skills to lead a creative life. It covers everything from creative hobbies to tips for running a creative online business. This site offers short videos, sometimes as part of a much longer series, where you learn and practice mostly hands-on skills. You get additional materials, such as PDF handouts, and sometimes community forums where you can upload examples of your work to get feedback from other learners. While its pricing has jumped around over the years, Skillshare now has a reasonable annual cost.
Who It's For
Skillshare is for people who want to develop creative skills or need help learning the ins and outs of running a creative business. It's especially good at helping people with drawing, painting, digital arts, photography, cooking, writing, sewing, and other crafts. One aspect of Skillshare that we appreciate is that it does have some very short courses or lessons within courses that you can complete as a one-off. For example, if you just want to practice drawing cacti for five minutes, Skillshare has videos that will indulge your creative cravings.
PROS
- Varied content topics all suited to creative types
- Optional assignments and community interaction
- Some free courses
CONS
- Feedback from other learners is rarely insightful or instructional
- No guarantee that instructors participate in community features
SPECS
Name | Value |
---|---|
User Created Classes | |
Some Celebrity Instructors | |
Some Courses Free |
GET IT NOW
Learn More
Skillshare Review
Udacity
Best for Programming and Vocational Skills
4.0 Excellent
Why We Picked It
We picked Udacity as one of the best online learning platforms because itteaches highly specific, job-focused skills and gives learners an opportunity to create sample work to prove it. Udacity delivers rigorous courses, called Nanodegrees, that teach highly specific job-related skills, mostly in the tech arena. Some of the Nanodegrees have been created in partnership with big-name companies, like IBM Watson and Google. Learners come away not only with new skills but also—fairly often—sample projects to show their work, perhaps for a job interview.
Who It's For
Udacity is clearly for job seekers who want to work in a specific technical field and perhaps for a specific employer. How specific? There's a course called Self-Driving Car Engineer, developed in partnership with Mercedes-Benz, Nvidia, Uber, and other companies. Udacity does offer some more general business courses on topics such as marketing. That said, Udacity is best for people who are willing to pay a few hundred dollars per month to complete one of its highly targeted Nanodegrees.
PROS
- Focused on specific job skill development, especially in programming and computer science
- Nanodegree learners come away with relevant work samples
- Self-service cancellation, data download, and account deletion
CONS
- Expensive
- Difficult to measure the value for job seekers
- Less inspirational and motivational than other learning sites
SPECS
Name | Value |
---|---|
User Created Classes | |
Some Celebrity Instructors | |
Some Courses Free |
GET IT NOW
Learn More
Udacity Review
Wondrium
Best for Curious Minds
4.0 Excellent
Why We Picked It
Wondrium is a subscription-basedvideo streaming servicethat focuses on educational programming. Wondrium was formerly called The Great Courses Plus, and while it has expanded its catalog in recent years, it still has everything that The Great Courses Plus had. The courses come across as a series of TV lectures or simple documentaries. You can watch video courses not only on your computer, but also via Apple TV, Roku, and other devices. The service has an overwhelming amount of content on topics such as philosophy, religion, and the natural world.
Who It's For
The best way to describe Wondrium is to call it couch-side edutainment. It's not geared toward teaching you hands-on skills or helping you achieve a specific learning goal (though it does have some skills-focused classes). Instead, Wondrium feeds your curiosity with videos that explore ideas that perhaps you know nothing about. In that sense, it's wonderful for beginners or people who don't have any prior knowledge of the subjects it covers.
PROS
- Excellent accessibility options
- TV quality production values
- Variety of content
CONS
- No free account or content
- Prices somewhat high
SPECS
Name | Value |
---|---|
User Created Classes | |
Some Celebrity Instructors | |
Some Courses Free |
GET IT NOW
Learn More
Wondrium Review
LinkedIn Learning
Best for Business Skills
3.5 Good
Why We Picked It
Many years ago, there was a learning site called Lynda.com that was absolutely brilliant at teaching software skills, such as how to use Photoshop and other business-level creative skills. Then LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com. Luckily, all the old courses from Lynda.com are still available in the site that's today known as LinkedIn Learning, and LinkedIn has added new content, too, mostly focused on business skills.
Who It's For
LinkedIn Learning is for people who want to develop business skills, both hard skills (how to use Tableau, for example) and soft skills (management, leadership, etc.). Really, it's for people who have a paid LinkedIn membership, because access to LinkedIn Learning is included. If you wouldn't get much out of the other benefits for a paid LinkedIn subscription, then we don't recommend paying nearly $40 per month just for LinkedIn Learning.
PROS
- Wide range of learning courses, with plenty related to business
- Great for specific hard skills, such as software training
- High production quality
CONS
- Many videos have an overly corporate tone
- Confusing classes categorization
SPECS
Name | Value |
---|---|
User Created Classes | |
Some Celebrity Instructors | |
Some Courses Free |
GET IT NOW
Learn More
LinkedIn Learning Review
Udemy
Best for Taking One-Off Courses
3.5 Good
Why We Picked It
We included Udemy in this list of the best online learning platforms because it sells discrete video courses on an array of topics. Many people end up using Udemy because they met an instructor through another context, and the instructor pointed them to Udemy to purchase their course. Generally speaking, Udemy's content covers both personal and professional development, with excellent lessons in management training, software use, and programming. We like that you can pay for Udemy courses one by one, with prices varying per course, or you can get access to a catalog of content with a business subscription. Regrettably, the subscription prices are high, and you need a minimum of five people for a business account.
Who It's For
Udemy is for three kinds of people: 1) those with a business subscription to the site who can simply explore what it has to offer, 2) people who are interested in a specific course offered on the site, and 3) instructors who want to host and sell their courses on Udemy. For the third use case, we didn't do detailed testing or analysis, instead focusing on Udemy from the learner's perspective.
PROS
- Great learning courses for hard and soft professional skills
- Interesting array of content
- Clear resources for instructors
CONS
- No subscription for individuals; pricing is per class
- Price for Business accounts somewhat high, with a minimum of 5 people
SPECS
Name | Value |
---|---|
User Created Classes | |
Some Celebrity Instructors | |
Some Courses Free |
GET IT NOW
Learn More
Udemy Review
Buying Guide: The Best Online Learning Platforms for 2024
Practical Tips for Successful Schooling at Home
How Effective Is Online Learning?
All the sites included in this roundup use video as the primary teaching method. Some add interactive quizzes, PDFs, links to additional resources, and discussion areas (usually little more than a section for comments) so that everyone engaged with the material can learn from one another.
Videos can be standalone, although usually, they're part of a series. A course might contain several hours of videos, but they're always broken up into parts. The best learning sites take care to plan out how much content goes into each video as well as the sequence of videos. In this way, your learning is cumulative. You're typically building new ideas or concepts on top of what you've already learned.
When quizzes are available, they can be private to you or shared with an administrator or instructor if your login is part of a business account or associated with a formal class or tutoring (in the case of Khan Academy). They help you track how well you've retained new information. Some sites offer certificates upon completion. They are not widely accepted by other institutions, but they may be helpful to you in some cases. For example, if your employer pays for you to have a subscription to a learning website, you can offer these certificates as evidence of using it.
A note on language learning: There are so many excellent websites and apps for learning a foreign language that we have a separate article for them. When you want a language app, you'll have specific questions, such as: Which one offers the language I want? How much time do I need to spend on it each day? How much does it cost? You might also want to know which apps are better for developing a base vocabulary versus advancing existing skills. Our roundup of the best language learning apps and websites covers all these points and more.
Similarly, PCMag has a separate article on the best courses for learning to create websites. It's another concrete skill that comes with specific questions. We have another entire article dedicated to the best online courses for Photoshop.
(Credit: MasterClass/PCMag)
Is MasterClass Worth the Money?
MasterClass is an on-demand learning website where you get hours and hours of video featuring top talent talking about their fields. Everything about it is extremely well made, and if you're interested in even one course, we think it's worth paying for a year's subscription. You will certainly find other courses if interested once you get into the catalog.
MasterClass is simultaneously binge-worthy, educational, and thought-provoking. The quality alone leaves you whispering, "How is this so good?"
In the recent past, MasterClass has done a good job of improving its lineup of instructors to include more top talent who are people of color and women (it was previously weak in this regard). The catalog of classes is growing all the time. The content is top rate, and the quality is exceptional.
Where Can You Take Real College Classes Online?
Coursera is one of the best online learning sites that offers plenty of free video courses and materials. It also partners with universities to make some of their degree programs available online. If you want the degree, you have to apply to the program and pay tuition to the school, just as if you were an in-person student. However, if you don't care about getting the degree and you just want access to real courses and materials from the likes of Yale, University of Singapore, and Sciences Po in France, then you can create a free Coursera account and have access to them.
No matter how you attend, you get video lectures, reading materials, quizzes, and in some cases the opportunity to submit assignments for peer-review (when you audit a course) or grades (with paid enrollment).
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(Credit: Coursera/PCMag)
Coursera partners with private companies, too, to offer accessible education in a variety of fields from programming to designing with AutoCAD. Other examples of classes you can take include Introduction to Food and Health, Google IT Automation with Python, and Introduction to International Criminal Law.
What Are the Best Online Learning Platforms for Specific Job Skills?
If you need to learn specific job skills, there are two online sites that we recommend. One is Udacity because it teaches highly specific, job-focused skills. If you are aiming to get a job from one of the companies that Udacity partners with, the Udacity courses could give you a leg up. While Udacity offers a handful of courses that aren't technical in nature, the majority are, and they are highly specific. How specific? There's a course called Self-Driving Car Engineer, developed in partnership with Mercedes-Benz, Nvidia, Uber, and other companies.
The other site is LinkedIn Learning. We like it best for brushing up on general job skills, such as public speaking and developing interviewing strategies; we also love its video tutorials on learning creative software, such as Photoshop. Many of those software programs come from Lynda.com, which was acquired by LinkedIn some years ago. Lynda.com was the best resource for learning software for many years, and we're happy it lives on today at LinkedIn.
(Credit: Microsoft/PCMag)
Learn at Your Own Pace
The next time you feel like you need some fresh ideas, take a spin through one of these sites and learn something new. You might find yourself caught up in wonderment at new and interesting ideas or taking notes on something useful. The beauty of online learning sites is that they don't require any commitment, so you can learn what you want at your own pace.
Compare SpecsThe Best Online Learning Platforms for 2024
Our Picks | MasterClassSee It$120 for 1 Year Standard Plan at MasterClass | Khan AcademyCheck Price | CourseraSee It$0.00 at Coursera | Kahoot!See ItFree for Home Plan; Starts at $10 Per Month Per Host for Work Plan at Kahoot | SkillshareSee It40% off 12-Month Premium Plan +1 Month Free at Skillshare | UdacitySee ItVisit Site at Udacity | WondriumSee ItFree Trial at Wondrium | LinkedIn LearningCheck Price | UdemySee It$0.00 at Udemy |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Editors'Rating | Editors' Choice 4.5Editor Review | Editors' Choice 4.5Editor Review | Editors' Choice 4.0Editor Review | Editors' Choice 4.0Editor Review | Editors' Choice 4.0Editor Review | 4.0Editor Review | 4.0Editor Review | 3.5Editor Review | 3.5Editor Review |
User Created Classes | |||||||||
Some Celebrity Instructors | |||||||||
Some Courses Free | |||||||||
Where to Buy | $120 for 1 Year Standard Plan at MasterClass | Visit Site at Khan Academy | $0.00 at Coursera | Free for Home Plan; Starts at $10 Per Month Per Host for Work Plan at Kahoot | 40% off 12-Month Premium Plan +1 Month Free at Skillshare | Visit Site at Udacity | Free Trial at Wondrium | 30-Day Free Trial at LinkedIn Learning 29.99 Per Month at Linkedin | $0.00 at Udemy |
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Editors' Choice
I've been contributing to PCMag since 2011 and am currently the deputy managing editor for the software team. My column, Get Organized, has been running on PCMag since 2012. It gives advice on how to manage all the devices, apps, digital photos, email, and other technology that can make you feel like you're going to have a panic attack.
My latest book is The Everything Guide to Remote Work, which goes into great detail about a subject that I've been covering as a writer and participating in personally since well before the COVID-19 pandemic.
I specialize in apps for productivity and collaboration, including project management software. I also test and analyze online learning services, particularly for learning languages.
Prior to working for PCMag, I was the managing editor of Game Developer magazine. I've also worked at the Association for Computing Machinery, The Examiner newspaper in San Francisco, and The American Institute of Physics. I was once profiled in an article in Vogue India alongside Marie Kondo.
Follow me on Mastodon.
Read Jill's full bio
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