Introduction
Hello to all fantastic and devoted learners, welcome to my Udemy review. In this post, we will look at this beloved platform and answer some of the most frequent questions.
- What is Udemy?
- Type of content
- My experience
- Udemy for business
- How does Udemy work?
- For learners
- For instructors
- Is Udemy worth it?
- Structure of payments
- Prices
- Discounts & Coupons
- Udemy for business
- Is Udemy legit?
- A word of advice
- What to look for
- Compared to other platforms
- Udemy vs Coursera
- Udemy vs Udacity
- Conclusions
Time is invaluable, so let’s dive right in.
What is Udemy?
Udemy is a platform for skill-development where courses are created and consumed by ordinary people. As a result, they have thousands of instructors, hundreds of thousands of classes, and millions of learners.
Type of content
You can find courses on almost any topic. It ranges from beginner-friendly introductions to deep dives into narrow subjects. The content format is always video, usually combined with additional resources.
The amount of content differs between courses. Some have five hours of content and others over fifty. There can be multiple instructors, but most courses have one.
Although you can find content on anything, Udemy excels on distinct skills that require hands-on practice. One possible explanation is crowdsourcing. With crowdsourcing, the catalog can cover a broader range of topics but also dive deeper into specifics.
As a result, it’s hard for other platforms to compete on quantity. Instead, they need to argue that their courses have higher quality.
My experience
I started using Udemy many years ago and have purchased a total of 83 (!) courses. Of those courses, I finished around 30%. The reason for not completing is when only some sections are relevant. Since Udemy courses are a one-time purchase, you are free to do as you like. Most content in my library has to do with:
- Programming
- Devops
- Machine learning
- Cyber-security
- Entrepreneurship
- Passive income
- Self-development
My learning experience at Udemy is excellent. I pick well-maintained courses with good reviews, so there are few negative surprises. Some courses are better than others, but overall the content is comparable to any other platform.
For many hands-on skills, such as programming and photography, I find that Udemy is the best option. It’s the first place I look unless the subject is theoretical, or my goal is to acquire an established certificate.
It’s not fair to say that theoretical content on Udemy is worse. There are, for example, fantastic courses on quantum physics and anatomy. It’s just that other platforms deliver equally good content, but have certificates of higher status.
Udemy for business
Like most other platforms, Udemy offers an alternative for companies. Their solution allows teams to access anything they want through a subscription.
The catalog contains over 4,000 alternatives, focused on employable skills. You can look at the course collection here.
How does Udemy work?
For learners
For those of you who want to use Udemy to learn, there are few surprises. Like with any other platform, you enroll in a course and can get a certificate on completion.
You can jump back and forth through content as you wish. There are no assignments that you need to complete to continue. However, more freedom means more responsibility for you as a learner. If you’re lazy and don’t do the recommended exercises, you won’t learn as much.
For me, the freedom on Udemy is perfect. Sometimes, I only look at the first sections and don’t bother finishing the entire thing. Since you have lifetime access, I frequently revisit courses to refresh my memory.
For instructors
Anyone can sign up for an instructor account. Once you submit a course, Udemy makes sure that your content meets the standards. Also, there are tons of resources to help you excel as an instructor.
If someone enrolls in your course, you get a share of the revenue. The percentage depends on how the student found your content. It ranges from 25% to 97%.
In this Udemy review, I focus mostly on the learner’s perspective. However, I’m currently creating courses myself. Once I know more about being an instructor, I’ll update this blog post.
Is Udemy worth it?
Structure of payments
Most competitors have implemented a payment-structure where they charge you monthly. When you finish the course, the fee goes away and sometimes also your access to the content. Coursera, one of the main competitors, charges $49 per month.
Monthly subscriptions can be cheaper if you finish fast. It’s also nice that you don’t depart from all your money at once if the course is expensive. In Udemy’s case, that’s not a problem since prices are low.
Udemy still works with one-time purchases and lifelong access. The only case where this isn’t true is on Udemy for Business.
Prices
Prices vary between courses, so the question “Is Udemy worth it?” doesn’t have a clear answer. Also, since individuals create content, quality varies.
If we compare the prices on Udemy to other platforms, it’s certainly cheap. Most courses cost between $100 and $200, but that’s without discounts.
Discounts & Coupons
As you can see in the image below, there are massive discounts on courses. It’s common with price reductions of up to 95%. I have never paid more than $15, even if the original price is above $150.
If the course you want doesn’t have a discount, google for coupons. In most cases, you will find something that lowers the price.
Udemy for business
For small companies, like mine, it’s cheaper just to purchase the course your employe want. If you consider discounts, it’s a no brainer. Employees tend to underutilize learning platforms, so a monthly expense is not optimal.
Udemy for business is more relevant to large companies. With many employees, ad-hoc purchases get messy and hard to manage.
If you manage a software team, Udemy is perfect. It’s excellent when programmers need to learn a new framework, and that happens often.
Is Udemy legit?
Yes, the Udemy platform is legit. With over 250 million course enrolments, their numbers speak for themselves. As mentioned, anyone can become an instructor and publish content. To ensure quality, Udemy has extensive controls where they filter out contributions that don’t fulfill the requirements.
A word of advice
A review of Udemy must touch on the problems of crowdsourcing. Since the staff at Udemy can’t be experts on every topic, it’s hard for them to know if the content is good. As a result, you should make sure that the course:
- Is updated regularly and isn’t outdated
- Has good reviews and many students
- Has a knowledgable instructor
An excellent way to ensure that you pay for quality is to read ratings and comments. On every course page, you can find reviews from students, both on the course and the instructor.
You can also look at example videos and compare multiple alternatives to find the one that’s best for you.
What to look for
Below you can see what one of the most popular courses on React looks like. As you can see, I purchase the course way back in 2016 but still have access. The class has excellent ratings and a massive amount of students. It’s also recently updated.
I also find the announcement tab useful. There you can see all the significant updates and other essential information shared by the instructor.
Compared to other platforms
Udemy vs Coursera
Coursera is different from Udemy since their goal is to make university content accessible to everyone. Instead of letting individuals create content, schools produce the courses.
In my experience, this doesn’t mean that Coursera have higher quality. There are both great and not so great courses.
One thing that Coursera offers that Udemy never will are bachelor and master degrees. You can do your entire education on their platform.
Udemy vs Udacity
Even though these two platforms are opposites in many ways, it’s popular among the same learners. Both are highly regarded among technical people and excel on the same topics.
The decisive difference between the two is the prices. Udemy is significantly cheaper than Udacity, and you pay a one time fee instead of a monthly subscription.
You can read my review of Udacity here.
Conclusion
To finish this Udemy review, let’s summarise what we learned.
- Udemy is a perfect place to learn anything, but it excels in hands-on skills such as programming and photography.
- Compare to other platforms, Udemy is cheap. Also, there are always discounts and coupons to lower the price further.
- Crowdsourced content is often just as good as content created by companies or universities, but you need to do your quality control.
I hope the review was useful to you. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch. I’ll update this post as I learn more.
If you’re interested in machine learning, check out my post Zero to Hero: Becoming a Machine Learning Engineer.
