Are you looking for an unbiased, detailed comparison of Skillshare vs Udemy?
Here is my unfiltered opinion of how Skillshare and Udemy rank for students to learn from and teachers to earn.
I will give you the complete details of their pros, cons, pricing, and standout features.
Skillshare vs Udemy: Quick Comparison
If you are in a hurry, here is a quick overview to help you compare the two platforms.
| Feature | Skillshare | Udemy |
|---|---|---|
| Subject Focus | Creative fields such as design, photography, etc. | Diverse range covering virtually every subject, but more technical subjects. |
| Monthly Subscription Cost | $29 per month billed monthly $8.25 per month billed annually | Personal Plan: $21/month Team Plan: $30/month |
| Free Trial | 7-day free trial | 7-day free trial |
| Number of Courses and Programs Available | 30,000+ | 210,000+ |
| Course Quality | Varied but good-quality videos | Varies; some courses may lack quality control |
| Community Interaction | Strong community engagement | Limited community features |
| Instructor Quality | Selective application process for instructors | An open-door policy for instructors |
| Accredited Courses | None | Some courses are accredited |
| Available Languages | Support several languages. | Also, support several languages |
What is Skillshare?
Skillshare is an online learning platform founded by Michael Karnjanaprakorn and Malcolm Ong in 2010.
It is intended for creative minds and entrepreneurs who want to learn new skills.
It also has a vibrant and easy-to-navigate user interface on its website.
It hosts a variety of courses primarily focused on creative fields like graphic design, video editing, illustration, photography, writing, and more.
The platform focuses on creating short courses that engage creative minds to express their creativity.
It is also a community-driven platform where students can engage with each other through class projects, discussions, and feedback, creating a vibrant environment.
With all these features, the platform’s price may seem premium, but if you still want to use it, you can claim discount offers on Skillshare, where you can save up to 50% on annual plans.
You can benefit from the biggest sale of the year, Skillshare Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when you can save 60% OFF and more.
What is Udemy?
Udemy is an online learning platform founded in 2010, around the same time as Skillshare. While Skillshare focuses on courses in creative fields, Udemy offers courses on a more diverse subject list, including technology, business, personal development, and even hobbies.
Udemy has a well-designed and appealing user interface on its website.
This is why Udemy appeals to a much wider audience than Skillshare, including students, professionals, and hobbyists seeking to enhance specific skills or knowledge.
It’s also popular with those seeking career advancement and job-related learning, as it offers many specialized and technical courses.
Skillshare vs Udemy: Pros and Cons
Now that you have a taste for these two platforms, let’s dig deeper into their strengths and weaknesses.
Skillshare Pros:
- Creative Emphasis: Skillshare offers more courses in creative domains such as design, photography, and illustration.
- Community Engagement: Skillshare also lets you interact with fellow learners and instructors through forums, discussions, and collaborative projects.
- Affordability: Skillshare’s best feature is that you can access all courses for a monthly subscription fee, making it cost-effective for regular learners.
- User-Friendly Interface: Skillshare has an intuitive interface, a vibrant website, and a mobile app with a simple access dashboard.
- 7-day free trial period available to try out the platform for free.
Skillshare Cons:
- Subject Limitation: While excelling in creative fields, Skillshare’s course catalog may feel limited in other areas like technical fields.
- Quality Variability: As courses are instructor-driven, the quality may vary significantly between offerings.
- No completion certificates or accreditations are available on completion of a course.
Udemy Pros:
- More extensive Course Selection: Udemy offers 210,000 classes covering diverse subjects, catering to learners with varied interests.
- Self-Paced Learning: With Udemy, you can enjoy the flexibility to progress through the courses at your preferred pace without rigid schedules.
- Better Revenue For Teachers.
- More Customization Features for engaging students.
Udemy Cons:
- Quality Control Challenges: Since anyone can be an instructor at Udemy, the quality of courses is only sometimes consistent.
- Pricier Option Between the two platforms.
Skillshare vs Udemy: Best Features Compared
Now that we know what Skillshare and Udemy offer, let’s explore each platform in detail.
User Interface
When it comes to UI, Skillshare and Udemy are tied. Both have a vibrant and intuitive website and are available as apps for iOS and Android.
You can access their courses from a central dashboard where you can also keep track of your course, payment plans, and customers. Skillshare and Udemy prioritize user experience and are easy to navigate, even for beginners.
Number and Quality of Courses
In most cases, this is the criteria that becomes the deciding factor when choosing the right platform for you.
Skillshare currently has 30,000 classes hosted on its platform. These courses are divided into three different groups:
- Create
- Build
- Thrive
As you can see, most of the courses hosted by Skillshare lean on the creative side, and if that is what you are looking for, you will find good quality courses in Skillshare.
Udemy, on the other hand, hosts 210,000 courses on its platform, which is seven times more than Skillshare.
Also, while Skillshare’s library of courses is smaller than Udemy’s, its quality is more consistent.
If you are into technical subjects, there is a better chance you’ll find a class in Udemy than Skillshare.
That being said, with each having its ups and downs, I rate both a solid 4.5/5 in quality and numbers.
Certificated and Accreditations
Now, this is where Udemy shines. Skillshare does not offer any accredited certification of course completion, but Udemy does have courses with certified completion certification in association with recognized universities and institutions.
In this section, Udemy wins.
Courses and Programs(Skillshare & Udemy)
Now, let’s compare the types of courses and programs that each platform provides.
It is important to understand that Skillshare is meant for a target audience of those who are looking for courses with a creative focus.
The major categories of courses found on Skillshare are:
- Creative Career
- Creativity & Inspiration
- Design
- Art & Illustration
- Film & Video
- Photography
- AI & Innovation
- Animation & 3D
- Music & Audio
- Productivity
- Writing & Publishing
- Marketing & Business
- Development
- Crafts & DIY
- Home & Lifestyle
- Personal Development
Udemy, on the other hand, has courses for a much larger audience. They host courses in the following categories:
- Development
- Business
- Finance and Accounting
- IT and Software
- Office Productivity
- Personal Development
- Marketing
- Design
- Photography and Video
- Health and Fitness
- Music
- Teaching and Academics
As you can tell, Udemy caters to a much wider audience.
On both course platforms, you can search courses by selecting Categories, then moving on to subcategories and reviewing courses based on their descriptions, ratings, and reviews.
I have also noticed that both platforms have variable course quality. However, the production value of Skillshare courses is slightly bit better than that of Udemy courses.
Almost anyone can be an instructor on each of these platforms, so the course qualities are bound to be different.
Overall, Skillshare wins in this category for creative courses, but if you want to learn other things, Udemy should be your go-to choice.
Customization Features
Here is what Skillshare has when it comes to course customization. Skillshare has an active community of 60k+ members, and they can interact with reviews, comments, and projects. But that’s about it.
Udemy offers more customization features that allow teachers to create quizzes, Q&As, and other things that make the classes more interactive for their students.
Although Udemy has a larger number of learners, over 6 million, its engagement is slightly less than Skillshare’s.
That being said, Udemy wins in this category.
Free Courses on Skillshare and Udemy
Now, if you are looking for free courses on these two E-learning platforms, here is all I have to say. Udemy currently has around 600 free courses that you can learn by signing up.
Skillshare, on the other hand, has stopped hosting free courses. However, there is a one-month free trial period during which you can try to learn any or all of the 35k+ courses hosted on the platform.
During this time, you will have unlimited access to all the courses, making it a better option to try out the courses before you sign up for a paid plan if required.
In this category, Skillshare wins.
Teaching On The Platform
Anyone can teach on Skillshare and udemy and generate a good amount of income.
However, Skillshare’s application process is more selective, focusing on quality and relevance to its community’s interests.
Udemy, on the other hand, has a more open-door policy, allowing anyone to publish a course.
As a teacher, Skillshare pays you monthly for the minutes people watch their classes. You typically earn between $0.05 and $0.10 per minute.
You also earn 60% of the subscription fees if someone signs up using your referral link.
On Udemy, you will get better promotional features than Skillshare at 97% of the subscription fees if someone signs up using your referral link.
That being said, I think teachers have more control over their Udemy courses, which is why Udemy wins in this category.
Free Trials and Offers
Both platforms run occasional promotions and student discounts.
Skillshare used to give a 30-day trial period, compared to only a 7-day free trial period in Udemy.
However, in November 2024, skillshare gives only a 7-day free trial.
During this period, you can access all premium features in Skillshare, but in Udemy, you need to subscribe to a high-tier plan to access everything.
As you can already see, Skillshare wins in this category.
Skillshare vs Udemy: Pricing & Plans
Now, coming to the pricing and plans of Skillshare and Udemy. Lets compare Skillshare or Udemy which is worth the investment.
Skillshare:
Skillshare currently has the following pricing plans for their users:
- Monthly Plan: Priced at $29/month for unlimited access to all courses.
- Annual Plan: Priced at $8.25/month billed annually ($99/year at 40% discount)
- Teams Plan for 2-49 users: At $159/seat annually.
- Teams Plan for over 50 seats: For Custom Pricing.
All Skillshare plans include a 7-day free trial period during which you can try the platform for free and have unlimited access to all courses.
Udemy:
On Udemy, courses can be paid as per course fees, or you can also sign up for membership plans. These are:
- Personal Plan: Priced at $21/month for access to most of the features on Udemy.
- Team Plan: Priced at $30/month for unlimited access to all features for 2-50 people.
- Enterprise Plan: Available at Custom Pricing
- Leadership Academy: Available at Custom Pricing
That said, I also want to mention that you may have to pay individually for top-rated courses with accreditations.
All plans from Udemy come with a 7-day free trial period during which you can try out the platform for free.
As you can see, overall, Skillshare and its subscription-model-based pricing are the cheaper options among the two.
It’s the perfect opportunity to try the tool out for yourself with an additional financial commitment and judge whether it works for you.
Udemy vs Skillshare: Customer Support
If you are wondering if Skillshare or Udemy’s customer support is better, I hate to break it down to you that Botha’s not that great.
Skillshare has a set of blogs that you can look into to get some of your questions answered. You can also email their customer support at [email protected]. The customer support team is friendly and will help you in considerable time.
Udemy has Help and Support sections where you can find a good amount of instructions and articles to help you out with your problem. However, their email service isn’t as responsive as Skillshare’s.
However, as Udemy has much more detailed sections devoted to Help and Support, it clearly wins in this category regarding customer support.
Final Thoughts: Which is better?
In my honest opinion, because of the sheer number of courses, better revenue for teachers, and more customization options, I may overlook the quality found in Skillshare and let Udemy win. But if you are looking for a creative topic to learn, Skillshare has it all.
I hope this article helps. Learn more skillshare alternatives that can fit with your learning goals. If you want to learn and focus specifically on technical courses, you can also consider Pluralsight.
I have also covered Udemy vs Pluralsight, which will help you choose which platform best meets your learning goals.
If you want to work on your soft skills and some technicalities, you can learn from the best on MasterClass.
Learn more about how Skillshare and Masterclass compare, considering their prices, features, and quality of courses.
FAQs on Udemy vs Skillshare
Is Skillshare Better Than Udemy?
Suppose you are looking for a platform to learn a creative subject like designing, art, photography, animation, etc. In that case, Skillshare has good quality courses online that are better than Udemy, but if you are looking for technical subjects, Udemy has more courses.
Which Platform Is Better than Udemy?
If you are looking for alternatives to Udemy, you should consider Skillshare, Coursera, Kajabi, Teachable, Khan Academy, and so on.
Which is better: Skillshare vs Udemy for teachers?
For teachers, Udemy offers better revenue returns for their classes, more control over promoting their courses, and interactive features for communicating with their students online.
Are Skillshare and Udemy accredited institutions?
Neither Skillshare nor Udemy are accredited institutions. However, Udemy offers a few certified courses in partnership with universities and institutions.
