17 Best Rated Online Learning Sites in 2017

Best rated online learning sites - geniusalive.com

As the massive number of online learners (over a hundred million worldwide) keeps growing yearly, finding the right learning platform from the various online learning sites out there becomes a bit of a tough thing to do.

I’ve enrolled in over 20 courses online in different online learning sites over the past few years and have also assisted people with choosing perfect courses online too, both free and paid courses. So I know the best sites that fit various learner specs.

A few of my online course dashboards:

Alison and Udemy courses dashboard

This article is aimed at providing you with the best rated online learning sites out there to fit your exact skill search.

Note: Each category has several courses under it, visit the online learning sites to view any category of your interest for a more specific course.

1. Udemy

Udemy - Online learning sites. GeniusaliveUdemy is the amazon of online learning sites with over 15 million students and 45,000 courses so far.

When it comes to a variety of certified courses, ratings & reviews, different options on each course, udemy is the top platform.

Udemy has a course for almost anyone looking to master a new skill or improve available skills and techniques.
Learners get access to hundreds of free courses in different categories. And can also enroll for any paid course for a one-time fee with a lifetime access and future updates.

Courses categories:

  • Development
  • Business & Marketing
  • IT & Softwares
  • Personal Development
  • Design
  • Office & Productivity
  • Music
  • Health & fitness, Bootcamp Courses and more.

And also, Udemy extensive review and rating tabs help potential students to make an informed decision before taking any course.

Both free and paid courses are available after sign up. No monthly subscription.

Visit Udemy

 

2. Creativelive

Creativelive - Online learning sites

Creativelive is a unique online learning site that broadcast live classes from industry expert workshops for free with an option to purchase if you want to view the classes at your own time.

Course categories:

  • Photo & video
  • Art & design
  • Music & audio
  • Craft & maker
  • Money & life
  • Software training and more

With over 10,000,000 students and 1500 classes, CreativeLive remains one of the top hot spots among various online learning sites.

Visit Creativelive

 

3. Pluralsight

Pluralsight - online learning sites

Pluralsight, founded in 2004, is one of the early online learning sites. Having acquired over 6 different online learning sites (one of them: code school), it possess top quality courses for both individuals and businesses.

Having acquired over 6 different online learning sites (one of them: Codeschool), it possess top quality courses for both individuals and businesses.

Pluralsight assist learners in mastering any skill with a 1-on-1 mentoring session with an expert available to every student.

Courses category:

  • IT ops (Cyber Security, database administration, Windows Server, Visualization and more)
  • Software Development (Web development, JavaScript, Python, C++, Node js and more)
  • Creative Professional (Game design, 3D design, Graphic design, Photoshop and more)
  • Business Professional (Leadership, business intelligence)

 Learners gain unlimited free access to over 5,500 courses for the first 10 days, afterward, a monthly membership subscription of $29 applies.

And one cool feature of Pluralsight is that it has kids in mind too by offering free courses for kids on coding, design, apps, game development and more.

Visit Pluralsight

 

4. Bloc

Bloc - Online learning sites

Bloc is an online learning platform that offers full training on specific programming and design courses.

This online learning platform isn’t where people that are just seeking to just learn a few basic stuff go to. Bloc offers intensive 24 to 72 weeks training, with a mentor assigned to guide you through your learning process.

Specific programs offered at Bloc:

(If you’re looking to launch a new career) 

  • 1. Software developer
  • 2. Web developer
  • 3. Designer

(If you’re looking to enhance your career)

  • 4. Rails Fundamental
  • 5. Frontend Fundamental
  • 6. iOS Fundamental
  • 7. Android Fundamental
  • 8. UX Design Fundamental
Visit Bloc

 

5. Coursera

Coursera - Online learning sites

Coursera has the largest number of learners amongst other online learning sites. Partnering with over 145+ universities and institutions to provide top-notch online courses. If you’re looking to take a well detailed and certified course online, coursera is a great option.

See also  31 Valuable Skills Anyone Can Learn Online

Coursera offers three educational training programs to choose from:

  • Courses.
  • Specializations. Includes courses, projects, and real challenges, for students who wants to master a specific career skill. 4-6months
  • Online Degree. University recognized degrees.

Course categories:

  • Business
  • Computer Science
  • Arts & Humanities
  • Data Science
  • Language learning
  • Life Sciences
  • Physical Science & Engineering
  • Personal Development and much more

 This online learning platform houses over 1,600 courses and has more learners than any other online learning site with over 22 million learners.

Visit Coursera

 

6. Codeacademy

Codeacademy - online learning sites

Codeacademy, as the name implies, is one of the online learning sites for beginners who want to learn how to code and also advanced programmers who want to improve their knowledge.

Here, students aren’t left to just learn to code by themselves when they enroll, they are provided with personalized learning plan, quizzes, projects and live help from advisors via live chats to help solve any issue.

A number of programming languages offered here are:

  • HTML & CSS
  • JavaScript
  • jQuery
  • Python
  • Ruby and much more.

Classes are free. To gain access to more advanced features for better learning, a membership fee is $19 monthly is required.

Visit Codeacademy

 

7. Skillshare

Skillshare - online learning sites

Skillshare is one of the online learning sites with a broad range of classes from experts who share top creative and improvement skills for anyone to learn.

Classes on skillshare primary aim at learning by completing a project, helping you build up a design, plan or learn a skill during the project building process.

Here you learn different ranges of skills:

  • Design
  • Business
  • Technology
  • Photography
  • Film
  • Writing
  • Crafts
  • Culinary and more

A lot of free classes are available in different categories. To gain access to all 14,000 classes, a membership fee is $8 monthly is required.

Visit Skillshare

 

8. Udacity

Udacity - online learning sites

Udacity is the online learning platform you go to for well-crafted courses and programs by experts in the industry: Facebook, Amazon, Google, Github and more.

This e-learning platform aim at achieving 3 basic things with every learner:

  • Master the most competitive skill
  • Build and design amazing projects
  • Get you job ready and hired

Udacity offers a variety of top free courses and as known for their Nanodegrees training programs.

  • Full-stack web developer
  • iOS developer
  • Andriod developer
  • Artifical Intelligence
  • Front stack web developer
  • Programming
  • Data Analyst and more.

And also Nanodegree plus: which offers the “get a job or your money back” guarantee at the end of the program.

Visit Udacity

 

9. Lynda.com

Lynda - online learning sites

Lynda, one of the oldest online learning sites founded in 1995, offers thousands of quality video courses on business, software, technology and creative skills.

All courses are taught by recognized industry experts and are available in five different languages.

Course categories:

  • Software development
  • Photography
  • Web development
  • Design & Digital illustrator
  • Business & Marketing
  • CAD
  • Elearning
  • Digital Marketer and more.

Learners gain unlimited free access to over 5,500 courses for the first 10 days, afterward, a monthly subscription of $19 applies. LinkedIn is the parent company of Lynda.

Visit Lynda

 

10. Tutsplus

Tutplus - online learning sites

Also known as Envato Tutplus, is a skill learning platform that provides video courses to help learners master creative skills.

Tutsplus provide quality e-learning content in three forms:

  • How-To Tutorials – over 23,000 free tutorials to guide you through the steps you need to produce specific outcome
  • Courses – over 980 courses to help you master specific skills from start to end.
  • Ebooks

Here you learn skills in:

  • Coding
  • Photography
  • Design and illustration
  • Video & Music
  • Web design & Game development
  • Craft and more

Learners gain free access to all premium courses and content for 10 days after sign up, afterward, a monthly subscription of $15 applies to access all courses. While How-To tutorials remain free.

Visit Tutsplus

 

11. Treehouse

Treehouse - online learning sites

Also known as Teamtreehouse, is an online learning platform that offers detailed courses on selected skills. Treehouse focus on teaching a few skills to provide a better outcome.

Treehouse also provides live learning practice with the Code Challenge Engine and attach a badge (which are viewable by recruiters) to your profile for each successful completion of any courses.

They also target learners who want to learn coding skills for a career in the tech industry with the “tech degree”, a rigorous, outcome-based program.

Learners gain free access to all courses for 7 days after sign up, afterward, a monthly subscription of $25 applies to access all courses.

Visit Treehouse

 

12. Memrise

Memrise - online learning sites

Available in over 20 languages, Memrise is an online learning platform that makes learning a lot more fun.

Memrise features mainly language courses, with over 200 languages taught, and other academics and non-academics subjects including:

  • Maths & Science
  • Arts & literature
  • History & Geography
  • Professional & Careers and more.

With a vast library of over 300,000 free quality courses, memrise is one of the top online learning platforms for language and science learners.

Visit Memrise

 

13. Alison

Alison - online learning sites

Alison was the first e-learning academy I enrolled with back in 2012, they offer free educational resources to help anyone build a certified workplace skill.

With an extensive library of course categories:

  • Diploma level courses
  • Languages
  • Digital literacy & IT Skills
  • Business & Entrepreneur Skills
  • Health Literacy
  • Financial & Economic Courses and more.

Over 9 million learners educated and 750 courses published

All courses and Diplomas are free. Learners only pay for a certificate when they successfully complete a course.

Visit Alison

 

14. Skillcrush

Skillcrush - online learning sites

Skillcrush online learning platform basically teaches students the digital skills they need to kickstart a new venture or transform their career.

This is achieved by offering five major “Career Blueprint” Programs:

  • Freelance WordPress Developer
  • Visual Designer
  • Web Design
  • Web Developer
  • Front End Developer

And four other single classes on: HTML & CSS, UX & Web Design, JavaScript & jQuery, Ruby, Git & The Command Line

Skillcrush programs are structured to guide a beginner through the basic and advanced stuff to becoming a pro with daily bits of learning strategies.

Visit Skillcrush

 

15. Khan academy

Khan academy - online learning sites

Khanacademy, a nonprofit organization that provides free world-class education for everyone by making available a huge library of instructional videos and exercises in over 36 languages.

This online learning platform empowers learners to tackle various broad subjects and topics like:

  • Math
  • Science & Engineering
  • Finance
  • Computer programming
  • History
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Test prep and more.

Learning grade starts from as small as kindergarten to university grade learning.

All courses here are free and top quality.

Visit Khanacademy

 

16. EDX.org

Edx - online learning sites

EDX is an online learning platform founded by Harvard University and MIT back in 2012 with the purpose of providing top quality online courses from the best universities and institutions worldwide.

This learning platform offers micromaster programs and other certified courses on:

  • Computer science
  • Languages
  • Engineering
  • Psychology
  • Writing
  • Electronics
  • Biology
  • Marketing and more.

Pay for each course varies.

Visit EDX

 

17. Iversity

Iversity - online learning sites

Iversity is a European based online learning platform that offers courses and lectures made by experts and affiliated Universities all over Europe.

This e-learning platform offers both free and pro online courses and is also one of the few online learning platforms worldwide that European Credit (ECTS) points and verified certificate.

Course categories:

  • Digital Marketing strategies
  • Presentation skills
  • Social Entrepreneur
  • Spanish for Beginners
  • Employability skills and more.

Available in English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian.

Visit Iversity

 

Over to you

What do you do next? Simple.

Now that you have an idea of the best eLearning sites and their course categories, visit any of them that offer your preferred skill category to learn more about taking a course that’s a right fit for you.

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