Udemy Review

Learning is critical to human development. And in today’s world, where digital technology has taken over every area of life, including education, online courses are considered a great way of learning as they allow you to do so at your own pace. 

When it comes to online learning platforms, the first name that instantly comes to mind is Udemy. But why is it so special? Well, we wrote a whole Udemy review to answer this question.

Ready?

What Is Udemy?

Udemy is a platform created in 2010 to help everyone get some form of education. Today it’s one of the largest online learning platforms - just look at the numbers:

• 35 million students 
• 130,000 courses 
• available in over 65 languages

Truly mind-blowing.

Whether you’re a student, a professional, or a homemaker, Udemy academy has plenty of options for you. The platform offers a wide variety of free courses as well as paid ones. 

Since Udemy is an e-learning platform, it caters to students and provides work opportunities to experts in various fields. They can build their courses or join the platform as Udemy instructors. 

In this in-depth Udemy review, we will discuss the various aspects of the online learning platform, so you know what you’re getting into. 

Udemy Business

We’ll start this review with a look at Udemy Business. It is a subscription-based service for organizations. It comes with over 4,000 in-demand professional courses designed by Udemy’s content team. The course library is regularly updated. The primary goal of Udemy Business is to help employers provide learning and professional development opportunities to their teams. 

But Udemy offers a lot more:

What Courses Does Udemy Offer?

Whether you’re looking for a course in business, IT, marketing, design & development, political science, herbalism, photography, music, dog training, gardening, or cooking, Udemy has got your back. As mentioned above, there are a total of 100,000 on-demand courses on the e-learning platform, so it’s almost impossible not to find what you’re looking for. There are 13 major categories:

• Development
• Business
• Finance & Accounting
• IT & Software
• Office Productivity
• Design
• Marketing
• Teaching & Academics
• Personal Development
• Photography 
• Music
• Health & Fitness
• Lifestyle

Those are divided into several sub-categories. To help you get started, we will list some of the best Udemy courses from different categories.

Best Udemy Courses

Let’s first start by mentioning that the rating system or Udemy review policy is a bit flawed. Many users complain about early prompts, asking them to review the course after just 2-3 lessons. Although there is an option to ‘review later,’ users often get annoyed by the continuous prompts and submit their reviews at the beginning of the course, just to be done with it. Therefore, you cannot entirely rely on the Udemy reviews on their website. 

These factors often make it difficult for people to find the actual best courses on Udemy. To resolve this problem, we have done extensive Udemy online courses reviews to help you pick the best one.

The Web Developer Bootcamp 

If you need a course to learn the fundamentals of web development, this is one of the best options. From the basics of major web languages, such as HTML, CSS, MongoDB, JS, and Node, to making browser-based games and real web applications, this course can teach you a lot. The best feature of this online course is its balanced approach. The course places an equal emphasis on both theory and practice. 

Complete Python Bootcamp – From Zero to Hero in Python 

Learning Python can open new avenues of growth for professional programmers and developers. Complete Python Bootcamp is an online course that not only teaches you the concepts of the programming languages but also helps you implement them via various practical assignments and projects. By the end of the course, you’ll be creating your own games and applications!

This course is a great option for anyone looking to learn Python in a short amount of time. 

Statistics for Business Analytics and Data Science A-Z 

As the title suggests, this on-demand course provides the essential statistical knowledge one needs to start a career in business analytics and data science industries. However, the course primarily focuses on the practical approaches,  with real-life examples, which we found to be pretty great.

The Complete Digital Marketing Course 

With over 469,000 students, this is one of the most popular Udemy courses, and rightly so. It is one of the most comprehensive digital marketing courses available out there. It claims to teach you everything that you need to know to start a career in the field. 

This Udemy course covers 12 core concepts of digital marketing. These include:

• Market Research
• WordPress
• Email Marketing 
• Copywriting
• SEO
• Social Media Marketing (covers Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Quora, and Pinterest)
• YouTube Marketing
• Facebook Advertising
• LinkedIn Marketing
• App Marketing
• Google Adwords
• Google Analytics

This is basically all you need to know to build a career in the digital world.

Microsoft Excel – Excel from Beginner to Advanced 

We couldn’t just not do a Udemy Excel course review. After all, proficiency in Excel is one of the basic requirements for most jobs these days. This is one of the most comprehensive courses on Excel available on any online learning platform. It combines four different courses for all levels of proficiency. It even teaches you Excel Macros and Visual Basics for Applications (VBA).

The course is designed by Kyle Pow, a Microsoft certified trainer and a Microsoft Office Master instructor with over 10 years of experience in teaching computer applications. 

Photography Masterclass: A Complete Guide to Photography

This Udemy course provides all the knowledge and teaches you all the tricks and techniques to take good photos. Even though the course creators claim that the program is for both beginners and advanced photographers, it’s essentially an introductory level, better suited for beginners. It may not be the best choice for people looking to advance their skills and techniques. 

The Ultimate Drawing Course – Beginner to Advanced 

This Udemy drawing course is a good beginner-level course for those looking to learn the fundamentals of drawing, along with tips and techniques to create professional-level work. This online course is particularly great for those willing to draw faces and figures. 

Ethical Hacking 

Udemy offers several great courses on ethical hacking. Here are the best courses we found when we were researching for this Udemy ethical hacking review:

The Best Udemy Ethical Hacking Courses for Beginners

• Learn Ethical Hacking from Scratch – best for learning the basics of ethical hacking 
• Practical Ethical Hacking – The Complete Course – best for learning practical hacking techniques accordingly.

The Best Intermediate Level Udemy Ethical Hacking Course 

• Learn Ethical Hacking by Hacking Real Websites Legally – best for practicing hacking skills (with hacking games)

The Best Advanced Ethical Hacking Courses on Udemy

• Advanced Ethical Hacking – best for learning advanced-level penetration testing methods, techniques, and tools
• Ethical hacking Masterclass – simply the best crash course in ethical hacking
• Become a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) – the best Udemy course to prepare for the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH v10) exam.

Unity Game Development

Just like ethical hacking, Udemy offers multiple great on-demand courses for Unity game development as well. According to Udemy reviews, written by gaming experts and users, the best options are:

1. Complete C# Unity Game Developer 2D – earn the basics of 2D gaming and their practical implications by developing 2D games for multiple operating systems. 
2. Complete C# Unity Game Developer 3D – learn the basics of design and development for 3D Unity games. 
3. Complete Blender Creator Course: Learn 3D Modelling for Beginners – learn how to use Blender to create 3D models for video games, 3D printing, house design, and across many other applications.
4. The Ultimate Guide to Game Development with Unity – inarguably one of the best crash courses to learn game development.

Learn at home the useful skills of game development on Unity through these Udemy courses and begin your career as a professional game developer. 

Pianoforall – Incredible New Way to Learn Piano and Keyboard 

This course is a bestseller on Udemy because it uses a non-traditional approach to teach the basics of playing the piano and keyboard, so you can play-by-ear.

For those who do not know, this is the art of reproducing a piece of music just by listening to it; without reading its notes or seeing it being notated in any form.

In addition to teaching you how to play piano and keyboard by ear, the course will also teach you how to read music sheets. 

In a nutshell, Pianoforall is a course that has made music online learning easier, quicker, and more fun.

What Are the Courses on Udemy Like?

The courses on Udemy offer video lessons (like Masterclass), written resources, activities, and assessment tests and are divided into several modules. Just keep in mind that only a few of the courses come with downloadable resources - most don’t, because of piracy issues. But Udemy provides lifetime access to course contents, allowing you to learn at your own pace and comfort. 

Udemy comes with a great video player. It has this wonderful inbuilt feature to make notes as you proceed through a course. It also has a closed captioning feature, resolution options, speed controls, and options to fast forward and rewind. You can also have the transcript alongside the video, in all Udemy classes. The transcript automatically scrolls down as the video proceeds, and the phrases that the Udemy instructor is speaking are highlighted.

Udemy classes are also accessible on TV. There is also a dedicated Udemy mobile app. Particularly useful for people who prefer to multitask. 

While Udemy courses are great online learning resources, in general, the biggest downsides of the platform is that it allows anyone and everyone to create a course. There isn’t a strict check and balance due to which many of the courses offered are outdated. According to Udemy reviews, this often makes it difficult to find the best courses. 

Free Udemy Courses

Udemy offers about 10,000 free courses across all categories and levels. Since listing all of them is beyond the scope of the article, we have reviewed Udemy’s free courses for you and shortlisted the top 13 in each field:

• Development – Java Tutorial for Complete Beginners 
• Teaching & Academics – How to Improve Your Video Quality: Official Udemy Course 
• Udemy Business–Deep Learning Prerequisites: The Numpy Stack in Python
• Finance & Accounting – Stock Market Investing for Beginners
• IT & Software – AWS Concepts
• Office Productivity – Useful Excel for Beginners
• Personal Development – 7 Scientifically Proven Steps to Increase Your Influence
• Design – Introduction To Graphic Design
• Marketing – SEO Tutorial For Beginners
• Lifestyle – Drawing For Kids: Learn How To Draw Cartoon Step-By-Step
• Photography – Photography: Ditch Auto – Start Shooting In Manual
• Health &Fitness – Free Weight Loss Course: Weight Loss Made Simple
• Music – Piano Lessons For Absolute Beginners

The only downside we observed for the free courses while writing this Udemy review, is that you don’t get a certificate of completion for them. However, if you are just enrolling in one of Udemy’s courses to improve your knowledge and skills, free courses are a good option.

Who are Udemy’s Instructors?

Udemy is an e-learning marketplace that allows anyone and everyone to create and sell online courses. The platform doesn’t have any specific requirements for instructors – they are not even required to prove their expertise in the field or subject they are offering the course in.

You can find leading industry experts (think Alexa Fischer, Rob Percival, Seth Godin, Jonathan Weinberger, and the likes of them) as Udemy instructors. But you can also find non-experts and even amateurs selling courses on Udemy to generate some passive income. That’s why the quality of Udemy courses varies considerably. 

To make things a little easier for you, here we are listing the 10 best Udemy instructors:

• Rob Percival
• Jose Portilla
• John Purcell
• Phil Ebiner
• Kirill Eremenko
• Maximilian Schwarzmuller
• Ben Tristem
• Daragh Walsh
• Colt Steele
• Jonas Schmedtmann

Does the Udemy Certificate of Completion Have Any Value?

Recently, Udemy has made some changes and now some of its courses are accredited

Those make, however, around 1% of all courses available.

This means the Udemy certificate of completion has little to no real value in the formal educational world.

Can Udemy Certificates Help You With Your Career? 

While Udemy is a great online learning platform, one of the biggest concerns users have is about the value of Udemy courses in the professional world.

Do Udemy courses have value? Is Udemy worth it? Can Udemy courses help you land a job?

These are some of the most commonly asked questions by students and professionals alike. Let’s clear the confusion regarding this once and for all!

The percentage of accredited courses is too small, so the Udemy certificate isn't widely recognized in the professional world. You cannot expect an employer to offer you a job solely based on the fact that you have done a course or two in Udemy.

That being said, Udemy courses are certainly great for self-improvement. If a potential employee has done different online courses to acquire new skills and improve on the ones they already have, it shows employers that they are willing to learn. And these personality traits are highly valued in the modern-day professional world.

Udemy vs. Competitors

There are several other online platforms based on the same business model as Udemy. These include, but not limited to Coursera, edX, LinkedIn Learning, and Skillshare. However, there are significant differences between Udemy and other online learning platforms. 

The biggest factors behind Udemy’s widespread (global) popularity are:

• It has the biggest and most diverse course library
• The courses are low-cost, with many available at very attractive prices

However, on the flip side, Udemy’s biggest disadvantages (compared to its biggest competitors) are that the platform doesn’t have a criteria on who can create and sell a course, and there is no check and balance system in place that the courses are up-to-date. While Udemy does offer a certificate of completion (for paid courses) without any extra cost, they do not hold much value in the real world. 

To give you a better idea, let’s compare Udemy with a few of its biggest competitors:

Udemy Pricing

Udemy course costs vary significantly. You can find courses for as high as several hundred dollars and as low as $10.00. While there isn’t any fixed Udemy price range, courses on complex subjects, like coding, programming, and finance, are generally on the higher end. However, Udemy is known for its massive sales, happening almost throughout the whole year. You can get as much as a 90% discount on Udemy courses. 

In case you enroll in a course at full price and then it goes on sale within a month’s period of your purchase, you can submit a refund claim. Udemy typically offers partial refunds in such cases. The e-learning platform also provides a 30-day money-back guarantee for all courses.

Udemy for Business Price

There are two pricing plans available for Udemy for Business:

• Team – for 5 to 20 users, costs $360.00 per year per user (exclusive of taxes).
• Enterprise – for more than 20 employees, ask for a quote.

What Are the Advantages of Online Learning?

Online learning platforms offer a wide range of benefits. Some of the major ones include:

Extensive Course Variety

One of the biggest advantages of online learning platforms is that they offer a wide variety of courses to choose from. They cover several categories and subjects and also provide courses for people with different skill levels. 

Self-Paced Learning

Online courses allow you to learn at home and at your own pace. Even if there are exams or assessment activities included in the course content, you can do them comfortably. 

You Can Learn Whatever You Want

With online courses, you don’t have to worry about meeting a set of eligibility requirements or passing the entrance test, which means you can learn anything you want. 

Online Courses are Comparatively Low Costs 

Online courses generally tend to have lower costs than traditional courses offered in campus settings. Also, there are plenty of courses available for free.

Verdict

So, is Udemy worth it?

Like all other online education platforms, Udemy has its own unique set of advantages and some downsides too. On the one hand, the website offers the largest variety of online courses from all we tested. There are some a bit more expensive courses, but Udemy has a sale going on most times, if not always. Also, there are some great Udemy instructors that offer highly valuable knowledge, insights, tools, and techniques to course takers. 

On the other hand, Udemy has a few downsides too. These include some outdated courses and poor to no Udemy certificate of completion value. But as per our Udemy review, these drawbacks or limitations aren’t deal-breakers. 

Overall, Udemy is worth spending money on as it offers a valuable learning experience. Carefully research the courses before you start and you’ll guarantee yourself a wonderful time.