Ava AbbottUdemy is one of the leading providers of online learning services for students and professionals. It was founded in 2010 by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar. The platform offers digital courses in over 65 languages across 180 countries.
The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Udemy has 3,000 employees and generates $100 million in revenues annually. [1]
Since its founding, Udemy’s 57,000 expert instructors have produced over 155,000 online courses. The platform has more than 40 million users and offers Udemy for Business and Government.
In the first half of 2021, Udemy for Business attracted new customers, including Carbon Health, Nasdaq, and RSA Security. Courses for businesses and governments cost around $360 per user per year. Students can access free Udemy courses or pay $159 or more for advanced coursework. [2]
In Nov 2020, Udemy raised an additional $50 million, boosting its valuation from $2 billion to $3.25 billion. This funding round takes its total to over $273 million. In 2020, Udemy for Business surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
The company’s total revenue exceeded $400 million. As the leading learning marketplace, Udemy has to fend off competitors and alternatives to protect its market share. [3]
Here is an in-depth analysis of Udemy’s competitors and alternatives:
1. Coursera
Year founded: 2012
Headquarter: Mountain View, California
Coursera is an e-learning platform that offers online courses and certificates for paid courses. Users learn from qualified professors with years of experience. The company partners with over 200 top universities and industry-leading companies.
In 2020, Coursera’s revenue surged 59% to $293.5 million. The platform now caters to around 100 government agencies and more than 2,000 businesses, including Fortune 500 companies. The company plans to go public in 2021 with a $100 million IPO, traded on the NYSE under the symbol “COUR.” [4]
Udemy focuses on more practical applications, while Coursera offers a deeper dive into academic material. The main competitive advantage for Coursera is its graded assignments and specialized certificates.
Coursera charges a one-time payment for 180 days, including over 1,000 free courses. With 82 million registered learners, Coursera has more than double Udemy’s users. It is one of the world’s largest online learning platforms and Udemy’s top competitor and alternative. [5]
2. Udacity
Year founded: 2011
Headquarter: Mountain View, California
Udacity is an online training platform that offers industry-created practitioner skills. Its Nanodegree programs cover AI, machine learning, data science, cloud computing, and other disciplines.
With these online courses, Udacity is the best Udemy alternative for Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises. Udacity collaborates with more than 200 global industry partners, including AT&T, Google, Facebook, and Mercedes-Benz. In 2020, the company had around 300 employees and saw a 260% increase in annual recurring revenue.
Udacity raised $75 million in 2020 at a $1 billion valuation, taking its total funding to $163 million. In 2021, the platform has 14 million users and facilitates 1.5 million projects annually. Its average monthly usage surged more than 50% and recorded a 400% increase in weekly sign-ups.
The main competitive advantage for Udacity over Udemy is its certified programs. It awarded over 170,000 Nanodegree certificates in 2020, which can entice students from Udemy. [6]
3. SkillShare
Year founded: 2010
Headquarter: New York City, New York
Skillshare is an online learning community that offers educational videos and course materials via subscription. The platform has over 3.5 million users and focuses on creative arts, design, lifestyle, entrepreneurship, and technology.
In 2020, Skillshare had around 550 employees and generated $14.4 million in revenues. It raised $66 million in Aug 2020 for the Series D funding round.
Like Udemy, Skillshare offers thousands of unaccredited online courses. Skillshare has 27,000 classes versus 155,000 for Udemy. But Udemy users pay for each course, while Skillshare charges $12 per month or $100 per year for premium access to all educational materials on its platform. Skillshare also offers over 2,000 free classes. Udemy and Skillshare are perfect alternatives and evenly matched across the board. [7]
4. PluralSight
Year founded: 2004
Headquarter: Draper, Utah
Pluralsight is a tech workforce development platform with 18,000 corporate clients, including Fortune 500 companies. The company has 1,766 employees and operates globally. Pluralsight’s revenue for fiscal 2020 increased 24% to $391.9 million.
In April 2021, Vista Equity Partners acquired Pluralsight for $3.5 billion. This acquisition shifts Pluralsight from a public company to a private entity and increases its advantage over Udemy.
Pluralsight runs on a monthly subscription, while Udemy users buy a single course with lifetime access. Its premium subscription costs $29 per month or $299 per year and provides access to more than 7,500 courses.
Pluralsight Skills includes virtual instructor-led training, hands-on labs, skill assessments, and one-of-a-kind analytics. Users can learn online and offline. Pluralsight’s coding and programming modules and defined skill paths make it the best Udemy alternative for aspiring tech industry professionals. [8]
5. UpGrad
Year founded: 2015
Headquarter: Mumbai, India
UpGrad is an online higher education platform that provides industry-specific programs. Since its founding, upGrad has served over 1 million registered learners from around 50 countries globally.
The platform is ranked No.1 in the LinkedIn Top Startups India for three consecutive years, from 2018, 2019, and 2020. Its total addressable market will cross $100 billion by the end of 2021.
The edtech leader looks to raise $400 million at a $4 billion valuation in the second half of 2021. This funding round will help upGrad attain a $500-million revenue run rate by Mar 2022.
One competitive advantage for upGrad over Udemy is its partnerships with industry leaders and world-class universities like Michigan State University and IIT Madras. These collaborations have designed and delivered more than 100 highly demanded courses on the upGrad platform.
In 2021, upGrad has the largest repository of online case thesis and studies globally. UpGrad’s growing repository and revenue makes it a worthy top five Udemy competitor and alternative. [9]
6. BitDegree
Year founded: 2017
Headquarter: Vilnius, Lithuania
BitDegree is the world’s first blockchain-powered online learning platform. It offers token-based scholarships and a game-like learning experience and allows students to earn while learning. Like Udemy, BitDegree provides high-quality courses at affordable prices.
It gives users access to free classes, including introductions to cloud computing, virtual reality basics, and building WordPress sites. [10]
In March 2020, BitDegree won the Learning and Education category at the World Summit Awards. Today, the platform has nearly a million users and attracts between two and three million visitors a month. This online learning marketplace has over 350 educators who have published more than 1,300 courses. [11]
7. Simplilearn
Year founded: 2009
Headquarter: San Francisco/Bengaluru
Simplilearn started as a career advisory blog platform and expanded to become one of the leading online learning marketplaces. It offers training and certification courses, including cybersecurity, cloud computing, digital marketing, project management, and data science.
Since its founding, Simplilearn has onboarded over 50,000 corporate learners from 12 countries. The company raised $150 million in 2021 at a valuation of $700 million.
Simplilearn doesn’t have as many classes as Udemy. However, its courses are recognized by top accreditation bodies. More than 1 million professionals and 2,000 companies from 150 countries have benefited from Simplilearn’s certification programs. Simplilearn is one of the best Udemy alternatives for professionals and employees. [12]
8. Khan Academy
Year founded: 2007
Headquarter: Mountain View, California
Khan Academy is a nonprofit e-learning platform founded by Salman Khan. It offers high-quality lectures covering a wide range of topics via YouTube in 20 different languages. Users spend 8.7 billion minutes learning on the platform annually. Khan Academy generates around $40 million in revenues.
The platform also provides additional study materials for students and supplementary practice exercises for educators.
Kids between two and seven years can interact, sing, dance, and learn on the Khan Academy Kids app. It offers something for everyone. Khan Academy is free for anyone to use, which increases its competitive edge over Udemy. [13]
9. DataCamp
Year founded: 2013
Headquarter: New York City, NY
DataCamp is an online learning platform that offers comprehensive educational resources for data science and analytics. It has over 350 courses in Python, R, SQL, Tableau, spreadsheets, and more. DataCamp has 298 employees and generates around $55 million in revenues annually.
It grew by 1,232% between 2016 and 2019 and ranked 94th on Deloitte’s 2020 list of the 500 fastest-growing tech companies in North America.
DataCamp has educated more than 6 million employees from over 1,600 companies, including Google, Intel, HSBC, eBay, PayPal, Uber, and more.
The overall quality of DataCamp’s content and learning material beats Udemy across the board. It specializes in data science, which offers students a higher value for money than Udemy. DataCamp is the best Udemy alternative for data science. [14]
10. Lead Academy
Year founded: 2007
Headquarter: UK
Lead Academy is a leading provider of online training, courses, and professional accreditation. Its e-learning platform allows users to access educational materials anywhere, anytime. Students can study via PC, tablet, and mobile. Most of its courses focus on business, photography, coding, cooking, beauty, and design.
Like Udemy, Lead Academy users pay for individual courses. While this pricing model offers flexibility, the cumulative cost of a program with several classes can burden students. Some options on the platform cost up to $400, more than double Udemy’s business and government course. [15]
References & more information
- Denis, M. (2020, Oct 23). What to Know About Udemy. US News
- Swanson, D. (2021, May 13). Udemy Announces New Udemy for Business Customers. Business Wire
- Adams, S. (2020, Nov 18). Udemy Adds More Than $1 Billion To Its Valuation In New Funding Round. Forbes
- Wan, T. (2021, Mar 5). Coursera’s IPO Filing shows growing revenue and loss during a pandemic. EdSurge
- Sinha, A. (2021, Jul 20). Coursera to Announce Second Quarter Fiscal 2021 Financial Results. Business Wire
- Dalporto, G. (2021, Jan 25). Udacity 2020: The Year in Review. Udacity Blog
- Alan, B. (2020, Jun 27). 15 Million Revenue Skillshare shows Learning Platforms how it is done. GetLatka
- Anderson, D. J. (2021, Feb 10). Pluralsight Announces Fourth Quarter 2020 Results. Globe Newswire
- Prasad, A. (2021, May). UpGrad Aims to Close March 2022 at Half a Billion-Dollar Revenue Run Rate. Business Wire
- BitDegree (2021, Jul 23). 10 Top Free Courses at BitDegree for 2021. Medium
- Viner, J. (2021, Mar 29). The NEN Interview: Danielius Stasiulis, CEO – BitDegree and Co-founder – EdTech Lithuania. Nordic EdTech News
- Raja, A. N. (2021, Jan 13). Simplilearn is close to raising $150 Mn Mega Round; Partial Exits likely for Early Investors. Inc42
- Khan News (2020, Jul 1). Check out our new 2019 annual report. Khan Academy Blog
- DataCamp (2020, Nov 24). DataCamp Ranked 94th Fastest-Growing Company in North America on Deloitte’s 2020 Technology Fast 500. PRNewswire
- Aaron, S. (2021, May). Lead Academy Review. BitDegree
- Featured Image by Lewis Keegan
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