Last Updated on January, 2025
If you want to acquire knowledge or learn new skills, you might have encountered Udemy and Codecademy, two popular online learning platforms.
Now, choosing the right platform is a challenging task. I’m here to help you with that.
This article will explore each platform’s strengths and limitations regarding courses, pricing, interface design, and many more.
After reading this article, you’ll have the necessary knowledge to make the right decision.
Let’s dive in.
Quick Summary
To make the best decision between Udemy and Codecademy, it is essential to consider personal learning goals, the experience and teaching style of the instructor, the quality of the course content, and one’s own preferred learning style.
Udemy and Codecademy have distinct teaching approaches and cater to diverse learning needs – while Udemy provides a comprehensive selection of courses across multiple categories, Codecademy focuses on computer science, data science, and coding; additionally, Codecademy offers a hands-on learning experience with interactive lessons and coding challenges, in contrast to Udemy’s more conventional video-based instruction.
Both platforms offer different payment options, with Udemy allowing for individual course purchases or a monthly subscription, and Codecademy offering subscription plans that include access to all courses and additional features such as skill paths and career paths. This means that your budget and learning goals may determine which platform is a better option for you.
Contents
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: In a Nutshell
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Overview
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Pros and Cons Analysis
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Online Courses
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Free Courses
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Instructors and Course Quality
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Pricing
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Certificates
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: User Interface
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Customer Support
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Languages
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Community
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Which is the Best for Business?
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Which Online Learning Platform is Best for Learning to Code?
- Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Key Differences
- Codecademy Vs. Udemy: Alternatives
- Tips to Choose the Best Online Learning Platform
- FAQs
- Which is the Right Online Learning Platform for You?
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: In a Nutshell
The comparison table below gives a quick look at all the essentials you need to know about both platforms.
| Criteria | Udemy | Codecademy |
| No. of Courses | 210,000+ (including 500+ free courses) | 145+ (with many free courses, especially for beginners) |
| No. of Students | Over 60 million users | Over 50 million users |
| Teachers | Various, including well-experienced professors | Tenure professors and industry experts |
| Specialization | Broad range (e.g., Development, Business, etc.) | Primarily data science, computer science, and programming |
| Pricing | Individual courses ($12.99-$199.99) or monthly subscription ($29.99/month) | Free basic plan; Plus ($11.99-$14.99/month); Pro ($15.99-$19.99/month) |
| Certificates | Available (non-accredited) | Available only for Pro and Plus courses (non-accredited) |
| Features | Video instruction, filters for course selection, mobile app | Interactive lessons, code editor, skill and career paths |
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Overview
Before going into detail, let’s look at a summary of Codecademy and Udemy.
Udemy Overview
Udemy is an open learning and teaching platform founded in 2010 by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar. This platform offers 210,000 courses, with more than 500 for free. Anyone can share courses in Udemy in more than 75 languages.
There are courses in many disciplines to develop personal and professional skills. The platform is easy to navigate, and there’s a mobile app to learn. You can purchase courses individually or opt for a monthly plan.
Read our full Udemy E-Learning Platform review if you want to learn more.
Codecademy Overview
Codecademy is an interactive learning platform founded in 2011 by Zach Sims and Ryan Bubinski. Codecademy offers over 145 courses to develop data science, computer science, and programming skills.
Currently, it has over 50 million users. The instructors are tenure professors and industry experts. Codecademy is a user-friendly platform. It has a code editor to practice coding. There are many unpaid courses too, especially for beginners.
You can subscribe to a Codecademy Pro or Plus yearly or monthly plan to access skill paths and career paths.
Read our full Codecademy E-Learning Platform review if you want to learn more.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Pros and Cons Analysis
Codecademy and Udemy have their benefits and downsides. Below are the pros and cons.
Udemy Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Codecademy Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Online Courses
We have come to the most crucial topic. Udemy and Codecademy offer multiple courses in various disciplines. Let’s explore them in detail.
Udemy Courses
Udemy offers over 125,000 courses in 13 main categories and several different subcategories.
The following are the main course categories on Udemy:
There’s an advanced filter to help you find courses quickly. It filters the courses based on the course ratings, video duration, topic, subcategory, level, language, price, and features.
Udemy courses have video instruction, where the instructor walks you through the lessons with a presentation on the screen. At the end, there are assessments, quizzes, and practice tests.
There are short courses to gain a general knowledge of a subject and extended courses to help you learn a concept deeply. The classes last between 1 and 60 hours depending on the learning level: Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert.
You’ll find a course on Udemy, no matter which area you’re looking for.
POPULAR COURSES ON UDEMY:
Codecademy Courses
Codecademy offers over 85 courses in the Computer Science field to improve modern technical skills to succeed in the 21st century.
Codecademy courses are based on the below disciplines:
Codecademy teaches several programming languages such as Python, Javascript, SQL, Java, C++, C#, bash, swift, and R.
Codecademy provides interactive lessons, unlike Udemy. They have a series of interactive exercises, quizzes, and real-world projects with short video instructions here and there to reinforce the concepts. A course varies from 1 hour to 30 hours.
Other than individual courses, Codecademy offers skill paths and career paths. What are they?
Skill paths combine courses that help you develop a particular skill, such as mastering web development or building a machine learning model with Python programming language. You must take the courses in the order they are given.
At present, Codecademy has around 22 skill paths. Career paths help you hone your skills in a particular career. They are similar to skill paths but more intensive.
Codecademy has six career paths:
It’ll take six months to a year to complete a career path. Every Codecademy pro course, learning path, and skill path comprises a mini project.
POPULAR COURSES ON CODECADEMY:
Summary: Udemy offers courses in various categories, while Codecademy focuses on computer science-related studies. Udemy provides video lectures. Codecademy has a more interactive learning style and some learning paths, such as skill and career.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Free Courses
Udemy offers 500+ free courses, but you can only gain part of the learning experience. Why?
A free plan doesn’t give access to completion certificates, assessments, or some learning material. If you aim only to learn a particular skill and don’t expect a certificate, opt for a free course if available.
Codecademy also offers over 60 courses for free without certificates. Most of the unpaid courses are at the beginner level. So, if you want to learn the basics of coding, take these free courses.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Instructors and Course Quality
Both Codecademy and Udemy offer very high-quality courses. The main difference lies in the consistency in the quality.
Udemy Instructors and Course Quality
Udemy is an open online learning platform. Anyone with the knowledge, skills, and passion can create and upload courses to Udemy.
So, the course quality varies drastically. However, most courses are conducted by award-winning artists and experienced instructors.
Web developer Rob Percival, Pierian Data head Jose Portilla, andinternet developer Victor Bastos are some famous instructors on Udemy.
Udemy has some guidelines for uploading courses. Each course should contain at least five lectures, and each class must be minimum 30 minutes long.
There are some restricted topics, too. These guidelines help to maintain the course standard.
In Udemy, the instructors can update the course content to provide up-to-date information to the learners, but this is not a requirement.
Under each course, there’s a bio about the instructor, ratings, and a course preview. Check out this section to ensure you select only high-standard courses.
Codecademy Instructors and Course Quality
Unlike Udemy, Codecademy offers consistently high-quality courses because well-experienced data scientists and software engineers are behind the course design.
The learning process is also different in Codecademy. It’s more interactive.
You’ll be given text-based learning material with portfolio projects to apply the basic concepts.
This type of hands-on experience helps you identify your weaknesses.
Most courses on Codecademy are explicitly focused on basic concepts of coding. The fundamentals stay the same most of the time. So you will find updated courses here.
Summary: Udemy and Codecademy have high-quality courses, but the quality of the courses vary on Udemy according to the instructor, while all the courses on Codecademy are of high standard.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Pricing
Pricing is an important factor you should look for. So, I’ll explain the cost of Udemy and the cost of Codecademy.
Udemy Pricing
Udemy gives you two options. One, you can purchase an individual course. Two, you can go for a subscription plan.
The price of individual courses may vary between $12.99-$199.99. When you purchase a particular course, you gain lifetime access to the course content, learning materials, and the certificate.
The personal plan costs $29.99 per month. It gives access to over 11,000 top courses, practice tests, exercises, and Q&As. The personal plan has a 7-day free trial, and you can cancel the subscription anytime.
If you need clarification on the subscription, check it out through the free trial first.
Codecademy Pricing
Codecademy has three plans: Basic, Plus, and Pro.
Pro and Plus plans help with professional development, and there’s a 7-day free trial to check out if this online learning platform is suitable.
Summary: In Udemy, you can purchase courses individually or on a monthly personal plan. Codecademy has Basic, Pro, and Plus subscription plans that can be paid monthly or annually.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Certificates
Codecademy and Udemy courses offer completion certificates.
You can gain a Udemy certificate after completing all the videos, quizzes, and assignments in a course. You can download it in PDF or JPEG format.
In Codecademy, you can only gain certificates for Codecademy Pro and Plus courses. To get the certificate, you must complete all the course elements.
Now, are the certificates worth it? As you know, neither Udemy nor Codecademy are accredited educational institutions. So you can’t use their certificates as a formal qualification.
Summary: Udemy and Codecademy online learning platforms offer certificates for paid courses but are not accredited.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: User Interface
As a learner, you expect online learning platforms to be user-friendly. How easy is it to use Udemy and Codecademy?
Udemy User Interface
Udemy has a smooth, easily navigable platform. The courses are categorized under the 13 main topics and sub-topics.
There’s an advanced filter to find the courses easily. There’s a “what to learn next” section, and a section showing recommended courses to help you plan your next steps.
Udemy online learning platform works in any browser through a desktop or laptop. In addition, there’s a mobile app to support offline learning.
In Udemy, the online courses consist of video lessons and other learning materials such as assessments, quizzes, etc. The evaluations and quizzes open up in a separate tab.
It’s not mandatory to add subtitles to the videos. Hence, if you want subtitles, they are auto-generated, which might only sometimes be inaccurate. You can create subtitles in any language, including Italian, French, Spanish, German, etc.
So Udemy allows you to learn in your native language, but the captions can be incorrect in some places.
Codecademy User Interface
Codecademy also has an easily navigable online learning platform. There are separate tabs for the course catalog, resources, community, and pricing.
Codecademy’s online learning platform is not mobile-optimized. Hence, this platform doesn’t recommend the mobile app for studies.
Codecademy provides many courses in purely text-based, browser-hosted formats. It has a code editor to do the exercises in coding courses. This code editor has features like font options, high contrast toggling, white space changes, etc.
Summary: Udemy and Codecademy are user-friendly online learning platforms. While Udemy only has video lessons, Codecademy has some engaging special features like the split screen code editor.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Customer Support
On Udemy, when you go to the help and support section, you’ll find a search bar to type your query.
There are some frequently asked questions by the users and articles on essential topics, including getting started, account/profile, payments/refunds, learning experience, etc.
If you want to learn about the Cash Back Policy of the Udemy platform, checkout this guide.
There’s a separate help section for learners and instructors. Udemy needs a direct customer support service. If you send an email, it might take 1-2 business days to get a response.
Codecademy has a help center option for customer support. When you go to the help center page, you’ll find a search bar to type your query, some featured articles, and the option to browse articles by category. There’s a bot on the page for additional help.
Codecademy gives priority to Codecademy pro members; if you are one, you’ll get a response to your email within 12 hours.
Summary: Udemy and Codecademy don’t offer phone support. However, they have a decent customer support system. Codecademy responds faster than Udemy.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Languages
Udemy has courses in 75 languages, but the majority are in English. You can add subtitles to the video lessons in any language, including French, Spanish, Italian, German, etc. It’s helpful for people who prefer to learn in their native language.
All the online courses in Codecademy are in English, but the courses of this online learning platform are browser-based. So, you can use the built-in Chrome translator or any extension to study the courses in your native language.
Summary: Udemy offers courses in 75 languages, and English is the only language in Codecademy.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Community
Codecademy has an engaging community with forums, live events, and Q&As to engage with other students. There’s also a community known as the code crew.
After joining the code crew, you can answer questions, lead discussions, host virtual events, engage with other members, and build friendships.
How do you enter the code crew?
On the community page, there’s an apply button. When you provide the necessary details, the Codecademy team will review your application and briefly interview you. You don’t have to pay to become a code crew member. It’s completely free.
Udemy doesn’t have such a community.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Which is the Best for Business?
Udemy and Codecademy offer business plans to upskill the workforce in a company. Which one is better? Let’s find out.
Udemy platform offers two business plans: the Team and the Enterprise plans. Following are the details.
Team plan: The team plan is suitable for 5-20 learners. It costs $30 per month per user.
With a team plan, you can access over 10,500 courses, practice tests, AI-powered coding exercises, certification prep exams, goal-focused recommendations, and analytics and adoption reports. You get a 14-day free trial to check whether this plan suits your team.
Enterprise plan: This is suitable for companies with over 20 people. The price is customizable. You must contact the sales team for pricing, and you can request a demo as well.
The enterprise plan consists of all the features of the team plan plus some additional benefits such as international course collection, assessments, workspaces, labs, and a dedicated customer success team.
In addition to the above two plans, there’s a leadership academy plan for groups of 25 or more people to develop their leadership skills.
Leadership Academy consists of expert-led training, live virtual events, collaborative discussions, group coaching, and AI-powered analytics and insights. You must contact sales for the pricing.
You can read here more about Udemy for Business.
Codecademy has one team plan suitable for more than five people. It costs $299 per user for a year with a two-week trial.
This plan gives access to the following benefits:
In addition, Codecademy provides customizable plans for larger organizations. This means the course offerings, real-world projects, and learning process are designed according to your company’s specific goals.
Summary: Codecademy and Udemy have affordable business plans. If you’re looking to upskill your team with specific skills related to computer science, data science, or programming languages, then Codecademy is the best.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Which Online Learning Platform is Best for Learning to Code?
Udemy and Codecademy offer free and paid courses covering coding and programming languages. So, which is the right online learning platform to learn coding?
Udemy has many courses to learn coding from beginner to advanced levels, but there are no learning paths. Hence, with thousands of options, it’s difficult for you to choose the right course.
Next, not all courses contain high-quality content and a learning style that suits your needs. For example, some courses in the beginner’s category might have content related to the intermediate level.
So, you must do extensive research before selecting a course on Udemy to learn coding.The above scenario is different in Codecademy. Codecademy has several popular courses for beginners to learn coding.
If you want to become an expert in a specific skill, you have skill paths and career paths. So you don’t waste your time searching for suitable courses. As industry experts write the course contents, you don’t have to worry about quality.
The most important part is the practical experience. Practice is essential when it comes to coding. Codecademy pro courses have an interactive, structured learning style, where you get coding challenges to complete while learning.
Career paths provide real-world projects to gain practical experience. This helps you to identify your knowledge gaps, making the learning process engaging and interesting.
Udemy’s video instructions don’t provide the same hands-on learning, and it might get boring too.
Summary: Codecademy is a better platform for learning coding and developing your programming skills.
Udemy Vs. Codecademy: Key Differences
So far, we have discussed Codecademy vs. Udemy in detail.
Now, I’ll summarize the key differences between the two learning platforms:
Codecademy Vs. Udemy: Alternatives
If you’re unsatisfied with Codecademy and Udemy, many other online learning platforms exist. I’ll give a brief description of some of the popular platforms here.
Coursera
Coursera is a popular open online learning platform with 7,000+ courses, specializations, degrees, and guided projects.
It offers courses in 11 categories: Data science, business, computer science, information technology, language learning, health, personal development, social sciences, arts and humanities, math and logic, physical science, and engineering.
Coursera has partnerships with more than 300 universities and leading companies.
The professors of these institutions conduct the classes, and the same universities offer the certificates.
So there’s no compromise with the quality of the courses, and you can use the certificates as a formal qualification.
Coursera offers many free courses, but you must pay for the certificates. You’ll get unlimited access to all the courses, learning material, and certificates for a monthly fee of $59 in Coursera Plus.
Datacamp
Datacamp is another learning platform similar to Codecademy, which provides coding, AI, data science, and machine learning courses.
There are workspaces, code-alongs, and competitions to apply what you’ve learned.
Datacamp provides several learning paths to learn new skills and become an expert.
Skillshare is another learning platform designed especially for creatives.
It mainly offers courses to improve your creative skills, such as creative writing, marketing, animation, digital illustration, photography, etc.
Like Udemy, anyone can upload videos to Skillshare, but most instructors are industry experts.
Alicia Souza, Marques Brownlee, and Denise Bayron are some of the famous instructors of Skillshare. This is a full subscription-based model.
You might want to read our comprehensive Skillshare review for more informations about this platform.
Tips to Choose the Best Online Learning Platform
What are the points you have to consider while choosing a learning platform?
Consider the above points before choosing a platform for your studies. You can also use multiple platforms.
For example, use Codecademy’s free courses and free exercises to learn the basics of coding, then you can move to free Udemy courses to gain in-depth knowledge. If you plan to use multiple platforms, you must do thorough research and proper planning.
Other comparisons you might want to read:
FAQs
Which is the Right Online Learning Platform for You?
Both Udemy and Codecademy offer high-quality courses, each with pros and cons. So finally, the choice comes down to what you want.
If you’re a coding newbie, Codecademy is better than Udemy. If you’re looking for courses in fields other than computer science, then Udemy is the right platform.
Consider your needs, budget, learning method, and whether the course content aligns with your goals, and choose the best online learning platform that’s suitable for you.
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