The term e-learning was coined by Elliot Masie in 1999. E-learning is also referred to as online learning. An e-learning website is an online learning platform that offers online courses on various different subjects and topics. E-learning has transformed the learning opportunities all across the globe.

If you are someone who wants to get started with learning online and looking for platforms, then this article is for you. I’m going to tell you about the top 10 e-learning websites based on traffic, flexibility, and user satisfaction.

Let’s dive into the top 10 e-learning websites:

1. Khan Academy- Best free e-learning website for school-level courses

If you’re even a little bit familiar with online education for academic studies, you have probably heard the name of Khan Academy. Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization founded by Salman Khan in 2008.

It all started with Salman Khan making tutorials for high school students in his laptop.

From the very start, Khan Academy started gaining worldwide recognition for its mission of providing free education to the world.

And that’s the reason why Khan Academy is on the top of my list. Around 100 million students from all across the world use the platform every year, for free. They are constantly working hard to achieving their goal of free education for everyone.

If you are in need of any kind of academic help, no matter the subject, you will find resources and lectures on Khanacademy.org.

2. Udemy- Best e-learning website for professionals

Udemy is the biggest and most popular website for professional e-learning. Gagan Biyani founded Udemy in the May of 2010, udemy focuses on professional learners.

As of January 2020, Udemy has more than 50 million students worldwide and 57000 instructors teaching various courses in more than 60 languages. You need to pay for most of the courses, and Udemy offers various types of discounts on courses.

Unlike Khan Academy, Udemy is not for academic learning purposes. Udemy’s courses are going to help you in your career, each course will teach you a certain skill.

Udemy also makes sure that the instructors have real-life experience and success in the field they are teaching. So you can rest assured that you are in good hands.

3. edX- Best free e-learning website for university level courses

Edx is another free e-learning website. MIT and Harvard University collaborated and created edX in May 2012.

The focus of edX is to provide high-quality educational resources for university and high school students worldwide. All of the courses are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and are completely free to access.

The platform uses a website software to provide all the learning resources online and grade assessments. You can start learning for free just by creating an edX account. But you have to pay a small amount of money if you want a certification of your completion of the course.

4. Coursera

Coursera is a very similar website to edX in various aspects. Andrew Ng and Daphne killer, two Stanford professors, founded edX in 2012.

Coursera works in collaboration with many of the top universities and organizations in the world. Their MOOCs are mainly focused on university students and advanced high school students.

You will find courses on a wide range of subjects from science and engineering to humanities, business, and marketing.

At first, all of their courses were completely free for anyone with a free account. But recently Coursera requires plus membership of their site to access most of the top courses in the platform.

5. Lynda.com

Lynda was founded by Lynda Weinman and her husband in 1995. The platform was initially limited to online classes and books by Lynda Weinman. But the platform started offering online courses from 2002.

Lynda.com is very similar to Udemy when it comes to the types of courses and resources it offers.

It basically offers non-academic courses. Most of the courses here are focused on professional learners and students looking to learn a new skill.

6. Udacity- Best e-learning website for technology related courses

Udacity is another e-learning website aimed at professional learners. It was founded by Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens, and Mike Sokolsky in 2011.

Initially, Udacity started by offering university-style courses on computer science. But now it provides MOOCs for professional learners.

The topics of the courses are mainly technology and business-related. There are a few free courses, while most of the courses are paid. I am going to highly recommend udacity to you if you want to learn about technology, computer science, and business-related subjects.

7. Alison

Alison is another e-learning website for learning professional skills. But the best thing about this e-learning website is that its free. No other professional learning platform is free like Alison.

There are a lot of useful courses you can take for free on a variety of different categories. The site now contains more than 1500 free courses as of June 2020.

8. Skillshare

Skillshare is another professional e-learning website similar to Udemy and Lynda. The platform has a very well design and makes use of Peer-to-peer feedback.

The students can interact with each other, working and learning as a team. To access the courses you need to pay a subscription fee first, they’re not free.

The courses cover a variety of different subjects under creativity, technology, and business category. The courses you can get here are much more valuable than the little money you’ll need to pay.

9. Masterclass

Masterclass is a place where you can find the right inspiration you need to be successful in your life.

You will find teachings and lessons from the most successful and renowned personalities in our current world, people who are truly the masters of our time.

You will be learning directly from your idols. You’ll learn their mind-boggling secrets of success and the motivation to succeed in your career.

10. MIT OpenCourseWare

MIT OpenCourseWare is the most popular online learning platform among university students worldwide. You can access hundreds of MIT courses including video lessons, class notes, and assignments entirely for free.

It is not unfair to say that MIT has the greatest teachers in the world. And OpenCourseWare allows you to learn from the lessons of these great teachers.

Conclusion

E-learning opportunities have become so vast these days. You can learn everything you need in your life without going to any kind of institution whatsoever. But at the current age of our civilization and because of the infrastructure, we still need institutional education.

There will be a time in the future when all kinds of education and learning will be online. There will be no printed books or offline education. That will open education even further to everyone in the world, and I hope to live long enough to see that world.

If you liked this article, please let me know in the comment section. I would also love to hear what your favorite e-learning website is.

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