Top 10 Online Learning Platforms You Can Use in 2019

First published 2019. Rewritten and re-verified 31 August 2026.

Six years ago you could audit almost anything on this list for nothing. That is no longer true, and the interesting part is that no platform announced it loudly. Free tiers narrowed one feature at a time: a certificate here, a project there, a chapter cap, a trial where an audit track used to be.

So this list is ranked by a single rule: how much you actually get without paying. Not catalogue size, not brand. What a learner with no card gets to keep.

The money explains the squeeze. Statista Market Insights puts worldwide online education revenue at $199.03 billion in 2026, and Arizton sizes the broader e-learning market at $342.4 billion in 2025, heading for $665.06 billion by 2031. A market growing that fast stops giving away the parts that cost money to run.

How we checked this

Seventeen properties were opened and read on 31 August 2026: the ten platforms ranked below, the four names from the 2019 version of this article that were renamed or repositioned, and the three offers in the free-that-is-not-free section. Every free tier here comes from the platform's own pricing or help page rather than a third-party summary, and each entry links the page it was read from.

Free means what a learner with no card keeps permanently. Trials, first-module previews and time-boxed audit windows are all real offers, and all three are classified separately rather than counted as free.

Two figures are stated without a price because the pricing page did not yield one we could read on the day: Pluralsight's cheapest individual plan, and DataCamp's month-to-month rate. Both are named as unread rather than estimated. What this is not: no accounts were created and no courses were completed for this piece. It is a documentary check of what each platform currently publishes.

On this page

• 1. Khan Academy
• 2. freeCodeCamp
• 3. Hugging Face Learn
• 4. edX
• 5. Coursera
• 6. Udemy
• 7. Codecademy
• 8. DataCamp
• 9. Pluralsight
• 10. Scrimba
• The list at a glance
• What happened to the 2019 list
• Free that is not free
• Common questions

1. Khan Academy

The only platform here that is free the way 2019 meant free. No paywall, no trial, no certificate upsell. It is a 501(c)(3) funded by donations, covering K-12 through early college across 840+ courses, in 55+ languages, used by 104.9 million learners in the 2024-2025 school year across 190+ countries. Teacher tools are free. Khan Academy Kids is free.

One paid product now exists: Khanmigo, the AI tutor. It stays free for teachers, and costs $4/month or $44/year for parents and learners, with one subscription covering up to 10 child accounts.

• Type: Free forever
• Free tier: every course, every teacher tool, and Khan Academy Kids
• The cap: Khanmigo, the AI tutor, is the one paid product, and it stays free for teachers
• Paid from: $4/month or $44/year for Khanmigo, covering up to 10 child accounts
• Checked: 31 August 2026, Khan Academy

2. freeCodeCamp

Free end to end, including the exams. Courses, projects, certifications and the assessments all sit at $0, funded by donations, with no paid tier to upgrade to.

Worth knowing what changed: the single Certified Full Stack Developer capstone ran to roughly 1,800 hours and proved too long to finish, so shorter checkpoint certifications came back. There are now six, covering Responsive Web Design, JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures, Front End Libraries, Python Programming, Relational Databases, and Back End Development and APIs. Certifications carry a three-year validity with a free re-certification path.

• Type: Free forever
• Free tier: courses, projects, all six certifications and the exams
• The cap: certifications carry a three-year validity, with a free re-certification path
• Paid from: $0 throughout, funded by donations
• Checked: 31 August 2026, freeCodeCamp

If this is the model you want, Exercism works the same way: free forever across its language tracks, run as a UK not-for-profit funded by donations.

3. Hugging Face Learn

The entry that could not have appeared on a 2019 list. Twelve courses with no pricing page, no plan selector and no paywall on the index: the LLM Course, the Agents Course, a Context Course on context engineering for code agents, then Deep RL, Computer Vision, Audio, Diffusion, Robotics through LeRobot, ML for Games, ML for 3D, and the Open-Source AI Cookbook.

You need a free Hugging Face account for the hands-on parts, which is also the account you would use to run the models afterwards.

• Type: Free forever
• Free tier: all twelve courses, with no pricing page and no paywall on the index
• The cap: a free Hugging Face account for the hands-on parts
• Paid from: $0, the courses carry no pricing page
• Checked: 31 August 2026, Hugging Face Learn

4. edX

The free audit track is alive. edX's own course pages say you may complete the course at no cost, without a certificate, with access for a limited time. Both of those catches are real: no certificate, and the window closes. Certificates are priced per course, and CS50 currently shows $219.

The ownership story is worth updating if you last looked in 2019. 2U bought edX from Harvard and MIT for $800 million in November 2021, ending its nonprofit ownership. 2U then filed Chapter 11 on 25 July 2024 and emerged private that September, owned by its former lenders and noteholders including Mudrick Capital, Greenvale Capital and Bayside Capital. The site still brands as edX by 2U. Harvard and MIT put the proceeds into a separate nonprofit, Axim Collaborative.

• Type: Free audit window
• Free tier: audit access to the course materials
• The cap: the audit window closes, and the certificate is priced per course, with CS50 currently at $219
• Paid from: certificates priced per course
• Checked: 31 August 2026, edX

5. Coursera

If you remember Coursera as the place where you could audit anything, that memory is out of date, and this is the biggest single change on the list. Coursera's own free-courses page now defines free as two things: a first-module preview on many courses, and a seven-day trial for Specializations or Coursera Plus.

What survives is narrower and opt-in. Some courses offer a Full Course, No Certificate option, which gives materials, assessments and a final grade with no credential at the end. Financial aid remains available on select programs.

Paid access runs $35/month or $239/year for Coursera Plus, with individual courses and programs at $29/month.

• Type: Free sampler
• Free tier: a first-module preview on many courses, plus Full Course No Certificate where the instructor enables it
• The cap: everything past module one on most courses, and the seven-day offer is a trial rather than an audit track
• Paid from: $35/month or $239/year for Coursera Plus, individual courses and programs at $29/month
• Checked: 31 August 2026, Coursera

6. Udemy

The 450+ free course collection is real, spans 20+ languages, and you can enrol without a card. What changed arrived on 17 March 2020, and it reshaped what free means here.

Free courses now give a simplified experience: no certificate of completion, no Q&A, no instructor messaging, and ads may run before, during and after lessons. Free courses published after that date are capped at two hours of video. Learners who enrolled in a free course before 17 March 2020 kept Q&A and the certificate on those courses.

Two other things happened since 2019. Udemy listed on Nasdaq as UDMY on 28 October 2021 at $29 a share, and a Personal Plan subscription now sits alongside the one-time purchases, which run $19.99 to $199.99.

• Type: Free sampler
• Free tier: 450+ free courses across 20+ languages, enrollable with no card
• The cap: two hours of video on free courses published after 17 March 2020, ad-supported, with the certificate, Q&A and instructor messaging on paid
• Paid from: one-time course purchases from $19.99 to $199.99, plus a Personal Plan subscription
• Checked: 31 August 2026, Udemy

7. Codecademy

Basic is still $0 and Codecademy still labels it always free, but it covers less than it used to. Basic gives introductory material in the top subjects such as HTML and JavaScript, community support, cheatsheets, docs and videos.

Their own comparison table puts the rest on paid: the full 300+ course library, with Learn Python 3 named as a paid course, plus quizzes, real-world projects, skill paths, career paths, AI learning assistance, certificates of completion, professional certifications, assessments, code challenges and interview prep.

Ownership moved too. Skillsoft announced the acquisition in December 2021 and closed it on 5 April 2022, and the site now brands itself Codecademy from Skillsoft.

• Type: Free sampler
• Free tier: introductory lessons in the top subjects, community support, cheatsheets, docs and videos
• The cap: the 300+ course library, quizzes, projects, skill and career paths, assessments, interview prep and every credential are paid
• Paid from: Plus at $14.99/month or $11.99/month billed annually, Pro at $19.99/month or $15.99/month billed annually
• Checked: 31 August 2026, Codecademy pricing

8. DataCamp

The honest description is the first chapter of every course, free, with no certificate. That is a genuinely useful way to sample a 790+ course catalogue, and it is different from free courses.

The $0 Basic plan gives that first chapter across the catalogue, a free professional profile, all cheat sheets and tutorials, and mobile learning. The full library, career and skill tracks, projects, course credits and certificates of completion sit on paid. DataCamp claims more than 19 million learners, and has layered DataLab, industry certifications and skill assessments on top since 2019.

• Type: Free sampler
• Free tier: chapter one of every course across the 790+ catalogue, all cheat sheets and tutorials, a profile and mobile learning
• The cap: chapter two onward, career and skill tracks, projects and certificates are paid
• Paid from: Premium at $11/month billed annually, with the month-to-month rate behind a signup wall
• Checked: 31 August 2026, DataCamp pricing

9. Pluralsight

Free means a small always-free video selection, plus the assessment tooling: Skill IQ, Role IQ, a profile and your history. Hands-on labs and sandboxes are paid, and a course started on a paid subscription cannot be finished on a free account.

The ten-day trial asks for payment details up front, converts automatically on day eleven, and sits behind a stated no-refunds policy, so treat it as a purchase decision rather than a look around.

Ownership has been turbulent. Vista Equity took Pluralsight private in a deal announced December 2020 and closed April 2021 at $22.50 a share, around $3.5 billion. Vista wrote the stake to zero by May 2024, and in August 2024 a lender group including Blue Owl, Ares, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Golub, Oaktree, Benefit Street and Guggenheim took full ownership, cutting $1.3 billion of funded debt.

• Type: Free sampler
• Free tier: a small always-free video selection, plus Skill IQ, Role IQ, a profile and your history
• The cap: hands-on labs and sandboxes are paid, a course started on a paid subscription cannot be finished on a free account, and the ten-day trial takes payment details up front and converts on day eleven under a stated no-refunds policy
• Paid from: priced on the Pluralsight pricing page, which did not yield a readable figure for the cheapest individual plan on the day
• Checked: 31 August 2026, Pluralsight pricing

10. Scrimba

Included precisely because this post now tells the truth about samplers. Scrimba's interactive format, where you can pause a video and edit the instructor's code in place, is genuinely distinct.

Per Scrimba's own help centre, updated 11 July 2026, the free plan gives a limited selection of courses, no private Discord, and up to ten interactive challenges in total. That is a lifetime cap rather than a monthly one, which is easy to misread. Pro unlocks all current and future premium courses, unlimited challenges, the career paths, path certificates and the Discord.

• Type: Free sampler
• Free tier: a limited selection of courses and ten interactive challenges
• The cap: ten challenges is a lifetime cap rather than a monthly one, and the career paths, path certificates and Discord are Pro
• Paid from: $49/month, or $294/year working out at $24.50/month
• Checked: 31 August 2026, Scrimba pricing

The list at a glance

Prices in USD, read on 31 August 2026 from each platform's own pricing or help page. Pluralsight's cheapest individual plan and DataCamp's month-to-month rate were not readable on the day and are stated as unread rather than estimated.

What happened to the 2019 list

Three names from the original version of this article are gone, and one changed identity.

Thinkful became Chegg Skills. Chegg acquired Thinkful in 2019, and from October 2023 it operates as Chegg Skills. thinkful.com now redirects to chegg.com/skills, the catalogue reads Workforce Training Program and Course Catalog, program pages are tagged for teams, and the FAQ answers the cost question by saying pricing is quoted per organization. An individual reader cannot enrol today at any price.

Skillshare closed its free tier. The first lesson of each class is still free to watch, and everything after that needs a membership: $167.88 a year, billed as $13.99 a month annually, with a trial that converts. There is no permanent free plan.

BitDegree changed what it is. It has repositioned from a coding-course platform into a crypto and Web3 media and affiliate property, built around brand missions that earn redeemable Bits, alongside price tracking and exchange reviews. Some legacy interactive coding courses survive, but it is no longer the thing this list recommended.

Frontend Masters became Master.dev on 15 June 2026. frontendmasters.com redirects there. The stated reason is that four of their ten most popular courses are now AI courses, which the old name no longer described.

Free that is not free

Three offers that read as free and are not, worth knowing before you commit time.

Google Career Certificates. The prominent Enroll for free button buys a trial. Coursera's own FAQ states that in the US and Canada it charges $49 per month after the initial seven-day free trial, with most learners finishing for under $300.

Boot.dev. Their pricing page says you can demo the first few chapters of each course with full interactivity, after which you move to read-only and cannot complete lessons, take quizzes or do the interactive parts.

DeepLearning.AI. Free access is explicitly temporary. The course pages say access is free for a limited time during the platform beta, and graded assignments plus certificates are already Pro-only.

Common questions

Which online learning platforms are actually free in 2026? Three: Khan Academy, freeCodeCamp and Hugging Face Learn. All three are free because someone other than the learner pays, whether donations, a nonprofit structure or a company with a reason to teach its own tools. Everything else on this list is a sampler or an audit window.

Can you still audit Coursera courses for free? Coursera's own free-courses page now defines free as a first-module preview on many courses plus a seven-day trial. A Full Course, No Certificate option survives where the instructor enables it, giving materials, assessments and a final grade with no credential. Financial aid remains available on select programs.

Which platforms give a free certificate? freeCodeCamp, whose six certifications and their exams are free end to end. edX audit access omits the certificate and prices it per course, with CS50 currently at $219. Udemy withdrew certificates from free courses on 17 March 2020, and Codecademy keeps every credential on paid.

Is Udemy still free? There is a real collection of 450+ free courses you can enrol in with no card. Free courses published after 17 March 2020 are capped at two hours of video, run ads, and omit the certificate, Q&A and instructor messaging. Anyone enrolled in a free course before that date kept Q&A and the certificate on those courses.

What happened to Skillshare's free tier? It closed. The first lesson of each class is still free to watch, and everything after that needs a membership at $167.88 a year, billed as $13.99 a month annually, with a trial that converts.

Are Google Career Certificates free? The Enroll for free button buys a trial. Coursera's own FAQ states that in the US and Canada it charges $49 per month after an initial seven-day free trial, with most learners finishing for under $300.

What is the best free platform for learning to code? freeCodeCamp, because the certifications and their exams are free rather than sampled, and it is funded by donations with no paid tier to upgrade to. Exercism works the same way across its language tracks. Khan Academy covers the earlier ground, and Hugging Face Learn covers machine learning specifically.

What every platform on this list has to solve

Read the ten entries together and a pattern shows up that has nothing to do with pricing pages. Everything that moved behind a paywall moved for the same reason: it is the part that costs money to run.

Video is cheap to serve. Assessment is not. A graded assignment needs someone or something to grade it, and a certificate is only worth issuing if the grading can be trusted, which means proctoring, plagiarism handling and an audit trail. Progress state is not free either: every completed lesson, streak and resumed video is a write, and personalisation on top of that is inference cost per learner. Interactive challenges, the thing Scrimba caps at ten, run real code in a real sandbox for every attempt.

That is why Coursera moved audit, why Codecademy kept the videos free and gated the projects, and why DataCamp gives you chapter one of everything. Each of those is an engineering decision about which parts of learning scale for free and which do not.

We build that layer. NALA Prep is a digital SAT platform with 10,000+ questions and 30+ full-length tests, which is the assessment and credential-integrity problem in its purest form. An AI mentoring platform we built handles the personalisation side, the thing Codecademy, Boot.dev and DeepLearning.AI are all charging for. A K-12 literacy app covers Khan Academy's end of the market, where the learner is a child and the buyer is a school.

If you are building one of these rather than choosing one, that is what we do.

Conclusion

The best free option on this list is still the one that was never trying to sell you anything. Khan Academy, freeCodeCamp and Hugging Face Learn are free because someone else pays for them, and that is the only free that has held up over six years.

Everywhere else, treat free as a sampler and read the cap before you start. A first chapter, a two-hour video limit, ten lifetime challenges and a time-boxed audit window are all real offers, and they are all worth taking. They are just not courses.