25 Most Popular Online Courses Websites 2023 (Examples that Inspire)

Are you in search of the best examples of online courses? Or, looking for inspiration to start your online course website? Then, you’ve landed in the right place.

Generally, an online course is a set of lessons that may be viewed at any time and from any location using a web browser. Essentially, these courses are delivered via a Learning Management System (LMS) that allows for two-way communication between educator and learner.

These days, online course websites have become a platform for online learning. Furthermore, this provides much flexibility as people can learn at their own space and pace. There are tons of examples of online courses today. So, it’s quite hectic to find the one that inspires.

But, don’t worry anymore! In this article, we’ve come up with a list of the most popular and inspiring website examples of online courses. Let’s get started!

Why Online Courses Websites Matter?

First, let’s learn why online courses are essential. Here we go!

In this era of the internet and digitalization, online course websites play a significant role in all of our lives. Some notable importances are mentioned below:

• Shared Knowledge: Online course websites are ideal platforms to share your knowledge, skills, and experiences with the general public.
• Monetization of Skills: It paves the way for making money through proper monetization of skills.
• Increased Productivity: When you do something instead of sitting idle, you will always be more productive.
• Acquire Technical Skills: One of the most important aspects of digitalization is the use of online course sites. Furthermore, you can pick up technological skills while creating your course site.
• Change Maker: You can have an influential impact on people through your shared knowledge, skills, and perceptions and be a change maker!

By saying that, let’s move forward!

25 Most Popular Examples of Online Courses 2023

Here, we’ve listed some of the most popular website examples of online courses for 2023. You can go through them and find the right one that inspires you.

1. Udemy

Udemy is one of the most popular website examples of online courses. It has a broad selection of courses in areas like business, design, IT & software, etc. Importantly, its courses are available in 65 different languages. Other than studying, you can also sell your skills and offer teaching materials.

• Main Courses Offered: Python, Business Analysis, Cryptocurrency, Time Management, and more.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free and premium courses. The paid courses start at the price of $13.99
• Social Media: Facebook and Twitter

2. FutureLearn

FutureLearn is another popular site where you can learn anything. Essentially, you can explore various subject categories that interest you, created by the most reputable institutions. Further, you can deepen your education by enrolling in online courses and getting a degree.

• Main Courses Offered: Business & Management, Teaching, Law, History, Language, Literature, etc.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Get Free Course, Upgrade Course, or Unlimited Course
• Social Media: Facebook  and Twitter

3. EdX

EdX is one of the leading providers of free online courses, providing university-level courses. Further, you can find topics like computer science, language, data science, engineering, etc. Additionally, there are video tutorials, on-campus discussions, and textbooks available on the site.

• Main Courses Offered: Computer Science, Psychology, Business & Management, Marketing, Biology, and so on.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free registration but the price of courses may vary.
• Social Media: Facebook

4. Alison

Alison is a widely popular free website for online courses. It offers standard informative and educational programs. Importantly, its courses are relevant, engaging, and flexible. Moreover, it offers lessons in English, Spanish, German, French, and Arabic, among other languages. 

Basically, there are three types of courses available on the website. Namely: certificate courses, diploma courses, and learning paths (creating self-learning experiences). 

• Main Courses Offered: Technology, Lifestyle, Science, Business & Marketing.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Mostly free. Some premium courses with prices from $7.99/month.
• Social Media: Facebook and LinkedIn

5. LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning provides video courses taught by professionals. There are up to 15,000 free and subscription-based courses in over 7 languages. Further, it makes individualized course recommendations depending on your abilities. Also, you’ll get a certificate after you finish a session.

• Main Courses Offered: Business Intelligence, Data Analysis, Visual Effects, Personal Effectiveness, and more.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free and Paid Courses. For paid courses, the price ranges from $19.99/month.
• Social Media: Facebook

6. TEDEd 

TEDEd is another excellent resource for general learning. Importantly, it’s a network of over 250000 teachers and students worldwide.

It’s an educational site full of informative videos. Also, its videos include amazing animation and are all under 10 minutes long. Furthermore, this leads to more joyful learning and interactive lessons.

• Main Courses Offered: Social Studies, Teaching & Education, Thinking & Learning, Psychology, Literature & Language, etc.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free
• Website Platform: WordPress
• Social Media: Twitter and Facebook

7. Coursera 

Another educational website with general, specialized, and university-recognized courses and degrees is Coursera. It has collaborated with 200+ leading universities and companies. Also, provides affordable, flexible, and job-specific online learning to individuals throughout the world.

• Main Courses Offered: Business, Art & Humanities, Science, Social Sciences, Languages, etc.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free and paid courses. A premium course may cost about $29.
• Social Media: LinkedIn and Twitter

8. Harvard Extension 

Harvard Extension is one of the top eLearning website examples of online courses from Harvard University. It offers a wide variety of courses on subjects like Business, Data Science, Humanities, Mathematics, Science, and so on. 

Moreover, students can use it to look for courses based on their professional certification. Further, courses are divided into 3 difficulty levels namely beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

• Main Courses Offered: Art & Design, Education & Teaching, Health & Medicine, etc.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free as well as premium courses with a minimal price of $30 per course.
• Social Media: Twitter and Facebook

9. Khan Academy 

Khan Academy is one of the free and insightful educational websites that help to achieve your learning objective. Additionally, this site’s resources are available both online and through the app. Moreover, its content is offered in many languages, including English, French, German, Italian, etc.

• Main Courses Offered: Math, Science, Economics, Humanities, Computing, and so on.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free Courses
• Social Media: Facebook

10. AcademicEarth 

AcademicEarth is another leading educational platform that offers in-depth courses from universities. Importantly, its courses are tailored to your personal and professional requirements.

Moreover, it has proper lesson plans and original video sessions of lectures for its courses. Furthermore, this facilitates efficient and effective learning. 

• Main Courses Offered: Accounting, Art History, Biology, Economics, Engineering, etc.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free Courses
• Website Platform: WordPress
• Social Media: Facebook

11. Udacity 

Udacity is a free online learning platform that focuses on software development. It offers courses in programming, data science, and web development. Moreover, it provides a nano-degree program for individuals aspiring to master a skill set in computing and technology. 

Additionally, it has the Udacity Talent Program that connects users with major employers like Google.

• Main Courses Offered: Cloud Computing, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and more.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free and premium courses that cost $249 per month for 1 student
• Social Media: Facebook and Twitter

12. Pluralsight 

Pluralsight is a prominent online course website for keeping up with the latest development technology and frequently updated courses. Also, it includes tests and learning paths by industry professionals. Furthermore, it has met people’s standards through its appropriate creative courses.

• Main Courses Offered: Game Design, Web Design, CAD Software, 3D Development, and so on.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Different premium pricing schemes. The starter Skill plan costs $33.25/month.
• Social Media: Facebook

13. Codecademy 

Codecademy is an online course site that’s solely focused on coding and computer programming. Further, it offers regular practice sessions and interactive tutorials. Moreover, this platform teaches you coding in JavaScript, Ruby, HTML, CSS, and Python.

• Main Courses Offered: Web Development, Data Science, Game Development, and Programming.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Freemium for individuals and premium for students ($149.99/year) and teams ($299/year).
• Social Media: Facebook and Twitter

14. W3Schools 

W3Schools is one of the most popular websites for online courses for web developers. It receives around 60 million monthly visitors. Additionally, it covers all areas of web development with tutorials that begin with the fundamentals and progress to professional references.

• Main Courses Offered: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, Python, PHP, C++, and so on.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free courses and premium courses price ranges from $45 per course
• Website Platform: WordPress
• Social Media: LinkedIn and Facebook

15. Yoast Academy

Yoast Academy is a renowned online education website. It’s one of the most effective SEO training platforms available. Moreover, Yoast’s tools act as a large reference library for SEO guidance. 

Furthermore, each module includes rich video content as well as downloadable PDFs. Furthermore, this leads to creative learning and is beneficial even for the SEO newbie.

• Main Courses Offered: SEO for beginners, All-around SEO, Site Structure, Structured Data, Yoast SEO for WordPress, etc.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free courses and get access to all premium courses at $99/year
• Website Platform: WordPress
• Social Media: Facebook

16. SkillShare 

SkillShare is a well-known online course site for creative people interested in sketching, design, photography, etc. Moreover, its courses are also designed to be bite-sized for maximum flexibility. Importantly, many people turn to Skillshare for inspiration and to advance in their creative pursuits.

• Main Courses Offered:  Lifestyle, Technology, Creative, and more.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free courses and premium courses range from $19 per month.
• Website Platform: WordPress
• Social Media: Facebook

17. MasterClass 

MasterClass is one of the fastest-growing websites that provide insightful courses in the creative sector. It offers world-class online learning in a wide range of subjects. Essentially, it provides you with one-on-one instruction from well-known heroes, idols, and experts in their fields.

• Main Courses Offered: Photography, Acting, Culinary, Business and Leadership, Music, etc.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & Experts
• Course Pricing: Includes plans ranging from $10 to $20 per month (billed annually).
• Social Media: Facebook and Twitter.

18. CreativeLive 

Another one of the most popular examples of online courses specially crafted for creative individuals is CreativeLive. It provides over 2,000 high-quality tailored classes taught by over 700 handpicked instructors. Also, offers specialized courses to teams and employees.

• Main Courses Offered: Fundamentals of Photography, Adobe Photoshop, Graphic Design, Videography, and more.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & tutors
• Course Pricing: Free courses and paid courses range from $13/mo.
• Social Media: Twitter and Facebook

19. Duolingo 

Duolingo is the most widely used free language-learning website. They teach about 40 languages, like French, English, Spanish, Hindi, and Arabic. Essentially, its classes are meant to feel more like a game than a dry textbook. Also, this improves retention and makes language learning enjoyable.

• Main Courses Offered: Spanish, French, Japanese, and Korean languages have the most learners.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & Tutors
• Course Pricing: Free Courses. However, you can pay a price i.e. $ 12.99/month for ad removals.
• Social Media: Facebook

20. MaxKnowledge 

Another well-known free online course website that focuses on the fundamentals of workplace abilities is MaxKnowledge. Moreover, its courses are developed with professional development in mind. Also, it’s a community of over 120,000 career experts, working together to make a difference.

• Main Courses Offered: Career Development, Communication Skills, Creativity & Innovation, Supervisory Skills, and so on.
• Target Audience/Users: Students & Tutors
• Course Pricing: Free Courses. However, for certification, it charges $19/month.
• Social Media: LinkedIn

21. Facebook Blueprint

Facebook Blueprint is one of the best examples of online courses. It gives free online courses, training programmes, and certifications. With its fast and self-guided courses, you can build your marketing skills across platforms like Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

• Main Courses Offered: Marketing courses for platforms like Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
• Target Audience/Users: Small businesses, brands, agencies, educators, developers, etc.
• Course Pricing: Free courses.
• Social Media: Facebook and Twitter

22. HubSpot Academy

Another free and popular online course site is HubSpot Academy. Its main goal is to educate users on the HubSpot software so that they can market, sell, and grow their businesses.

Moreover, it gives unlimited access to hundreds of topics to learn everything you need to know for your business. Also, it offers quick practical courses to comprehensive certificates to help you advance your career and show off your skills.

• Main Courses Offered: Marketing, Sales, Service, Data Privacy, Web Design, etc.
• Target Audience/Users: Students and tutors.
• Course Pricing: Free courses.
• Social Media: Facebook and Twitter

23. Treehouse

Treehouse gives great online classes on on-demand programming topics. Further, it includes expert-led video courses and multiple quizzes for interactive learning. Also, this site introduces Bootcamps, so enroll in a Techdegree program that makes you complete projects for a specific duration.

• Main Courses Offered: 300+ courses on programming topics like HTML, CSS, PHP, Design, Database, and others.
• Target Audience/Users: Students and tutors.
• Course Pricing: Free for 7 days, then $25/mo (for the starter plan).
• Social Media: Facebook and Twitter

24. General Assembly

General Assembly offers part-time and full-time courses for individuals and companies. You can find 20+ online classes led by instructors that last 1 week to many weeks. Also, you can choose an on-demand course to learn at your pace with 1:1 mentor support.

On top of that, you’ll also see upcoming online workshops and events in which you can take part. And if you’re confused about which course to select, then go to the ‘Find Your Course’ menu.

• Main Courses Offered: Coding, Data Analysis, Data Science, Digital Marketing, etc.
• Target Audience/Users: Individuals and companies.
• Course Pricing: Premium courses depending on the course you choose.
• Social Media: Facebook and Twitter

25. Domestika

Domestika offers online courses by the top creative experts to share their knowledge and skills with the creative community. Here, you can find courses based on categories, areas, and software. In addition, you get to make your own course bundle to easily purchase them together.

• Main Courses Offered: Illustration, Craft, Design, Photography & Video, Fashion, etc.
• Target Audience/Users: Creative professionals.
• Course Pricing: Premium courses depending on the course you choose. Most courses cost you $10.99 with an 85% discount currently (the original price is $59.99).
• Social Media: Facebook and Twitter

Here’s a list of the best blogging and content marketing online courses and the best SEO certification courses to master SEO. Go through them if you need help or inspiration!

How to Make Online Courses Websites?

Going through the list of all these beautiful and popular online course websites, you may have got some inspiration. Don’t you?

So, do you want to set up your own LMS site, then?

First of all, you must decide on the niche of the courses you’ll offer on your website. Once you plan that, you can begin the website creation process.

Now, without further delay, here’s a quick guide to help you with that.

Step 1: Choose the Right Website Platform

Nowadays, making a website is quite easy and simple. But you need to consistently provide effort and time to get success.

Many website builders let you develop a website in just a few clicks. All you need to do is choose the right platform for your website.

WordPress – Our Recommendation

Out of all the other website builders, we recommend using WordPress.org. That’s because it’s the most popular and widely used CMS (Content Management System) platform. Since over 43% of sites are made up of WordPress on the web.

To know more about WordPress, go through our complete guide on what WordPress is. Creating an LMS website is different from other websites. So, learn the differences between LMS and CMS here!

Not to mention, WordPress is super user-friendly, so you don’t have to worry if you’re a beginner. It includes WordPress plugins and WordPress themes designed for creating online course websites. We’ll mention them later.

Step 2: Register a Domain Name and Set Up Web Hosting

After that, you’ll need a domain name and a web hosting platform. To begin, a domain name is a unique identifier for your website that visitors will use to access it. For example, Google’s domain name is Google.com. Similarly, the domain of our site is SiteNerdy.com.

You can look into our list of the best domain name generators to find a good domain name for your site. And then, register a domain from one of the popular domain registrars.

Second, as a means of bridging the gap between your website and the internet, use a web hosting platform. There are a plethora of hosting service providers that offer low-cost hosting.

Go through our blog on how to choose a web hosting company and select the right one for your site. Some of our top recommendations are Cloudways and Kinsta.

Step 3: Create Your Website on WordPress

We find WordPress to be one of the most user-friendly website platforms out there. Once you obtain a domain name and web hosting, simply install WordPress. You can then do the necessary customization by installing a suitable WordPress theme and multiple WordPress plugins as needed.

Use a Suitable WordPress Theme

The WordPress.org theme repository has several free WordPress themes for you to choose from. Also, there are premium themes in multiple marketplaces such as ThemeForest.

For making your online course website, you can choose a multipurpose WordPress theme like Astra, GeneratePress, OceanWP, etc. Otherwise, you can even select a theme designed specifically for an LMS site. Here’s the list of the best LMS WordPress themes.

Learn how to choose a suitable WordPress theme here. Then, install and activate the WordPress theme to easily get started.

Use a Suitable Online Course Plugin

Similarly, WordPress has a plethora of plugins to help you build an online course site. Some of the best plugins we recommend are LearnDash, TutorLMS, LifterLMS, etc.

Check out a detailed review of LearnDash, TutorLMS, LifterLMS, Masteriyo, and LearnPress to use one of them for your site.

Learn how to pick a WordPress plugin! Also, know the WordPress plugin installation process.

Step 4: Create and Publish Your Content

Finally, you may begin creating the essential content for your online course website. Documents, video tutorials, downloadable PDFs, photos, quizzes, and much more can be included in the content. All that’s left to do now is post the content and reap the benefits of having an online course website.

For a full guide, you can check out a similar article on how to start a coaching business. Also, make sure to read our blog on how to create a website.

Conclusion

So, that’s all! We’ve reached the end of this article.

We did our best to compile the most popular website examples of online courses in 2023. Along with a simple guide to get started with making your own online courses website.

Recently, online courses have become one of the most visited sites. Additionally, making an online course site helps you share your knowledge, skills, and experience. Also, it helps you make money.  

We truly believe this article will assist you in evaluating all these popular online sites and determining which type of site, to begin with. If you’ve any queries related to this article, then please do not hesitate to write a comment below. We’ll respond as soon as possible.

Also, you might want to check out our comprehensive guide on LifterLMS vs LearnDash and the best LearnDash alternative WordPress plugins.

If you find this article informative, then do forward it to your friends and family. Kindly, mind to give us a like on Facebook and Twitter.