Coursera Vs Cloud Academy: Which Is Better?

Online learning is becoming one of the fastest and easiest ways to learn a vast range of subjects. Whether it is digital marketing or computer vision, online courses offer something for everyone. But what companies offer what courses?

Coursera is an online learning company that is on the rise. They offer hundreds of courses by rated academics and professors at prestigious universities.

Cloud Academy offers a very similar flexible course structure, teaching on both learning and development teams level.

So, which is better: Coursera or Cloud Academy? Which will give you the best value for money? What modes of flexible learning do they offer?

Well, we have done the work for you, going over each aspect of these companies to see which one comes out on top from Coursera VS Cloud Academy!

 What Is Coursera?

Coursera is an online learning platform that is used by thousands of students. They offer professional courses taught by rated academics and leading experts in lots of different fields.

The best thing about Coursera is the course structure. They offer flexible learning and deadlines, which means that you can complete the course at your own pace and not have to worry about getting your work done by a specific time.

This is also a great learning platform if you have a busy working schedule. A lot of people often want to retrain in something, yet they find it impossible to integrate their learning with their schedule.

However, Coursera makes this super-easy with a flexible learning integrated platform.

This website has master’s and bachelor’s degree programs from Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Penn, along with Google short courses that you can watch in one hour, gaining a greater understanding of the subject of your choosing.

What Is Cloud Academy?

Cloud Academy is designed to fill the skill gaps in a company’s knowledge, giving you and your team everything that they need to complete their working tasks to the best of their abilities.

The one thing that Cloud Academy really boasts about is the interface. It comes with a dashboard that will allow you to personalize your learning experience.

If you are the manager of a team, then you can sort out each individual member, identifying gaps in their CV that you can then plug with the appropriate training.

Cloud Academy comes with hands-on exercises that will help you or your team implement their knowledge. They also come with quizzes that achieve the same end.

The course also comes with a map that will allow you to set training and learning goals, improve your skills and develop your knowledge.

You can run various courses simultaneously, picking different difficulty levels for team members of varying skill levels. It aims to inspire your team by giving them opportunities to grow by mimicking real-world scenarios.

Cloud Academy also offers pre-hiring assessments, which will allow you to vet potential employees before the interview with various quizzes. This will also help them with the onboarding process, allowing new recruits to get to grips with the system before they are hired.

What Types Of Courses Does Coursera Offer?

There are plenty of courses that you can learn through Coursera. Here is a brief overview of some of them, including what they involve, the learning structure, and how you can pay for them:

Computer Vision

If you have ever been interested in machine learning or worked in this sector already, then computer vision might be the next step into a new career path for you.

You can learn many things from the many computer vision courses that are on offer: image detection, motion detection in self-driving cars, or facial recognition for crime prevention. There are plenty of sectors you can go into after training in computer vision.

Most of these courses are flexible, so you can study them at your own pace. They are also taught by leading industry professionals in this field, so you really will get a thorough education in this subject.

Interior Design

Have you ever wondered about the science of making your home look nicer? Well, why not try the interior design course? This comes with subjects such as the science of color and how certain colors complement each other.

This is a great course if you are already doing interior design and you want to give your job that extra level of authority (a lot of these courses come with certification once you have completed them).

This is also great if you want to retrain as an interior decorator.

Investment

The world of finance is very complex, which is why you’ll need a course that breaks down these subjects in a way that is easy to understand. Investment courses run from beginner to intermediate and are taught by professors in the subject from Yale and Princeton.

You can study lots of courses, including risk science management as well as case studies like the current global financial crash, analyzing why it happened and how to prevent it from happening again.

The great thing about these courses is that they also include video tutorials, so you won’t be overwhelmed by pages and pages of text. This also has downloadable course documents and quizzes that you can take to test your knowledge.

Writing

Writing is a valuable skill that you can teach in all aspects of your life, whether it is drafting a proposal or getting the narrative structure of a novel just right. This course will also teach you things like planning your writing as well as correct grammar and spelling.

What Types Of Courses Does Cloud Academy Offer?

Cloud Academy mainly specializes in teaching you how to use online Cloud resources, such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, and Alibaba Cloud.

You can also learn various job roles such as software engineering, machine learning engineering, DevOps engineering, cloud architecture, and data engineering.

Here are some of the courses that you can study through Cloud Academy:

Cloud Architect – Foundation

For anyone who is looking to become a cloud architect despite having no experience in this job role, then this is the perfect place to start.

This goes right back to the start, looking at the job function of a cloud architect, as well as web development and some of its fundamental principles.

The content of the course is just under 10 hours long and will require you to only study for around 3 hours per week. This is great if you are looking to integrate your learning with a busy home or work life. It will take around 17 hours to complete during this time.

Data Engineer – Intermediate

This is a mid-level course that looks at programming language through Python software. This will help you to learn how to write and maintain code, both of which are very important when you are dealing with lots of data on a regular basis.

This course will take you 37 days to complete and features a flexible learning structure. Not only will this teach you a lot of the theory in a practical way, but it will also let you implement this kind of engineering in a real-world setting.

Machine Learning Engineer – Intermediate

If you want to build your own machine learning solutions, then you can use Microsoft Azure to understand software theory as well as practically apply what you’ve learned to real-world scenarios.

This course also uses the Databricks service, which will make predictions based on the data input into machine learning solutions.

This course comes with exams and lab challenges that will really test your knowledge, which will be crucial when you are implementing professional skills in a real-world scenario. This has over 20 hours, of course, materials, and will take you 37 days to complete.

Java Software Engineer – Proficient

This course is great for helping people to attain their ideal job as a Java software engineer. This is a much shorter course that will only take 9 days for you to complete. The entire structure and content of the course only last around 5 hours.

Course Prices – Coursera Versus Cloud Academy

For the Coursera course, you’ll be paying different amounts depending on what course you are signing up for and how long you are planning on studying.

Coursera’s prices can range from $30-$49 per month, although the Coursera Plus account will cost you around $399 for the year. This will give you complete access to all the courses available on Coursera, which currently number around 3,000.

Cloud Academy offers a more reasonable pricing structure, with individual students given the option of paying £33 (around $39) or £23 per month if they subscribe for the whole year. This works out to around £268 for the whole year (around $323).

If you are a business paying for Cloud Academy for your employee, then you’ll be paying £45 ($54.32) for a team of 15 members.

If you have a larger team, then you can customize your payment option, which will ultimately save you money in the long run.

As it is more specialized, it makes more sense for Cloud Academy to offer their students smaller fees than Coursera, which operates with more legitimate course tutors and experts. 

However, it is worth bearing in mind that the certificates dispensed by Coursera do not equal a degree and some employers will not accept them as part of a job enrollment.

Which Has The Better Learning Platform?

Coursera has a great interface, giving you plenty of access to materials such as video tutorials, so you won’t be reading through pages and pages of text.

This also gives course tutors the freedom to tailor their lectures as they want, opening various ‘schools’ where they can set up courses.

Cloud Academy also has a great dashboard, especially if you are the head of a large team and you want to delegate levels of training to different people. This will give you a much better overview of how your team is performing and how you can improve certain sections.

Both courses provide you with flexible learning structures, as they are aware that this is one of the main appeals of e-learning in general.

However, Cloud Academy uses cloud programs, so if you find these tricky to work with, then you might find it a little restrictive.

Which E-Learning Platform Caters Better To Course Instructors: Coursera Or Cloud Academy?

Cloud Academy does not outsource its course instructors; rather it has in-house professionals that will teach you or your team various subjects, whether it is software engineering or data gathering.

However, it is always looking for experienced members to join their team.

Applying to become a Coursera instructor is slightly easier, although you will have to submit your course to the site for approval. Each course must be at least 10,000 words long and should include video content.

If you are approved to become a Coursera course instructor, then you will retain all the rights to your course along with 40% of any revenue that you make from your course. If your course becomes popular, then this might be very profitable for you.

So, if you are looking to monetize your skills, then we would certainly recommend that you go with Coursera as opposed to Cloud Academy, as there is a much better avenue to progression.

What Features Does Cloud Academy Have?

There are a few key features that Cloud Academy offers that are aimed at upskilling your whole organization. It will allow you to highlight various members of your team to figure out where they need more training, improving overall efficiency.

Here is a list of some of the features that are provided by Cloud Academy:

Baseline Skills

This will help you to gain a great business understanding of the various skill levels of your employees through LAB assessments, quizzes, and practical tests. This will allow you to determine the various skill levels of your team and which aspects need training.

You can create your own assessments that are in line with your business goals. By focusing on what you want to achieve, you can better keep your company on the right path to success in your great business communication.

This will give you granular and deep data insights into the various levels of your team’s efficiency. It will also provide you with graphs to help you visualize the progress of each team member over time.

This comes with the feature of an automate business presentations and reminders regarding which member of your team is approaching their completion dates and scheduled training times.

Content Customization

This is a place where you can create your own content such as exams and quizzes that your team members can take which will improve their performance based on whatever workspace they are a part of.

This will help you create content that is relevant to your organization. Often, these performance analysis protocols will not apply to your business and therefore they do not focus on areas of potential growth.

This will allow you to tailor your preferences based on what you want your company to be.

You can upload anything from videos to PDF files that will help new and existing team members get to grips with the job in a hands-on way. This is also great for onboarding new staff members, allowing them to learn on the job rather than going through separate training.

Pre-Hire Assessments

This is one of the more innovative features that Cloud Academy has to offer. This allows you to determine the hiring process through collaborative learning and collaborative tools rather than face-to-face interviews.

This will help you to improve your hiring techniques so you can get the right person for the job.

This will also help you to hire more people a lot faster. In a growing company, you’ll need more skilled people that you know will contribute to the strength and success of your business. This will also help you train new members of your team.

This will also give you a better idea of how your team is working together as a whole. You can track their performance across weeks and months, fine-tuning their skillset and ensuring they are providing regular feedback to you.

What Features Does Coursera Have?

Coursera has a very different setup from Cloud Academy, it is more open to people who might not have a sophisticated working knowledge of cloud platforms such as Azure and Amazon Web Services.

They are more geared toward individual learning, using video and course materials to get people started on their journey of mobile learning.

Here are some of the features that Coursera has to offer its students:

Video Tutorials

One of the crucial features that Coursera offers is the ability to learn through a visual medium. Most people learn better via demonstrations rather than becoming overwhelmed by ingesting large amounts of course documents and text information.

You can also break down your course in a way that is manageable, making notes on each video tutorial in a manner that will help you learn more effectively.

Video tutorials are usually chaired by experts or course instructors, which is helpful for grasping crucial concepts.

Flexible Deadlines

Another thing that students find very appealing about Coursera is the ability to learn in their own time. You don’t have to rush towards a fixed deadline, and you can pick up and put down any part of the course whenever you like.

This is very helpful for people who are going through busy lives and might not have time to integrate a normal university degree course with their everyday lives.

Online courses such as the ones offered by Coursera really are game changers for switching careers without having to quit your job.

Most of the courses available on Coursera can be completed within a few weeks, although there are some that take a little longer. This is also great for people who might not have the luxury of being able to learn over the course of a few years.

Graded Quizzes

Some of the courses offer quizzes that are graded by the course instructors. This is ideal for helping a student implement their knowledge and see how much they have learned over their studying period.

The instructors can also offer feedback to students, providing one-to-one tutoring.

This helps to relieve the stress of the course instructors too, as it will give them much more time to focus on pupils on a one-to-one basis, either by email or face-to-face video seminars.

Video tutorials will also make up the bulk of the courses, enabling instructors to answer questions and help students.

There are also discussion classes that are held on Coursera, giving students the opportunity to provide solutions for other students’ problems as well as giving them a study pool that each class member can draw upon.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Cloud Academy Offer Certificates?

Yes, they provide fast-track certification, which will help the members of any cloud team gain qualifications in Azure-based learning.

These are then adjudicated by the company. The software will also make your employers more accountable, tracking their goals and standards of achievement.

Are Coursera Certificates Accepted By Employers?

This will all depend on what company you are seeking employment from. These courses are not accredited, so they will not count towards points for your university degree, nor will they be automatically accepted by certain companies.

We would recommend that you inquire with the company that you are seeking employment from and negotiate whether they will accept your Coursera qualification.

Is Coursera More Affordable Than Cloud Academy?

Overall, Cloud Academy is cheaper, although it offers a much more specialized training package and works only through organizational transformation consulting services. If you want a qualification with more real-world applications, it might be better to try Coursera.

Conclusion

Coursera and Cloud Academy both offer very different things when it comes to e-learning. If you are looking for something that covers a broader range of subjects and follows a traditional course structure, we would try Coursera. 

However, if you are looking for team-led learning via cloud platforms, then Cloud Academy might be a better option.