Are you looking to learn data science skills? If so, then you’ve probably heard of two popular online learning platforms—DataCamp vs Coursera.
Both of these websites offer a variety of data science courses that can help you hone your skills. But which platform is best suited for your needs? Let’s take a closer look at the differences between DataCamp and Coursera.
The Main Differences Between DataCamp vs Coursera
Coursera and DataCamp differ in the following ways:
- Coursera has courses, online degrees, and certificates in a wide range of fields, while DataCamp has courses and tracks in STEM fields.
- Individuals have three ways to subscribe to DataCamp, while Coursera is free to use but charges separately for tracks and degrees.
- DataCamp has projects for every course, with limits based on your subscription plan. Coursera, on the other hand, charges for peer feedback, projects, and course assessments.
- Coursera has both self-paced and scheduled learning, while DataCamp only has self-paced video lectures.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably thought about taking new courses to improve your skills. For many people, this means taking advantage of new deals on learning sites like DataCamp and Coursera.
Now more than ever, learning platforms offer courses in software, training, and data for less money or even for free.
People who are stuck at home and don’t know what their careers are going to be require skills such as machine learning, cloud computing, healthcare analytics, and information technology.
I thought companies like DataCamp and Coursera could really assist people in learning these skills at home, since they aren’t always the easiest to learn.
In this review, I’ll look at the most popular courses on DataCamp and Coursera and let you know which one I think is better.
Which is Better: DataCamp vs Coursera?
I noticed that DataCamp and Coursera were two of the most popular places to learn about IT courses, software, programming, and other related topics.
But since they seem to be so popular, I wondered how well the courses were made, how easy they were to use, and if they are really worth the time and money.
I’ll tell you what I think is most important for any learning platform, but especially ones that focus on STEM fields.
DataCamp vs Coursera: what’s the main difference?
First, I looked at how DataCamp and Coursera are being advertised. The way a company markets itself and what its main goal is can give you an idea of what they’re all about and why someone might sign up.
- DataCamp says it is “the smartest way to learn data science online” and promotes its flexible learning, projects with real-world applications, and platforms that both individuals and businesses can use. They also make it clear that taking their courses could help you do better at your job.
- Instead, Coursera talks about how it works with colleges and universities. Most people know Coursera for its certificates, but they also sell degrees (more on this later) and say that taking courses can improve skills, help prepare for in-demand jobs, and help small businesses through “on-demand training” and “professional development.”
My Takeaway: Coursera builds trust by having ties to universities, but it can be misleading in its advertising. DataCamp, on the other hand, seems to be more specialised and focused only on data science. There is less talk of expertise or credentials.
Which is more expensive, DataCamp or Coursera subscriptions?
A learning platform’s cost will always be a factor when comparing them. The pricing and plans should be explained up front, even though I always look at overall value.
Besides personal plans ($300/year), DataCamp also offers professional and enterprise plans for teams. The following are included in individual plans:
- Basic (Free): Like the name says, this doesn’t cost anything. The free plan, on the other hand, doesn’t offer much and isn’t very useful. A coding challenge, seven projects, a skill assessment, and the first chapter of any course are all available for you to access.
- Premium: It is a good deal to increase the subscription to $15/month. The Datacamp premium plan has everything you need. It gives you unlimited access to the big list of courses, tutorials, cheat sheets, tests, and more. The company’s most popular plan is the premium plan, and it’s easy to see why! The plan gives a lot of value for a price that is easy on the wallet.
- Teams: The plan from Datacamp for the team has a lot of great tools and resources. The plan is made so that teams can work together, and admins can see how each course is coming along. The fee gives you access to all of the courses, the chance to get certificates, and a programme to help you get ready for work. The teams’ plan also gives users access to coding competitions, small practise exercises, and a lot more.
- Get in touch with the customer service team if you want to know more about the Datacamp Enterprise plan. They can give you a price quote and give you more information.
If you opt for yearly subscription, you get a special pricing for the Premium plan and you can get it only for $6.16 per month billed annually.
When it came to prices, I didn’t like Coursera. Coursera isn’t like DataCamp, where you can easily see all the information and details.
Instead, you have to log in first, and the site gives the false impression that learning is free.
- Coursera Courses can be taken for free, Guided Projects start at $9.99, and Specializations and Professional Certificates start at $39.99 a month. A one-year subscription to Coursera Plus costs $399, and full degrees start at $9,000.
- Even though many courses are free, if you sign up for more than one paid course, the cost can add up quickly. Since each of these is priced separately, you could end up with high monthly payments or be unhappy.
- Several features, such as graded assignments and mentoring, are charged on a monthly basis.
My Takeaway: DataCamp is not only more open, but it could also be much less expensive. Coursera does offer free courses, but if you want to use paid features, DataCamp will save you a lot of money.
What courses are available?
I noticed right away that DataCamp has a smaller list of courses, which isn’t always a bad thing. There are less than 500 courses to choose from on DataCamp, while Coursera has more than 2000.
Both platforms let you learn offline and on the go with apps.
In addition to courses and career tracks, DataCamp offers skill tracks and career tracks.
- Courses are groups of lessons that you can take individually. Each lesson has a video lecture and some exercises. Data engineering, data manipulation, programming, applied finance, probability and statistics, and management are some of the topics, but there are many more. There are courses in Python, Git, SQL,Tableau, Shell, Scala, and spreadsheets, among others.
- Career Tracks let you take a set of courses that are all meant to help you reach the same goal. “Data Engineers,” “Data Analysts,” and “Machine Learning Scientists” belong to this category.
- Skill Tracks are similar to career tracks in that they are a set of courses designed to help you learn a certain skill. For example, Applied Finance, Text Mining, and Statistics Fundamentals are all courses in a Skill Track.
Coursera has regular classes, online degrees, and specialisations that you can take. In all of these, there are a lot of places to go.
General categories include, but aren’t limited to, Arts and Humanities, Business, Computer Science, Data Science, Information Technology, Math and Logic, Personal Development, Engineering, and Language Learning.
- The video lectures in open source courses are mostly free, but you have to pay for assignments, feedback, and other things.
- Universities and colleges work together to offer online degrees. All colleges are approved, and there are ways to apply and deadlines to meet in order to get a degree online. Degree programmes are made up of modules and can take a number of years to finish. They also cost money, as you might expect. For example, an MBA will cost $21K.
- Specializations include professional certificates, not just certificates of completion, and usually take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to finish.
My Takeaway: Coursera is your only choice if you want to study something that isn’t in the STEM fields.
From looking at the courses and how everything is set up, I think DataCamp is much more organised and easy to use if you want to take an open-source course.
The online degrees seem to be offered by reputable colleges, but I wondered if it made sense to get an online degree through Coursera instead of a non-profit, accredited college that also offers online learning.
How do the instructors compare on DataCamp vs Coursera?
Before signing up for any course, especially one that you’ll take online, you should find out who will be teaching you. The more information you can get, the better.
- All of DataCamp’s just under 300 instructors have profiles. Each course has a link to the instructor’s bio, which is a short paragraph about their background and other courses they teach. But I noticed that some of these biographies were pretty vague, with titles like “Data Scientist at Data Camp” instead of a list of degrees or years of experience in the field.
- Coursera also has profiles for its teachers, who mostly work at colleges or universities. This has a short biography and a list of credentials, such as experience and degrees.
My Takeaway: I came away from the class much more impressed and with more faith in Coursera’s ability to teach well. DataCamp doesn’t have nearly enough information, while Coursera has well-known professors and teachers.
Is DataCamp better than Coursera when it comes to student satisfaction?
Before I really think about learning online, I always like to see what other students and people in the business world think about the company. Even though my own experiences can be different, reputation and track records matter.
- Coursera is based in Mountain View, California, and is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau, which is not unusual for an online business. But complaints about it have given it a F grade.
Based on ninety reviews on Consumer Affairs, Coursera only got 1.5 out of 5 stars, with most students giving it the lowest rating possible.
Common complaints were about prices that were not clear or were not consistent, auto-billing, bad customer service, bad experiences with peer feedback, and false advertising.
- A C plus rating is still concerning for DataCamp, as it is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau.
The company got an average of four out of five stars from three different customer sites. Most students thought the courses were easy to understand and follow, but not as advanced or in-depth as they had hoped.
My Takeaway: There is a clear winner here, but I wouldn’t say that Datacamp is very impressive either. Even though DataCamp didn’t have the big problems that Coursera did, it’s still not the best platform out there.
Who provides better support DataCamp or Coursera?
Support is a very important factor when it comes to choosing the best online learning platform. We shouldn’t stop learning just because we’re having trouble, and it should always be easy to fix problems.
Let’s look at the help that each of these platforms has to offer.
DataCamp Support
This is the DataCamp support page.
Upon clicking “Your DataCamp Account”, you will see this window
Your problems will be addressed in detail here, along with related articles.
Coursera Support
In Coursera’s website, you will find a help tab that looks like this:
The help options appear after clicking on account setup:
Troubleshooting your problems is easy with these articles.
My Takeway: Both DataCamp and Coursera have dedicated support teams that work hard to help their users. It’s also easy to get in touch with their support teams.
No matter which platform you choose, learning will be fun as long as both of them offer good help.
DataCamp Vs Coursera: Who should use it?
DataCamp is clearly made for people who are new to the field of Data Science, and it will help you learn the basics of Data Science. So far, DataCamp is the best platform for beginners.
On the other hand, Coursera is made for people who already know how to read and write. Coursera helps people who are already good at a course learn more about it in depth.
It helps you get a full understanding of the subject, which can help you get a job in this field. Coursera has a lot of different courses, so each platform is different in its own way.
Coursera is a good choice for students who want to get a degree in the field they want, since the degrees are from top universities all over the world
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Conclusion: DataCamp vs Coursera 2024
When it comes to choosing between DataCamp vs Coursera it really depends on what type of course or program you’re looking for as well as how much money you have to spend on them.
If data science is something you’re interested in then DataCamp would be a great option as they specialize in teaching coding skills related to this field along with other related topics such as statistics and machine learning.
On the other hand if your interests lie outside this domain or if flexibility is important to you then Coursera might be a better choice since they offer a wider range of topics at different price points depending on what suits your budget best.
Ultimately though the decision rests with you so take some time to research both platforms before making any commitments!