What you can learn online for free, by family of subjects
The subjects above fall into a few families, and the family tells you what kind of free course to expect. Computing subjects are rich in free certificates from companies and non-profits; business subjects mix vendor certifications with university audit courses; the humanities and sciences come mostly from universities, where the teaching is free and the credential is paid or absent. The counts are verified courses in each subject, and a course can belong to several subjects at once.
Computing and data
Computer science (58) is the largest subject in the index, built on Harvard's CS50, MIT OpenCourseWare, Stanford Engineering Everywhere and Princeton's courses on Coursera. Programming (50) overlaps with it and adds freeCodeCamp's project-based certifications; Python (28) collects the language-specific courses from MIT, IBM and others. Data science (42) spans statistics, analysis and machine learning, much of it in edX audit courses. IT (25) and cyber security (12) are the vendor-led corner, where free certificates and badges from IBM, AWS and freeCodeCamp sit next to Microsoft Learn paths and university introductions.
Business and office skills
Business (50) covers strategy, finance, operations and entrepreneurship from universities and companies, and management (17) narrows that to teams, projects and decisions. Marketing (27) and digital marketing (22) are where free vendor certifications from Google and HubSpot are concentrated. Accounting (6) and Excel (7) are small but heavily searched; free online courses on Excel come from Alison, Microsoft Learn and Udemy, and the accounting courses cover bookkeeping and financial statements.
Language and writing
English (16) serves both learners of English as a second language and fluent speakers working on grammar and writing. Languages (5) is small: a first course in Korean, two English grammar courses, and freeCodeCamp's two English for Developers certifications, which come with a free certificate. Writing (9) covers essays, academic and business writing, rhetoric, a poetry workshop and grammar, from universities, Khan Academy and HubSpot.
Arts and design
Art (8) is mostly art history and the arts: Egyptian art, architecture, Hamlet, a poetry workshop and Yale's listening course, plus introductions to graphic design; graphic design (6) covers design basics, Canva and the CSS and accessibility side of web design; and interior design (6) covers decorating, styles, colours and materials, children's rooms and 3D visualisation, almost entirely from Alison. These are the subjects where a free certificate is hardest to find: the courses are free to study or audit, but every certificate on offer is a paid one.
Science, health and society
Mathematics (29) runs from Khan Academy's mastery practice through MIT OpenCourseWare to edX audit courses, and is the most searched of the free online classes we cover, by the search volumes in our keyword research. Psychology (19) draws on Berkeley, Stanford and Harvard courses on edX plus Yale lectures, and history (17) on Harvard audit courses and the Open Yale and Oxford lecture series. Nutrition (8) pairs Alison courses with Harvard and Stanford courses on edX, and law (6) covers contract law, constitutional interpretation, justice, children's rights, environmental law and computer science for lawyers.
Courses for seniors
Free online courses for seniors (32) is not a discipline but an editorial selection: self-paced courses with no prerequisites, drawn from subjects popular with older learners: philosophy, history, Shakespeare, popular science, personal finance and the science of well-being. Each course on it also appears under its own subject.
Which subjects have free certificates, and which are mostly audit
Whether a subject offers a free certificate depends on who teaches it. Company and non-profit providers that issue certificates issue them free; universities on edX and Coursera charge for them, with Harvard's CS50 site and Stanford's medical-education activities the exceptions; open lecture sites issue none. The pattern across the index is consistent.
- Free certificates are plentiful in programming, marketing, digital marketing, computer science, IT, data science and Python, thanks to freeCodeCamp, Google, HubSpot, IBM, AWS and the CS50 family; the hubs for those subjects are linked above.
- A smaller number of free certificates exist in business, cyber security, psychology, management, English and languages, and only an isolated course in Excel, mathematics, writing, nutrition and law.
- No listed course offers a free certificate in accounting, art, graphic design, interior design, history, philosophy or science; the certificates there are paid, mostly Alison's or edX verified certificates.
- Audit-only courses, where access is time-limited and graded work is paid, make up a large share of law, management, psychology, art and data science, because those subjects lean on edX and MITx.
- For the credential first and the subject second, use the free certification courses hub, which cuts across subjects.
How a subject page ranks its courses
The order on a subject page is editorial, not a popularity measure. We record no enrolment figures, ratings or reviews, so none of those can influence it. An editor places the courses whose primary subject is that page at the top, in an order the editor chooses; every other course follows in a fixed sequence: fully free courses before free-to-audit ones, then courses with a free certificate before those with a paid certificate before those with none, and alphabetical by title after that.
The result is that the first rows of English or any other subject are the ones we would send a beginner to, and the rest of the table is ordered by how much you get without paying. Filters for provider, cost, certificate and level sit above every table, and most subject pages open with a short strip of picks, each with the reason it was chosen.