Coursera vs. Google Classroom

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Coursera
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Coursera is an online catalog of learning content, available to businesses to help them to strengthen critical skills, Develop, retain, and advance critical talent, or use role-based assessments to identify skills gaps and advancement opportunities.
$399
per year per user
Google Classroom
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
N/A
$0
per month
Pricing
CourseraGoogle Classroom
Editions & Modules
Coursera for Teams
$399
per year per user (for less than 125 employees)
Coursera for Business
Contact Sales
Education Fundamentals
$0
per license/per month
Google Workspace for Education Standard
$3
per student/per year
Teaching and Learning Upgrade
$4
per license/per month
Google Workspace for Education Plus
$5
per student/per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CourseraGoogle Classroom
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsEducation Fundamentals Version - 30-day free trial for qualifying institutions.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CourseraGoogle Classroom
Features
CourseraGoogle Classroom
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Coursera
8.8
4 Ratings
3% above category average
Google Classroom
7.9
57 Ratings
4% below category average
Course authoring8.94 Ratings8.149 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.14 Ratings8.337 Ratings
Player/Portal8.94 Ratings9.136 Ratings
Learning content9.54 Ratings6.940 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.24 Ratings7.842 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.03 Ratings8.440 Ratings
Social learning8.94 Ratings7.949 Ratings
Mobile friendly00 Ratings6.355 Ratings
Assignments00 Ratings8.256 Ratings
Compliance management00 Ratings8.132 Ratings
Learning administration00 Ratings7.944 Ratings
Gamification00 Ratings6.57 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning00 Ratings8.810 Ratings
Best Alternatives
CourseraGoogle Classroom
Small Businesses
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.4 out of 10
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Infosec Skills
Infosec Skills
Score 9.9 out of 10
Schoology Learning
Schoology Learning
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Infosec Skills
Infosec Skills
Score 9.9 out of 10
Schoology Learning
Schoology Learning
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CourseraGoogle Classroom
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(17 ratings)
8.6
(77 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.5
(8 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(2 ratings)
1.9
(14 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
2.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
CourseraGoogle Classroom
Likelihood to Recommend
Coursera
The Coursera platform can be a useful part of your overall learning content portfolio if utilized correctly. It's fantastic for asynchronous courses that don't necessarily need a dedicated faculty member (though I'd highly recommend at least having some discussion moderators/student workers) and for offering MOOCs. The ability for the learners to contribute translations really makes it ideal for the international learning community - I am always amazed to see a course we launched with 2-3 languages to quickly have 10-12 more added. This feature really helps expand the audience reach and Coursera has such a large following already that it can grow seemingly overnight.
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Google
Google Classroom allows teachers to post for daily lessons and assignments. It also allows teachers to be able to communicate with students easily outside of class. Students are able to stay connected and know where to find all information and resources easily in a streamlined manner for all of their classes.
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Pros
Coursera
  • Interaction: the student learns by doing. For programming courses, this means programming!
  • Assessments: the courses I'd taken ask students to grade each others work with a rubric. This is hugely effective and permits tests and quizzes to be other than multiple choice.
  • Creativity and enthusiasm of the instructors. Some of the approaches demonstrated real out-of-the-box thinking by the instructors. For example, the Rice Python course was a self-contained website requiring no installation of IDE on one's computer, and the final project was a working version of Asteroids.
  • Low cost of entry: most of the course I enrolled in were free, with an optional fee for certifications. This really gives people the freedom to explore learning. It's almost like a Public Library of Learning.
  • Coursera forces a weekly discipline on the user with lectures and assignments and this really motivates one to put in the effort.
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Google
  • Student-teacher communication - I love using Classroom for this because my students can always go back and check what was on Classroom by looking through the stream. This way they don't have to go dig through emails to find what they're looking for.
  • Posting to multiple classes - I can post the same announcement or assignment to multiple classes at once without having to repeat the process or send separate emails.
  • Streamlining grading - when students turn work in on Classroom, it all goes to one place and then when I'm grading I can open their documents directly from Classroom or my Drive folder. This way, I'm not looking through emails and Google Doc shared files for their assignment.
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Cons
Coursera
  • Some of the courses (very few) have some old information (more than 2 years), and in some areas like technology the information has to be very new and updated.
  • Some professors or people doing videos are not good in front of the camera, they should train their people a little bit more for those things.
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Google
  • The content management of the Classroom is not that good. The sub-section for notes, syllabus, or discussion is missing.
  • It doesn't have parental control feature.
  • It converts the excel output into a normal file. All the formulas and pivots got changed into plain text.
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Likelihood to Renew
Coursera
Constantly renewing already. One of my favourite MOOC platforms.
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Google
Testing is particularly important in online learning, and Google Classroom falls far short of other learning management systems in this regard. Security is also a concern: while account control is reasonable for the account used with Google Classroom, the person controlling a particular account is often able to, for example, forward or download proprietary materials.
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Usability
Coursera
User-friendly and developer-friendly Web UI.
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Google
Simple design and seamless integration with Google tools and drive, but missing some key features. However, since it is limited in overall functions and ability to truly personalize / customize, it is quite user friendly and easy to set up and get going, other than sending out the code to your course or dropping students in via their gmail account. Users of Google Forms and sites will find the layout similar in design.
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Reliability and Availability
Coursera
No answers on this topic
Google
We have had very little trouble in accessing Google Classroom. Our issues, if any, have risen from our server and not the Google servers.
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Support Rating
Coursera
I’ve used it a couple of times and... that did great. They take their time, but in the end they solve your issues.
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Google
Since this platform is provided by Google, the technical support is better than any others, and we are not required to bother about the space constraints for adding the contents. If we have a good uninterrupted internet facility we can access Google Classroom without any delay or lag. They have app support in both Android and iPhone.
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Implementation Rating
Coursera
Coursera is familiar, intuitive, compatible and easy to use and implement.
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Google
It was relatively easy to implement due to the simplicity of the platform. Even our more technology challenged teachers found it easy to get started with Google Classroom.
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Alternatives Considered
Coursera
I think Coursera has the best overall interface. I think you will find that different platforms go in different directions, and have different specialities. For the most part the differences are more in the types of courses they offer than one being particularly better than the other, so it comes down to content for me.
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Google
I haven't tested or evaluated another digital classroom website or application. I feel like Google Classroom is convenient for many reasons such as compatibility to Google docs, slides, etc. I also love the ability to link to YouTube and other sites. I don't know if there would be a site that is easier to maneuver.
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Scalability
Coursera
No answers on this topic
Google
It is very easy to push out this program across our buildings. Teachers are able to use it without much trouble.
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Return on Investment
Coursera
  • The greatest benefit of Coursera is access to quality courses on various subjects that you can either browse or dive in deeply. Customizable, flexible and accessible.
  • Helps our department to recommend trainees courses on this website and gain important knowledge. Also, the courses are provided by big-name universities which helps students in their careers
  • Developing and exploring professional skills.
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Google
  • Students are able to continue learning in a remote environment
  • Parents have a single, consistent organization structure to make it easy to track assignments and progress for multiple children
  • Much better solution than the quickly assembled Zoom-and-gloom of the previous spring when school abruptly went remote with no planning
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