No matter your age, you can find suitable online learning resources in China. A myriad of Chinese companies and organizations provide online courses on a wide array of topics, suitable for all age groups. Despite most large education companies focusing on K–12 tutoring, there is still a diverse offering available.

As reported by Class Central, these past few years proved challenging for Chinese K–12 education due to the “Double Reduction Policy” which implemented tight regulations on for-profit tutoring. In response, many companies have shifted their focus, often pivoting towards adult vocational training, but also branching into more eclectic markets.

As curious online learners ourselves, we’ve explored various open online course platforms in China and curated a list of 24 platforms. This includes popular providers like iCourse and XuetangX. Most of these platforms offer courses created by Chinese universities, which are usually accessible for free.

Wide Variety

After further research, we found that there are more online learning platforms in China than I thought, and they’re not limited to massive open online courses. They include YouTube-like video sharing websites, English learning mobile apps, coding websites for IT professionals, and comprehensive skill-learning platforms similar to Udemy.

In this article, we’re going to summarize all the free and paid Chinese online learning platforms we’ve found.

To make the list easy to navigate, we’ve broken it down into the following categories:

• Chinese MOOC platforms
• English Learning Mobile Apps in China
• Video Sharing Platform: Bilibili
• Udemy-like Skill Learning Platforms in China
• Learn Programming Online in China
• Learn Design Online in China
• Learn Product Management

Chinese Language MOOC Platforms

At Class Central, we’ve been keeping track of Chinese language MOOC platforms, which offer in total more than 100K MOOCs in Chinese — most of them free to the public.

China’s Ministry of Education continues to implement a national digitization strategy that extends to online education. The comprehensive website Chinaooc which launched last year, centralizes all MOOC platforms across mainland China, allowing students to search for MOOCs offered by any and all providers through a single portal.

Top English Learning Mobile Apps in China

After 30 years of robust growth, the English learning market in China has reached maturity. With the surge of mobile internet in China since the 2010s, an influx of mobile apps for English learning has saturated the market. Hence, English learners in China need not worry about finding online resources to learn the language.

We have curated a list of the top English learning mobile apps in China, classifying these apps based on their functions and purposes. These apps can assist you in enhancing your vocabulary, reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills. Furthermore, gamification elements in these apps help keep learners engaged.

Video Sharing Platform: Bilibili

In a past article, we introduced Bilibili, China’s YouTube-like video sharing website. It’s become a major platform for online learning in China, much like YouTube in the rest of the world. More than 18 million people studied on Bilibili in 2018 according to a report by the China Central Television. And this number increased to nearly 100 million in 2020 based on data from NetEase. 

You can learn almost everything on Bilibili, from psychology to history, mathematics to programming, and cooking to drawing. If you don’t want to learn alone, just jump into a #StudyWithMe livestream on Bilibili. #StudyWithMe livestreams reached 1.46 million hours in 2018, according to cctv.com.

Udemy-like Skill Learning Platforms in China 

Tencent Classroom

Tencent Classroom is a Chinese online learning platform for vocational education launched by — you guessed it — Tencent. Courses on Tencent Classroom cover a wide range of subjects, including software development, design, exam preparation, language, music, and even cooking. 

A report from Tencent unveiled that by the end of 2021, Tencent Classroom had launched over 400K courses. The platform has a total of over 400 million users. 

NetEase Cloud Classroom

NetEase Cloud Classroom is a skill learning platform launched by NetEase in 2012. It was integrated into NetEase Youdao in 2019. Unlike NetEase’s MOOC platform iCourse, NetEase Cloud Classroom offers courses made by individual instructors instead of universities.

There are over ten thousand paid courses on the platform on a wide range of topics like languages, finance and management, and programming.

Kaikeba

Kaikeba is a comprehensive Chinese online education platform with over 1000 courses in IT, exam preparation, data and business intelligence, and more. Kaikeba has raised a total of $182.5M in funding over 3 rounds, with a latest funding round of $10M in January 2022.

ForChange

ForChange was launched in 2015 and is an online learning platform that focuses on Python and Life Design. About 60 paid courses are offered on the platform. ForChange received Series B financing from Muhua Capital, the venture capital firm behind XuetangX.

MOOC China

MOOC China is a course aggregator with around 9500 courses from Coursera, edX, FutureLearn, Udemy, XuetangX, and more.

Online Learning Platforms to Learn Programming in China

iMOOC

iMOOC, founded in 2013, is an online learning platform that focuses on IT education. It offers over 3000 online courses structured into career paths covering front-end development, back-end development, mobile development, computer science basics, artificial intelligence, data engineering, data analysis, software testing, and design. According to its about page, over 21 million users have learned on the platform.

Geekbang

Geekbang is an online education platform for IT and digital professionals founded in 2014. The platform offers over 1000 courses and bootcamps for 1.6M users, and cooperates with around 2000 business clients. Geekbang completed its $11M Series B funding round in 2021.

Educoder

Educoder is a MOOC platform for computer science and programming that was launched in July 2016. It offers over 320 free courses and over 2000 free programming exercises. The MOOC platform also allows its verified users to create their own courses, exercises, and online classrooms.

Lanqiao Cloud Course

Lanqiao Cloud Course offers around 700 free and paid courses for IT professionals covering AI, front-end development, back-end development, security, database, cloud computing, Linux, and more. The platform also offers paid bootcamps, and hosts contests and competitions.

LeetCode China

LeetCode China is LeetCode’s Chinese platform for preparing for programming technical interviews. LeetCode created a Chinese branch due to the substantial increase in the traffic from China in 2018. Today, it has over 4 million Chinese users. In December 2021, LeetCode raised nearly $10M from Lightspeed China Partners in a Series A funding round.

Nowcoder

Nowcoder is a platform for preparing for technical interviews similar to LeetCode. It was founded in 2014 and has raised a total of ¥34 million (about $5.34 million) over 3 funding rounds. According to the platform, in early 2022, they crossed 5 million registered users.

Nocturne Programming

Nocturne Programming, or NP for short, is an interactive learning platform for programming launched by Baicizhan. It currently offers ten paid Python courses on subjects like visualization, web scraping, and artificial intelligence.

Design

Canva China

Canva China is part of the Sydney-based online design and publishing platform Canva, which provides easy-to-use design tools for non-designers. Canva jumped into the Chinese market in 2018 with a $40M Series C from Sequoia Capital China. The Design School from Canva China offers plenty of learning materials for prospective designers.

ZCOOL

ZCOOL is a learning and social platform for designers founded in 2006. It has gathered over 14M designers, photographers, illustrators, artists and other creators. ZCOOL has built a separate platform, Gogoup, for learning design online, which offers over 300 courses in graphic design, illustration, UI design, photography, art, and more.

Product Management

Woshipm

Woshipm, or “Everyone is A Product Manager” in Chinese, is a learning platform for product management and operation. Through Qidian Classroom, they offer over 1500 bootcamps and online courses about product management.