Cursa

Cursa is a free online course library for learners, used through its website and its iOS and Android app. It calls itself "The only course platform with free online courses and free certificates", and the homepage says it offers over 5,000 online courses with digital certificates that you can study for free. The app counts more than 10 million installs and a 4.8/5 rating in the app stores. The site is run by Medeiros Tecnologia Ltda, and besides English it runs versions with courses in Spanish, French, Portuguese and Hindi.

The pitch is simple: nothing is charged, not the course and not the certificate at the end. The about section describes Cursa as a project focused on offering free courses and content through the website and an app for iOS and Android, open any day and at any time.

What the catalog covers

The homepage breaks the library into large areas with their course counts: Technology and Programming (551), Professional Skills (332), Languages (258), Business and Marketing (232), School Subjects (197), Health (186), Design and Creative Arts (169), Music and Singing (161), Hobbies and Special Interests (138) and Beauty and Aesthetics (72).

Underneath, the subjects go from coding to trades. The topic list shows Python (20 courses), JavaScript (14), Adobe Photoshop (10), machine learning (10), Excel (10), Flutter and Unity (9 each), CSS, HTML and Canva (8 each), and smaller sets for NodeJS, AWS, MongoDB, Figma, WordPress, Java and ChatGPT. Practical and vocational topics include electrician training (16 courses), customer service (10), first aid (6), bakery, house painting, women's haircutting, ombre brows and basic electronics. Language learners get English (17 courses), French, Spanish and German A1, plus English grammar and business English, and the languages area lists courses in Japanese, Italian, Korean and Chinese as well. The music area runs to singing, music production and DJ, piano, electric, classical and bass guitar, drums, violin and flute.

The Design and Creative Arts page shows how deep one area goes. It splits into graphic design (32 courses), video editing (30), UX and UI design (28), drawing and painting (25), image and photo editing (20), architectural design (18) and animation and 3D design (16). Tools taught include Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, Canva, CorelDRAW, Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut, Filmora, Blender, Cinema 4D, AutoCAD, Revit, SketchUp and Rhino 3D.

What a course looks like

Each course card shows a rating with its number of reviews, a running time and a count of exercises. The homepage list headed Best free video courses starts with Web Development for beginners (4.7 from 793 reviews, 5h21m, 30 exercises), English lessons (4.6 from 803 reviews, 7h04m, 36 exercises), First Aid Training (4.7 from 652 reviews, 2h17m, 51 exercises), French for beginners (4.6 from 608 reviews), a Digital Marketing course (4.6 from 556 reviews) and Human resource management concepts (4.8 from 459 reviews).

Course length varies widely. In the business administration track, Entrepreneurship 101 runs 1h15m with 6 exercises, while the Entrepreneurship course runs 43h30m with 43 exercises and Business Fundamentals for Entrepreneurs runs 23h49m with 50 exercises. On the design page, a Photoshop Full Course runs 9h08m with 53 exercises, and a Perspective Drawing Masterclass runs 18h41m.

The design page lists three formats: video courses, audio courses and text courses. Alongside the videos, Cursa offers more than 1,000 free audiobooks and ebooks under the heading "Learn by listening or reading!", for example a complete graphic design course using Canva and an infographic design guide.

Exercises, quizzes and tutorials

Practice is a large part of the offer. The homepage says the exercises are produced exclusively for the classes and counts more than 60 thousand free exercises to test your knowledge during courses. There is also a separate quiz library, with a link to 1,358 quizzes; the examples range from glucose-lowering drugs for type 2 diabetes (16 questions) and English articles (17 questions) to numerical methods for physics and intellectual property strategy for new ventures, each marked with a difficulty level. Step-by-step interactive tutorials walk through a single task, such as building a first web page with HTML and CSS in 9 steps or freeing up storage on a Windows drive.

For learners who do not know where to start, Cursa offers knowledge trails: sets of courses for a goal, such as becoming a front-end or software developer, starting a business, earning extra income from home, or working as an operator or inspector in supermarkets. The homepage names others, from becoming a complete web developer to learning German from basics to advanced.

The free certificate

At the end of a course you get free access to a digital certificate of course completion with a QR code. The certificate can only be issued in the app, from Google Play or the App Store, so a learner can study on the website and use the app just to issue it, or take the whole course in the app. Once generated, the certificate image is saved to the phone's photo gallery and sent to your email. The site says you can use it to improve your resume, move up in your career or position, and enrich your knowledge. The site calls it "Free and Valid"; it is a certificate of course completion issued by Cursa.

Who it suits

Cursa suits learners who want to try a subject at no cost and come away with a certificate: a job seeker adding Excel, customer service or first aid to a resume, a student working on school subjects or a language, a hobbyist learning guitar or drawing, or someone who wants to learn Blender, Figma or Premiere Pro without a subscription. The site addresses unemployed learners directly, saying the free certified courses let them use their free time to study and add the results to a resume. The mix of video, audio and text suits people who study on a phone in short sessions.

It is a weaker fit for learners who need live teaching, a tutor who reviews their work, or a formal qualification, since the courses are self-paced and the certificate is a completion record. Course depth also varies from short introductions to long masterclasses, so it pays to check the running time and exercise count on each card. As a free library with a very wide range and real practice built in, it is easy to start with and costs nothing to keep using.