EdX, founded in the heyday of the MOOC hype, is one of the world’s largest online course providers with an active catalog of just under 4,300 courses, a number that has dropped slightly from late 2023.
Some of the world’s most prestigious universities offer courses on edX, including Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, and Cambridge.
Originally, edX was a nonprofit backed by MIT and Harvard. But in July 2021, it was acquired by 2U for $800 million dollars. To learn more about the acquisition, check out the in-depth article by @dhawal, the founder of Class Central: 2U + edX Analysis: Win for 2U, Risk for edX, Opportunity for Coursera.
In July 2024, 2U filed for bankruptcy and we’re faced with a harsh reality: 2U is bankrupt, edX seems to have stagnated, and Axim Collaborative (the non-profit from the sale that retained the $800 million) has barely made a peep. The future of edX now rests in the hands of 2U’s creditors.
Meanwhile, edX courses continue to attract learners.
The courses in the list below are free to audit — that is, you get access to the course materials for a limited time, but can’t access graded assignments and exams, and don’t receive a certificate of completion.
100 Top Free EdX Courses of All Time
The most popular edX course of all time is Harvard’s CS50 Introduction to Computer Science, which has over 6 million enrollments. Since its launch, CS50 has expanded into a brand that now includes 14 courses. The whole series has received over 10 million enrollments.
Class Central’s @manoel has published a guide to help you select the right CS50 course for you.
Here’s a quick summary of edX’s 100 most popular free-to-audit online courses of all time, based on the number of enrollments:
- Enrollments range from 152K to 6M. There are seven courses with over 1M enrollments
- Together, they account for over 44M enrollments, with an average of 440K enrollments
- 94 courses are in English and 6 are in Spanish
- They’ve received over 3400 reviews on Class Central, with an average of 37 reviews
- Average rating: 4.3/5.0
- 75 courses are beginner level, 20 intermediate, and 5 advanced.
Here are the top 100 free edX courses available for free audit, sorted by number of enrollments:
