5 Apps That Teach You A Skill On The Go
Learning a new skill no longer means carving out an evening for a class. The most reliable pocket of free time most of us have is the one already in our hands: the phone. A good learning app turns a commute or a lunch break into real progress on coding, a language, investing, or whatever you have been meaning to pick up. Here are five of the best apps for teaching yourself a skill on the go in 2026, what each one is good at, and what it costs.
Key takeaways
- The right app depends on the skill: Udacity and Udemy for tech and career skills, LinkedIn Learning for professional breadth, Investopedia for investing, and Duolingo for languages.
- Prices range from completely free (Duolingo, Investopedia Stock Simulator) to premium career programs (Udacity, around $249 a month).
- LinkedIn Learning is the modern home of the old Lynda.com library, and it is often free through your employer or public library.
- Most of these apps have a free tier or free trial, so you can test the fit before paying anything.
- The best app is the one you will actually open daily; short, consistent sessions beat occasional long ones.
The five apps at a glance
| App | Best for | What you learn | Cost in 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Udacity | Serious tech career skills | AI, data science, programming, cloud, cybersecurity | Subscription, around $249/month |
| LinkedIn Learning | Broad professional skills | Business, software, creative, and career topics | About $20 to $40/month; often free via employer or library |
| Udemy | Widest range of one-off skills | Almost anything, from Excel to guitar to marketing | Pay per course, frequently discounted |
| Investopedia Stock Simulator | Learning to invest risk-free | Stock trading and investing fundamentals | Free |
| Duolingo | Languages | 40+ languages through short daily lessons | Free; Super about $12.99/month; Max about $29.99/month |
Udacity: career-focused tech skills
Coding and data skills are hard to learn, but not impossible, and Udacity is built for people who want to go deep enough to change jobs. Its Nanodegree programs bundle courses into career-focused tracks across artificial intelligence, data science, programming, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and autonomous systems, with hands-on projects and personalized project reviews rather than just video lectures.
Strengths: the content is rigorous and current, the projects are practical, and the mentorship and reviews push you to actually finish. Limitations: it is the most expensive option here. Udacity now runs on a subscription, around $249 a month (or roughly $846 for a four-month plan), which buys unlimited catalog access while you are enrolled. That is real money, so it suits people committed to a tech career move more than casual dabblers. Confirm current pricing on Udacity’s site before you enroll.
LinkedIn Learning: the modern Lynda.com
If you remember Lynda.com, this is where it went. LinkedIn acquired Lynda and folded its library into LinkedIn Learning, which retired the old Lynda.com site entirely. The catalog covers business, technology, and creative skills, from spreadsheets and project management to design software and leadership, taught by industry professionals.
Strengths: enormous breadth of professional, workplace-relevant courses, and completion certificates attach directly to your LinkedIn profile. Many people get it free through their employer or public library, which makes it one of the best-value options if you have that access. Limitations: paid individually it runs roughly $20 to $40 a month depending on whether you pay monthly or annually, and it is aimed at broad professional upskilling rather than the deep, project-based technical training Udacity offers. There is a free trial, so start there.
Udemy: a course for almost anything
Where the others specialize, Udemy sprawls. It is an open marketplace with hundreds of thousands of courses on nearly any topic you can name, from Excel formulas and Python to photography, marketing, and music. Anyone can publish a course, which is both the appeal and the catch.
Strengths: unmatched range, lifetime access to courses you buy, and pricing that is hard to beat, since Udemy runs frequent sales that drop individual courses to a fraction of list price. It is the best place to pick up one specific skill cheaply. There is also Udemy Business for teams. Limitations: quality varies because it is open to any instructor, so check ratings, reviews, and the preview before buying. Pay-per-course also means no single subscription covers everything.
Investopedia Stock Simulator: learn to invest without the risk
The stock market is intimidating to start in, and mistakes there cost real money. The Investopedia Stock Simulator removes that risk by letting you trade a virtual portfolio using real market data, so you can learn how buying, selling, and building a position actually work before a single dollar of your own is involved. It is a modern, reputable replacement for older stock-game apps that have since gone dark.
Strengths: it is free, uses real market prices, and pairs naturally with Investopedia’s deep library of plain-language explainers, so you can look up any term the moment you hit it. Limitations: a simulator cannot replicate the emotions of trading with your own money, and it teaches mechanics and fundamentals rather than making you a professional. As a risk-free on-ramp to investing, though, it is hard to beat.
Duolingo: languages, one short lesson at a time
Learning a language is mostly a problem of consistency, and Duolingo is engineered around exactly that. It offers courses in more than 40 languages through short, gamified lessons that make daily practice easy to stick with, complete with streaks and progress tracking that turn learning into a habit.
Strengths: the free tier is genuinely usable, the lessons fit into a few spare minutes, and the gamification keeps you coming back. For paid users, Super Duolingo (about $12.99 a month, or roughly $83.99 a year) removes ads and adds practice features, while Duolingo Max (about $29.99 a month, or roughly $168 a year) layers in AI tools like Explain My Answer, AI roleplay conversations, and video calls with an AI character for speaking practice. Limitations: Duolingo builds a strong foundation but will not make you fluent on its own; you will eventually want real conversation practice, and the newest AI features are limited to the most popular languages.
How to choose
Match the app to the skill and to your budget. For a technical career move, Udacity’s depth justifies its cost. For broad professional development, check whether you already have LinkedIn Learning free through work or a library before paying for anything. For a single specific skill, Udemy on sale is the cheapest route. For investing, start free with Investopedia, and for a language, start free with Duolingo. The most important factor is not which app is objectively best but which one you will open every day; a free app used daily beats a premium one you forget about.
Frequently asked questions
What happened to Lynda.com? LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com and migrated its courses into LinkedIn Learning, then shut down the standalone Lynda.com site. If you had a Lynda account, its content lives on inside LinkedIn Learning.
Are any of these apps completely free? Yes. Duolingo has a fully usable free tier, and the Investopedia Stock Simulator is free. Udemy courses are often deeply discounted, and LinkedIn Learning is frequently free through employers and public libraries.
Which app is best for learning to code? Udacity for structured, career-focused, project-based tech training, or Udemy if you want to grab a specific, cheaper course on one language or framework.
Can you really learn a skill just from an app? For fundamentals and steady practice, absolutely. Apps are excellent for building a base and a daily habit. Advanced mastery usually also needs real-world practice, projects, or conversation, but an app is the best low-friction place to start.
The verdict
There has never been a better time to teach yourself something in the gaps of a busy day. Udacity and Udemy cover technical and one-off skills at opposite ends of the price scale, LinkedIn Learning handles broad professional development (often for free through work or a library), the Investopedia Stock Simulator makes investing approachable, and Duolingo keeps a language habit alive a few minutes at a time. Pick the one that fits the skill you actually want, use its free tier or trial first, and let small daily sessions do the compounding.
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Sherman Hsieh
Independent analysis of enterprise software — ERP, CRM and more
