Free certificates
Free certificates in engineering and CAD
Engineering software vendors publish their training for free because their interest is the spread of the tool. This is the least known and, per hour spent, one of the most rewarding directions here: the certificate carries the vendor's name and no licence purchase is involved.
Last checked:
9 certificates · Engineering and CAD
MATLAB Onramp and 10+ other Onramps
certificateMathWorks · ~2 h
The best return on time in the whole directory: each Onramp is two hours and issues its own certificate. No MATLAB licence needed, it all runs in the browser.
strong brandInnovation Courses: 913 free courses
digital badgeAnsys · ~6 h
Fluent, Mechanical, HFSS, LS-DYNA and more. The Credly badge arrives by email within an hour.
Ansys's paid certification is not sold in Georgia; the free courses work regardless.
strong brandFusion, AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor: self-paced courses
certificateAutodesk · ~15 h
A completion certificate requires 75% on the final test. The Autodesk Certified User exam is separately paid.
moderate weightFesto LX: Water Technology programme
certificateFesto · ~12 h
A nine-module programme with a free certificate. Festo's industrial certification is a separate, paid line.
moderate weightEnergy University: 300+ courses
certificateSchneider Electric · ~20 h
Energy efficiency, data centres, electrical systems. Both the courses and the certificates are free.
The PEM and DCCA certifications are separately paid.
moderate weightXcelerator Academy: Simcenter STAR-CCM+ courses
certificateSiemens · ~20 h
23 free courses for students and teachers. Only China is excluded.
SheerID academic verification is required; Georgian university addresses are often checked by hand.
moderate weight50+ interactive courses in the Wolfram Language
certificateWolfram U · ~12 h
Signal and image processing, statistics, visualisation. The certificate is free.
moderate weightEntry Level openBIM
exam is free toobuildingSMART International · ~6 h
The entry level is free, exam included. Foundation and above are paid, and there is no chapter in Georgia.
weak signalEDGE Academy: solar energy fundamentals
certificateSolarEdge · ~2 h
A 90-minute course with a certificate of participation. Full installer certification requires regional training.
weak signal
Advertised as free, and is not
Alison
The course is free, the certificate is not: roughly €21-26, and €34-37 for a diploma. What you get for free is a Learner Record, which is a transcript rather than a certificate.
Coursera Financial Aid
No longer a guaranteed 100%. When approved it is a 50-100% discount that also depends on your location. You apply per course rather than per specialisation, and a decision takes up to 16 days.
Great Learning Academy
The page title says free certificate; their own FAQ says the certificate is issued after completing the course and paying the fee. The fee only appears at the end.
edX and FutureLearn
The material is free, the certificate is not. edX financial aid is an 80% discount, so a card is still needed. FutureLearn's free access is limited to the course duration plus 14 days.
SOLIDWORKS CSWA
The free voucher only comes with a purchased student licence, an accredited institution or a company contract. There is no accredited provider in Georgia, so no free route exists.
IATA
There is no free IATA certificate. Sites promising a free IATA-certified course issue their own document, not IATA's.
How to read this list
Every row states three things: what kind of document you walk away with, how much weight it carries with an employer, and when it was last checked on the provider's own page. The mark exam is free too is the rarest and means the most: it says that even the qualifying exam costs nothing.
Where a row has a note set off by a red line, there is a condition or a risk attached: a deadline, a country restriction, a student status requirement, or the fact that we could not confirm something on the provider's page. Those notes are not hidden, because they are what decides whether you lose an evening.
If you are looking for work in this field, see remote vacancies and compare what employers are actually asking for. That section is written in Georgian.
Frequently asked questions
Are there genuinely free certificates in Engineering and CAD?
Yes. This page collects only those Engineering and CAD certificates where the document itself is free and no card is asked for. MathWorks: MATLAB Onramp and 10+ other Onramps is one of them. Every row states what kind of document you receive and when it was last checked.
Where should I start if Engineering and CAD is new to me?
Start with a row marked as a strong brand: that means the document is issued by the vendor itself or by a recognised institution, and an employer will know the name. Two of those are worth more than ten completion papers from a course marketplace.
What does free mean on this list?
That the document itself, the certificate or the badge, is issued at zero cost. That is not the same as a free course: the most common arrangement on this market is exactly the one where the studying is free and the certificate costs $20-70 at the end. Platforms that work that way are not listed as certificates here, they are in the warnings block.
Do I need a bank card?
One condition for being on this list is that no card is asked for, neither for payment nor for identity verification. The few exceptions are marked individually, for example time-limited offers where one exam is paid and the next one is free after it.
Are these certificates available from Georgia?
Yes. Georgia appears on no major vendor's restriction list: the recurring exclusions in the AWS and Microsoft terms are Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Russia and Crimea. Where a country restriction does exist it is written on that specific card.
Which free certificate actually counts with an employer?
The one issued by the vendor itself or by a recognised institution: Google, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Oracle, HubSpot, Harvard's CS50. A completion paper from a course marketplace is a weak signal and we mark it as one. That is why every card states what weight the document carries.