The official guide to courses by Straighterline, Study, et al: We want YOUR input!

[sysmai]

Provider: Sophia Learning
Course: Ancient Greek Philosophers 
Course content: Mostly text presentation. Video available for some. The whole course is open book so I suggest text format either way.
Final exam format: ALL OPEN BOOK. Final Exam is an essay 700 - 1000 words manually graded. Easy as long as you follow the instructions. I literally gave the definitions from the text as asked.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: OPEN BOOK
Time taken on course: 1 Week at an easy pace
Familiarity with subject before course: Never took a philosophy course before this. How would you have scored on the final with no preparation? Not well as the material required is in the text
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: REGISTER FOR THE CLASS WITH THE DEVICE YOU PLAN TO USE FOR THE EXAM. I WOULD NOT SUGGEST A PHONE. The layout for the exam allows you to search the text for the answer. The practice exam shows you where to look for the answers. The questions on the milestone only match in type. The wording can get a little tricky. I missed 1 of 25.
1-10 Difficulty level: Tricky wording on the exam is the only thing that raises the difficulty from 1 to 3. If you are not good at writing open book essays then maybe a 4.
This course is not proctored. It uses your typing style for verification. In Ancient Greek Philosophers it is all multiple choice except the final essay so the way you type is not really a thing. I definitely recommend this course because of it being ACE evaluated and without the irritating rules of a video camera and silent room.

[MidLifeCrisis]

Provider: Saylor
Course: CUST 105
Course content: 7 Modules, usual Saylor of readings/videos. In theory you have to produce a 1500 word customer service manual for the 7th module but its not assessed...
Final exam format: 50 odd questions. Multiple choice with 4 answers.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: 
Time taken on course: Not long. Hour tops. 
Familiarity with subject before course: Worked retail on and off through life.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: I did this purely to see what I would get just jumping straight into exams. I literally only opened the coursework to fill out the content question above. If you have ever worked retail or dealt with customers in some capacity then its a low effort way to get some credits. Even if not I think its reasonably logical to figure out.  
1-10 Difficulty level: 2.

[Chankosumo]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Religion 101: Intro to World Religions
Course content: Text & Videos 
Final exam format: 100 multiple choices
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Have you seen the information before in the course, or was it a total curve ball?
Pretty much all of the final exam questions  were covered in the course content and the quizzes. 
Time taken on course: Hours? Weeks? Days? I did it in 4 days spending about 2 hours/day. I did skip some of the videos (about 15-20% of all) as I felt I had some basic knowledge on some of the subjects.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: My end score was 89%. The class was fairly easy. If you find the subject somewhat interesting you should have no issue even if you have zero prior knowledge, you might even enjoy the class. Now, the main reason I took this class is to cover the "5A" requirement for UMPI (from SDC's website we see that it does indeed transfer to a "5A" UMPI equivalent)  if one day I end up applying there. Browsing the guides, we often see Sophia's "Introduction to Sociology: Embracing Diversity and Collaboration" being recommended to cover this requirement. The main argument behind taking Sophia's class probably has to do with cost. However, despite the few extra bucks spent on Study's Religion class, the moment I saw this class as an alternative to Sophia's class I was certain this would be the one I'll take. Religion 101 has no touchstones unlike Sophia's Sociology class so it can be finished ... well, in a day if you really chase speed. But the main reason is the subject itself. Let me mention something very important here - this class, Religion 101: Intro to World Religions, has its ACE recommendation expiring on 11/30/2022. They may extend this, but it may be a good idea to start and finish this class soon as we can never be certain about ACE recommendations. I wholeheartedly suggest people take this class, specially if you need something to cover UMPI's "5A" GEC (or other Universities' similar requirements), specially if your alternative is something like Sophia's class. In my humble and still fairly inexperienced opinion, this course should be the default recommendation. 
 
1-10 Difficulty level: 2.

[Chankosumo]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Biology 101L: Intro to Biology with Lab
Course content: Videos, many of them! Lab portion was entertaining.
Final exam format: 70 multiple choice questions.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Content, quizzes and Labs did prepare me for the final exam.
Time taken on course: About 2 weeks; 2-3h/day
Familiarity with subject before course: limited; let's say I was familiar with about 10% to 15% of the course content
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  My end score was 83%. Scoring as high as possible on quizzes and Lab was in my case a must (and it should be for everyone!) as I am not exactly a "science" person. My not-so-great English also makes it harder when terminology or some scientific words which look so similar. I thoroughly enjoyed the Lab portion. It felt like a video game, there is no time pressure or anything to make me anxious. I took my time doing the labs so I can learn more of the content. While it may be only a personal preference, I believe the Lab is a good way to learn. The Lab exercises follow the course content. While you can take any lab exercise with no order, I believe it is much easier to do the Lab after the corresponding course module as it helps you re-learn what you already learned in the course content. My advice is not to rush this course. Try to enjoy the class as you learn with taking a "module-lab-module-lab-module-lab..." pattern. While it may feel like a lengthy course, it is not a hard one. At times I was even telling myself "I wish there were more labs ...". 
1-10 Difficulty level: 4.

[spohara]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Computer Science 105: Introduction to Operating Systems
Course content: Videos, quizzes, chapter practice tests, course practice test
Final exam format: 100 question multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Most questions are directly from the quizzes or very close
Time taken on course: ~8hrs spread over 2 calendar days (I had 10 lessons already finished, and I took 0 practice exams, which saves around 3hrs)
Familiarity with subject before course: High - The core of the course is basically "Are you a pretty decent computers guy and used them a lot (especially in a corporate context)?". The OSI model stuff was easy for me too because 15 years ago I worked as a technician doing layer 1-3 stuff, pluck and chuck equipment, configure some network nodes. Definitely needed a refresher, but it was nothing new.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: There are some contradictory questions, lots of repeat stuff (and even some overlap with other courses like computer architecture). Repetition isn't a bad thing I guess for learning, but a lot of it seemed stitched together. Also there are some horrible questions on both quizzes and the exam. I just rolled with those punches. Overall, I did learn a handful of new things, but this is mostly just stuff you've already picked up by using computers for a long time.
1-10 Difficulty level: 2-3 if you're a "computer person", done your own build, set up home networks, etc. Maybe 5-6 otherwise? Hard to say.

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Provider: Study.com
Course: Computer Science 306: Computer Architecture
Course content: Videos, quizzes, practical exercises in Logisim
Final exam format: 100 question multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Content matches up to the lessons pretty well (though final was 10 points lower than practice test for me, still seemed like content we went over I just couldn't remember)
Time taken on course: ~50 hours
Familiarity with subject before course: High.  I've worked as an electronics technician, and boolean logic/logic gates were familiar.  Never did a K-Map before this course but they aren't too tough
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: 85% of this course is "have you ever done a build or spent too much time surfing newegg.com?"  The remaining 15% - they get into the absolute nitty gritty of digital electronics (well they just use the logic gates, not the actual electricity, but the difference is literally adding a leg to each gate, then drawing to ground and the +5v).  I have done this professionally reverse engineering basic DC circuits as recently as 2016 and I was lost in the sauce when it came to some of this.  Chapter 5 and 6 are soul eating if you're trying to just use the resources in the course.  What you really need to do is go to Neso Academy on youtube, and watch his digital electronics course.  That is far longer than the entire SDC course just to do two chapters.  But if you want to learn to the level that you can complete all the logisim stuff, you're going to need to go through most of it.
1-10 Difficulty level: If you game it, 2-3. The second assignment is a cake walk, and later chapters are fairly easy.  The test isn't bad. That's enough points to get you to 70-80%. If you try to complete both assignments and learn all the content, 7-10 depending on your experience level.  I am fairly proficient, and personally I found CH 5-6 to be around an 8 WITH outside resources to help.  The course content is absolutely miserable, and glosses over key details.

[spohara]

Provider: Study.com
Course: CS 303: Database Management
Course content: Placement test available, 12 chapters, 70 quizes/lessons, one final project, one final exam
Final exam format: Did not take yet. I took my two for the month already, and I'm just waiting until next month to grab this one (had a 30% off promo, so its $70 regardless of if I pay now or in a week)
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Did not take yet
Time taken on course: Around 6 hours
Familiarity with subject before course: High. I do SQL queries every day, but I only have read access to the database. Still it was enough knowledge to really get through the course quickly.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This one is a cake walk. If you don't know any SQL, I first learned on Khan Academy which I think has a great format for learning this stuff (video+code on the same screen to do the SQL as you learn). Once you know that you don't even really have to understand DDL, it will just sort of come to you because SQL is basically talking to the computer in caveman English. I did take the placement test and I think I got one wrong. The remaining quizzes I mostly skipped videos and skimmed the material (one to two minutes) and took the quiz. The final project is a breeze, super basic stuff and they give you half the answers (and a lot of what they don't give you is just syntax you can get in 2 seconds by googling if you need to. It probably took about 2 hours all said and done, but I did a lot of stop and start and goofing off in between. It takes more time to get your screenshots and copy paste everything into word than anything else.
1-10 Difficulty level: 2. Honestly still a 2 even if you don't have experience. I don't know what all the lessons are like (probably a lot of inaccuracies and poorly worded questions and conflicting information from lesson to lesson which is my SDC experience so far), but I imagine most people can probably get through this in well under 20 hours without any problems.

[spohara]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Business 303: Management Information Systems
Course content: Videos, quizzes, 3 written assignments (3-5 pg each), final exam
Final exam format: 70 multiple choice questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Final exam was in line with my average score from practices, very closely aligned to course content/quizzes/practice tests
Time taken on course: I did listen to all videos (did them on my commute), so that is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 hours. Having done most of the course casually, I decided to do 3 practice exams, and when I 'only' got an 86 on the third, I decided to take two more at about 15 min a piece (around 1:15 total) plus about 2-3 hours to write one paper. Total was under 20 hours.
Familiarity with subject before course: I've never taken a business class before, and feel like my answer should be low, but based on the course content, I guess I have to answer high - I barely learned anything new. At most I have some new dreadful corporate jargon to use for concepts everyone already intuitively understands.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: A few notes - I only did one paper, I literally did not care, so I wrote around 900 words, looked up a handful of very easy to find news articles online (I did Coke vs Pepsi, a perennial favorite comparison topic in absolutely any category and most importantly, easy to find). I did not go in depth at all, just used the readily available info about the one campaign each article wrote about. No scholarly articles. Got 25/30. Combined with 100 on quizzes and a 93 on the final that is good enough. This was really a pointless course from a learning perspective, but it is an easy 3 hours and I treated it as such.
1-10 Difficulty level: 1. I think about 80% of this is common sense and just existing in 2022. We all get targeted with enough ads that we already know what companies are doing, and we all engage in e-commerce unless you live under a rock. There were a handful of terms I was less familiar with, so it was easy to focus in on some of those. This is objectively the easiest course I've taken so far toward this degree, even though it took a bit longer than the database one, that was just because I didn't actually take the lessons.

[spohara]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Math 108: Discrete Math
Course content: Videos, quizzes, final exam
Final exam format: 100 multiple choice questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Material is very similar to practice tests, but has more of the harder type questions (more mathy than the practice)
Time taken on course: I picked this up and put it down so much, it is hard to say. Probably in the neighborhood of 20-30 hrs.
Familiarity with subject before course: Varies a lot. About half of it I already knew pretty well, about 20% I somewhat knew but needed to learn more or brush up on. Then there was a chunk that was new to me.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: The bulk of the course is really Ch 4-7 and Ch 9. For all of these you probably need to consult outside sources. Honestly, Ch 4-6 are very easy, but the course material is poor, and riddled with errors. I recommend finding the relevant Khan academy video where there is one. Once you understand the intuition there you'll be rock solid. The chapter on recursion is mostly not that hard and the optional lesson is tough, but I recommend taking the time to learn it (again, consult outside resources). The chapter on matrices, again, Khan academy is the way to go and it is actually very easy. I just forgot all the matrix algebra from 20+ years ago, and the course doesn't explain the operations at all (just goes right into an example without explaining what they're doing).
1-10 Difficulty level: Really hard to rate. Some of it was fairly tough but there were large swaths that were easy, or were hard until I found an actual good resource, then it was easy. On the whole, I think it is probably very possible to pass by just blowing through the course and not worrying about fully understanding the challenging topics. Some of the topics are harder to get good resources on, especially the recursion stuff. But I have the feeling this is going to come back up in grad school so I stuck with it. So this course is somewhere between a 4 and an 8 depending on how much you actually care to understand the material.

[spohara]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Computer Science 109: Introduction to Programming
Course content: Videos, quizzes, coding exercises final exam
Final exam format: Multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Very similar, maybe slightly different code snippets
Time taken on course: I just took this but I already can't remember.  I think it was honestly closer to 40 hrs when you add up all the time writing and debugging code.
Familiarity with subject before course: I learned a good bit of Java about 10 years ago, but needed a major refresher before doing the data structures class.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This course honestly seems far more involved than I expected for an Intro to Programming class, and I was pleasantly surprised that I learned a good deal.  There was almost nothing about data structures and algorithms last time I learned this, and I didn't do much GUI stuff either.  As for the pitfalls: their code straight up doesn't work in some sections. I actually copied and pasted figuring I hit a typo manually writing, when I realized there were some bad sections of code and they were entirely due to poor practices.  Don't try to build a class or method with a name when one of your imported packages already has a class or method with that name.  Then there are some sections that are ambiguous where there are multiple snippets of code, and some go into the full program, and some are throw aways, and nothing to indicate which is which leaving you to scratch your head about what to do in some places.  There also isn't nearly enough code practice or independence.  Nothing where you actually try to write some programs from scratch or solve a problem with what you already know.
1-10 Difficulty level: 4-5.  This is fairly involved for an intro course, but it is not very difficult overall.  Really good lead in to data structures, and even though I wanted to do as little Java as possible, I'm glad I decided to do this instead of the OD intro to programming (based in a language I actually will use), because you need it in the next course.

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Provider: Study.com
Course: Computer Science 201: Data Structures
Course content: Videos, quizzes, final exam
Final exam format: multiple choice questions - seemed like not that many, maybe 70?
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: As usual, pretty similar, different bits of code to interpret
Time taken on course: Hard to say since I worked on this, then switched over to the intro to programming then back.  I'd guess about 40 additional hours?
Familiarity with subject before course: Not much at all honestly.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This has all the pitfalls common to SDC courses - you can't really learn the material without consulting outside sources.  They gloss over the important things, have gaps, I can't remember if there were errors in the content on this one or not, but probably.  Big O is not as scary as it seems.
1-10 Difficulty level: To pass this is about a 3.  If you have passed Intro to Programming, and check out the other comments on this site about the assignment, you have 200 points already, because the assignment will be a breeze.  But this is some of the more difficult material out there and it is honestly somewhere around a 7 or 8 to truly get. I tried and there are still elements I'm not as clear on as I want to be (just too burned out at this point to look at it harder)

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Provider: Saylor Academy
Course: CS302: Software Engineering
Course content: Videos, readings, quizzes, final exam
Final exam format: 60 multiple choice questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Very different from unit quizzes, I didn't take a practice exam.
Time taken on course: 6-10 hours of skimming - this course is DENSE, so when I say skim, I really was skimming.
Familiarity with subject before course: This course revisits a lot from the SDC Systems Analysis, and the OOP stuff from Intro to Programming.  I also work in a software development environment (Product Owner side of things), and so a lot of this stuff I understand from a practical perspective, but not an academic one.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Well, there is an old adage that you get what you pay for and this course was worth every penny (free).  Start with the broken links.  Move on to the text which must have been from the 90's or early 2000's?  Then lets move on to the lack of coherence between lessons.  You never really feel like you're learning anything or expounding upon topics, you just feel like you're moving through a wall of text.  Now to be fair, I skipped a lot of it.  As far as the exam goes, know UML like a champ, the OOP you'll know just fine from SDC (if you've taken the courses), you'll have a fair foundation in SDLC.  Learn testing and beyond just what the four levels of testing are.  Spend some time there as well as the roles of PM vs Software engineer.  Terms and definitions made up a good bit of this.  Where you see bullets or terms and hyphenated definitions, stop and memorize. Their definitions of software engineer, computer science, electrical engineering, computer engineering and mechanical engineering were impossible to sort through for me, even though I'm pretty sure I understand these disciplines pretty well.  Anyway, I got a 75%.  For comparison the bulk of my SDC scores were in the 80-90's range.
1-10 Difficulty level: 4 to understand the content and concepts, 7 to pass the course.  I can't say it is too hard getting a first time pass after spending only 10 hours, but not for the faint of heart, and not at all fun.

[TopHatWombat]

Provider: Sophia
Course: Business Law
Course content: Text with audio narration. No additional purchases required. Three units, each with a test, plus a comprehensive final. One short essay assignment.
Final exam format: 25 multiple-choice questions.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Both the unit exams and final exam (milestones) were well aligned with challenge questions inside each lesson. When I take a Sophia course, I always read and answer each of the three quiz questions in each lesson, even though you only need to do one. I find this to be good preparation for the milestones.
Time taken on course: About 12 hours over 6 days. The touchstone essay only took one hour. I took the time to really learn the material, including following and reading most of the external links, as well as looking up and reading some of the referenced court cases. If you're not interested in learning the material, and just want the badge, you could probably complete the course in just a few hours, touchstone included.
Familiarity with subject before course: Substantial familiarity with some subjects, such as real estate law and intellectual property law. Some limited professional experience with UCC matters. No previous exposure to topics like legal theory, contracts, and torts. With zero preparation, a passing grade on the final would have been likely, but only because you can Ctrl-F through the course material in an adjacent pane.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: As other reviews have mentioned, unit two on contracts and torts is the most difficult. I had particular difficulty with the section on strict product liability. I suggest reading the touchstone case study and grading rubric before starting unit two, so that you'll understand what the assignment is about. Then, as you go through unit two, copy and paste snippets from the lesson material into a separate document for quicker reference later on. This made writing the touchstone pretty quick.
1-10 Difficulty level: 5. It was right in line with what I would expect from a 200-level college course.