My name is belkacem and i am working as freelancer for while now ; I start working at
odesk.com and i still , and it's my main website , and try my luck in
elance.com because i have some experiences from
odesk.com , but the environment work in
elance.com(with my respect) is suck and i think that
odesk.com is better ; and please this not just a critique article or something like a free ad for
odesk.com or who is the best , but my opinion is coming from an objectivity reason .
Category of works :
In
odesk.com i can add a category of my works and change it any time you want , without any problems and for free , but
elance.com push you to choose one category at first time when you create your accounts , so you have to upgrade to Individual for $10/month to add additional category immediately.
Test and skills :
In
odesk.com you can take any tests of skills that does not match with your category and for free and the result will shown without any problems , but in other hand
elance.com also their test are free and even you can take skills that does not match with your category too , but in the basic member ship you can't show more than 10 skills , and if you want to show more than 10 skills you should upgrade to premium member ship that it's expensive.
Clients :
I have seen is
odesk.com some clients does not respond to your apply (Accept or decline) but they are few , but in
elance.com they not responding at all! the there is less than 1% of client that respond to your apply , i don't now if this is my problem or not , i am taking every client seriously and apply with full carefully and i tired to post a perfect apply to client and no body respond , at least decline my post and that done it's free !
Applying to job :
in
odesk.com you can apply 20 times and if you declined by client or you don't work you can choose another work , but you can't pass 20 posts at any time.
in
elance.com you have 40 connects to apply if you have applied you lose one and if you have 0 connect that's mean no work till the next month to charge 40 connects again , or you can by more connects to apply to jobs (that's my be you will not apply to it).