What is the most cost effective way to learn web development?
In this article, you are going to learn about 17 of the best free online web development courses, which you can start today to help you become a web developer.
Whether you’re looking for a career change, a higher salary, or just want to have some fun building your own websites, these coding courses will help you.
4 best websites for free online web development courses
Although there are tons of websites that provide free lessons on coding in one way or another (for example, there are lots of YouTube videos on programming), this article focuses 4 websites which offer high quality coding courses that thousands of students have taken.
These 4 websites generally offer a mix of free and paid online courses, so the links provided below take you to the free courses that are offered:
You can jump to any of these websites right now, if you want to begin exploring their free programming and web design courses, or you can take a look below at some of the selected courses offered on these websites.
HTML & CSS Courses
If you are new to web development, you’ll want to begin by learning the basics of HTML & CSS, since this is the foundation of web development in general.
Fortunately, there are a wide variety of free HMTL & CSS online courses, so browse some of the courses listed below, and see which one works best for you.
1. HTML & CSS Course at Codecademy
In this course you’ll learn the fundamentals of HTML, including how to create paragraphs, lists, tables, divs, and spans. (If you don’t know what some of these terms mean, then take this course to find out!)
You’ll also get an introduction to CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), where you’ll learn how to use CSS to make your HTML pages look great. You’ll learn about selectors, including class and ID selectors, as well as how to position elements on a page with CSS.
Take this HTML & CSS course for free at Codecademy:
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/web
2. Build Your First Website in 1 Week with HTML5 and CSS3
This course, which is taught by Ryan Bonhardt, strives to be the fastest way to learn HTML and CSS for the real world.
With this course, you have a clear goal of building your first website in 7 days using the HTML5 and CSS3 skills you learn in the course.
Take this HTML5 and CSS3 course for free at Udemy:
https://www.udemy.com/build-your-first-website-in-1-week
3. Hour of Webpages
This is another HTML and CSS course, which can give you additional practice with your new HTML and CSS skills, as you put what you learn into practice to make your own greeting card.
This course has the added benefit of being more kid-friendly, as it is suitable for ages 8 and up.
Take this HTML/CSS for free at Khan Academy:
https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/hour-of-code/hour-of-html
JavaScript Courses
Once you have a good grasp on HTML and CSS, start learning the basics of JavaScript.
This is a basic programming language that is important for every web developer to know, especially since JavaScript is often used to manipulate HTML elements on web pages.
4. JavaScript Road Trip Part 1
In this course you’ll learn the basics of JavaScript, including how to use values, variables, and files.
Take this course for free at Code School:
https://www.codeschool.com/courses/javascript-road-trip-part-1
5. JavaScript Course at Codecademy
Dig a little deeper into JavaScript with this interactive online course.
You’ll learn the basics of functions, “for” loops, “while” loops, if statements, arrays, objects, and a lot, lot more.
Take this JavaScript for beginners course free at Codecademy:
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/javascript
6. Hour of Drawing with Code
Put what you’ve learned with JavaScript into fun practice.
In this course, you’ll learn how to program drawings using JavaScript. This is a kid-friendly course, suitable for ages 8 and up.
Take this JavaScript course for free at Khan Academy:
https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/hour-of-code/hour-of-code-tutorial
jQuery Courses
Once you have a basic understanding of JavaScript, take a look at jQuery, which is a JavaScript library.
To help you understand the power of jQuery, think of different lines of JavaScript code as being lego pieces that you can use to build your website. jQuery gives you a bunch of these lego pieces pre-assembled in useful ways, saving you tons of time and work!
7. jQuery Course at Codecademy
In this course, you’ll learn how to make your websites respond to user interaction using jQuery.
You’ll learn how to select elements with jQuery so that you can manipulate them in various ways, like by making elements fade in or fade out, and a lot, lot more.
Take this interactive jQuery course for free at Codecademy:
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/jquery
8. Try jQuery
In this course you’ll learn the basic building blocks of jQuery 2.0.
Among other things, you’ll learn how to work with the DOM. If you don’t know what that is, yet, you’ll find out in this course.
Take this online jQuery course for free at Code School:
https://www.codeschool.com/courses/try-jquery
Databases
Part of becoming a web developer is learning how to work with databases. This is sometimes referred to “back-end” work.
Basically, when you create things with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery that a website visitor is going to clearly see, read, and interact with on the site, you’re doing valuable front-end work.
And when you’re doing work that is invisible to website visitors, like setting up databases and pulling information out of those databases to display on a website, you’re doing vital back-end work.
To get you started with working with databases, you can take some SQL courses online for free, since SQL is a powerful programming language to know for manipulating data in databases.
9. Hour of Databases SQL Course
In this online course, you’ll learn how to manipulate data in a database using SQL and make your own custom store.
It is a kid-friendly course, suitable for ages 12 and up.
Take this online SQL course for free at Khan Academy:
https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/hour-of-code/hour-of-sql
10. Learn SQL Course at Codecademy
In this course, you’ll learn how to manage data with SQL.
You’ll also learn commands that will allow you to manipulate and query data stored in relational databases. (If that sounds like alien talk to you, take this course to learn what it all means.)
Take this interactive SQL course for free at Codecademy:
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-sql
11. Try SQL
Here’s one more SQL course to help you get more familiar with databases.
In this course, you’ll learn fundamental database manipulation skills using the SQL programming language.
Take this SQL online course for free at Code School:
https://www.codeschool.com/courses/try-sql
Ruby Programming Language
Part of becoming a web developer is learning different programming languages, such as JavaScript, SQL, C, C++, PHP, Python, Ruby, and on and on.
If you’re new to programming and web development, put Ruby high on your list of programming languages to learn, after you’ve picked up the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
The reason for this is that Ruby is one of the friendliest programming languages in the world. Even if you don’t know anything about coding, you could read some Ruby code and have a decent idea of what it does. So it’s a very good introduction to programming.
To get you started, here are some free Ruby online courses for you to check out.
12. Try Ruby
Try Ruby teaches you the basic building blocks of Ruby in a fun, easy, interactive way.
It was created by Why The Lucky Stiff, also known as _why. If you’ve never heard of _why, before, do yourself a favor and look him up.
In a nutshell, _why came online and did an amazing job teaching beginning programmers how to code, and then one day, he just deleted his presence online (the best he could) and disappeared, provoking strong, mixed reactions within the web development community.
The good folks over at Code School have kept Try Ruby alive. (And, _why, if you’re reading this… Thank you for everything you contributed. You are missed.)
Take this Ruby course for free at Code School:
https://www.codeschool.com/courses/try-ruby
13. Ruby Course at Codecademy
In this course, you’re introduced to Ruby, an object-oriented programming language that works well on its own or as part of the Ruby on Rails web framework. (You’ll notice that Codecademy says it was built with Ruby; it was actually built with Ruby on Rails.)
You’ll learn about variables and strings, control flow, loops, iterators, arrays, hashes, symbols, methods, blocks, sorting, procs, lambdas, and a lot, lot more.
Take this online Ruby course for free at Codecademy:
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/ruby
More Free Web Development Courses
Want to know a little secret about web development?
There is always something else you can learn. In fact, the learning never stops, so if you like learning new things all the time, web development will be an excellent, enjoyable field for you.
If you are completely new to web development, it is highly recommended that you start with the HTML, CSS, Javascript, and jQuery courses listed above, as well as learn a little bit of SQL and Ruby to broaden you’re programming skills.
And if you’re hungry for more, move on to these additional web development courses.
14. Try Git
In web development, Git is used for version control.
What does this mean, and why is this important?
As a web developer, you’ll write lots and lots of code all the time, and your website will evolve in all sorts of different ways. And sometimes, your website might take a turn for the worse, or you might want to revert back to an earlier version of your site quickly and easily.
With version control, you can always get back to a good working version of your website, which is just one reason why learning version control with Git is so important.
Take this online Git course for free at Code School:
https://www.codeschool.com/courses/try-git
15. QuickStart AngularJS
AngularJS is a JavaScript framework that you can use to create one-page web applications.
In this course, you’ll learn how to make an application in AngularJS, and see how well you like it.
Take this AngularJS course for free at Udemy:
https://www.udemy.com/quickstart-angularjs/
16. Learn Java Course at Codecademy
In this course, you’ll learn the basics of the Java programming language.
Among other things, you’ll learn how to use control flow and conditional statements in Java, as well as the principles of object-oriented programming (OOP) in Java.
Take this online Java course for free at Codecademy:
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-java
17. Practical PHP: Master the Basics and Code Dynamic Websites
This is a PHP course for absolute beginners. No prior knowledge of PHP is required, although it is definitely important for you to know the basics of HTML and CSS before starting this course.
PHP is a powerful scripting language used by millions of websites. So learn PHP to improve your skills as a web developer.
Take this online PHP course for free at Udemy:
https://www.udemy.com/code-dynamic-websites
How can you become a better web developer with what you’ve learned?
You just learned that if you want to become a web developer (or a more skilled web developer or web designer) that there are plenty of free courses that you can take online to help you on your journey.
You learned about 4 sites where you can get a healthy selection of web development courses for free, and you also saw 17 of the courses on those sites that you can start taking today.
So go ahead. Check out these free courses and start improving your web development skills today.