The 5 Best Web Development Courses for Beginners in 2023
Everywhere you turn nowadays, everyone from family to friends to colleagues is learning how to code. And while the reasons and motivations vary amongst everyone, a growing number of us are taking the time to learn programming.
If you’re curious and wondering where to start learning web development, thankfully, the internet is awash with many free and paid web development courses.
Most of these courses are self-guided, covering everything from basic web development concepts to more complex and advanced web development best practices.
In this article, we’ll cover the top 5 web development courses for beginners and highlight what each can offer you.
Overview
- Best Comprehensive Curriculum: [Zero to Mastery] The Complete Web Developer Course
- Best Rated: [Udemy] The Web Development Bootcamp 2023
- Best Instructor Led: [Coding Ninjas] Full-Stack Web Development
- Best All-Round: [Codecademy] Full-Stack Engineer
- Best Self-Paced Course: [The Odin Project] Full-Stack JavaScript
How We Choose the Courses
We meticulously considered several factors to identify the best web development courses for beginners. Our approach involved a comprehensive evaluation of each course based on the following aspects:
Reviews
We considered the reviews provided by previous learners that addressed the courses’ strengths and weaknesses. By analyzing these reviews, we robustly understood the courses’ credibility, effectiveness, and overall satisfaction among learners.
Instructors
We identified courses taught by instructors with relevant industry experience, strong teaching abilities, and a proven track record. In addition, we emphasized instructors who actively engaged students and promptly addressed their queries.
Rating
Course ratings allowed us to assess each course's overall quality and popularity. Generally, higher-rated courses tend to indicate a superior learning experience.
Curriculum
We carefully reviewed the curriculum of each course to ensure it was well-structured and ideal for beginner web developers. We were interested in courses that covered fundamental web development courses, programming languages, frameworks, and practical hands-on exercises.
Best Comprehensive Curriculum: [Zero to Mastery] The Complete Web Developer Course
This Zero to Mastery course covers HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, machine learning, and more. Its comprehensive curriculum makes it an all-in-one course suited for beginners and advanced professionals.
In addition, this course offers concise and interactive hands-on lessons with practical examples. You’ll get to build 10+ projects to help put your skills into real-world projects. You can use these projects as your portfolio, thus increasing your employment prospects as a junior web developer.
Topics Covered
- HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- React
- Node.js
- Machine learning
- Using Express, PostgreSQL, and SQL to build full-stack applications
- How freelance developers work
- Best practices to write clean, performant, and bug-free code
| Provider | Zero to Mastery |
| Instructor | Andrei Neagoie |
| Level | Beginner |
| Duration | 40h |
| Certificate | Yes |
| Cost | Paid |
| Last Update | June 2023 |
Best Rated: [Udemy] The Web Development Bootcamp 2023
With a 4.7 rating and over 290,000 reviews on Udemy, this excellent course by Dr. Angela Yu is an ideal entry point for beginners who want to learn web development.
Yu is one of the most exceptional instructors on Udemy, and her clear and straightforward teaching style, coupled with an impeccable presentation style, makes this course even more awesome.
This comprehensive course provides over 50 hours of content and delves deeply into the essential technologies required for web development. It adopts a hands-on approach, allowing you to actively participate and apply your skills while guiding you through creating 16 web development projects. These projects can serve as an impressive portfolio when pursuing entry-level positions as a web developer.
Topics Covered
- HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- jQuery
- Git and GitHub
- APIs
- Databases (SQL and MongoDB)
- NodeJS
- Linux command line
| Provider | Udemy |
| Instructor | Dr. Angela Yu |
| Level | Beginner |
| Duration | 65.5h |
| Certificate | Yes |
| Cost | Paid |
| Last Update | May 2023 |
Best Instructor Led: [Coding Ninjas] MERN Full-Stack Web Development
Coding Ninja’s MERN full-stack development course is a robust web development program covering different aspects of front and back-end web development.
You’ll learn to build web applications from start to end on the MERN tech stack.
The course features a well-structured curriculum that makes your learning journey easy. You also get access to an engagement coach to keep you motivated.
The course's access to an integrated coding environment makes it excellent for beginners. This means you have all the necessary tools for web development, such as an editor, local build automation, and a debugger.
Topics Covered
- Introduction to Programming
- Data structures and algorithms
- Front-end web development, i.e., HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery
- Back-end web development - Node.js, SASS, React
| Provider | Coding Ninjas |
| Instructor | Arpan Garg, Manisha Khattar, Falak Chandni, and Dheeraj Kumar |
| Level | Beginner |
| Duration | 170h |
| Certificate | Yes |
| Cost | Paid |
| Last Update | N/A |
Best All-Round: [Codecademy] Full-Stack Engineer
Codecademy is a reputable online course provider hosting a vast library of courses.
This particular web development course is an all-around course covering everything you need to start working as a web developer.
In this course, you’ll start learning front-end web development, move to the back-end, then learn how to connect the two. You’ll also get lifetime access to video lectures, other course resources, and a course completion certificate.
Learners in this course also get to practice common interview questions, and the instructors also teach how to solve real coding challenges presented in interviews.
Topics Covered
- HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- Git and GitHub
- Advanced JavaScript
- React and Redux
- Express.js
- SQL and PostgreSQL
- APIs
- DevOps fundamentals
- Data structures and algorithms
- Interview skills
| Provider | Codecademy |
| Instructor | N/A |
| Level | Beginner |
| Duration | 4-8 months |
| Certificate | Yes |
| Cost | Paid |
| Last Update | N/A |
Best Self-Paced Course: [The Odin Project] Full-Stack JavaScript
The Odin Project’s Full-Stack JavaScript course promises the ideal way to learn coding, where you must read documentation/blogs/articles instead of watching videos.
It offers two options to learning web development: you can start with the foundations, which includes small projects covering HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, or you can take the entire specialization course and become a full-stack developer. The full-stack path offers two options; JavaScript and Ruby on Rails.
The Odin Project is highly text-based and relies heavily on MDN documentation. It prepares you to work as a junior full-stack developer upon course completion.
Topics Covered
- Fundamentals of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- Node.js
- Git and GitHub
- Advanced JavaScript
| Provider | The Odin Project |
| Instructor | No (Purely text-based) |
| Level | Beginner |
| Duration | 30 Weeks |
| Certificate | No |
| Cost | Free |
| Last Update | March 2023 |
Conclusion
Web development is a vast field with various technologies, concepts, methodologies, and best practices.
And while no course offers a one-size-fits-all approach where you can learn everything in web development, the courses we’ve summed up in this article provide an excellent perspective that will help you develop a thorough understanding of web development.
We hope these web development courses for beginners kickstart your journey into web development and you can attain the best value from each.
Happy learning!