JavaScript (JS) is the programming language that makes web pages come to life. Anyone interested in building websites and web applications needs to master JS skills, and there are tons of resources out there for beginners to get started. Before we dive into the top 15 courses for JavaScript, let’s briefly introduce this powerful language.
What is JavaScript?
JavaScript is one of the most popular scripting programming languages in the world, used for web development, mobile apps, games, and networking apps. JavaScript is what makes the basic content of a web page interactive. It takes the basic CSS and HTML markup to add different functionalities and features. Any time you use a website that is more than just static text, you are interacting with JavaScript code.
Why learn JavaScript?
JavaScript is the main tool for front-end, back-end, and full-stack developers. It’s essential for anyone who hopes to become a web developer. What are the pros of JavaScript?
- JS is versatile
- JS jobs are high-paying and in-demand
- JS has a friendly community of support
- JS is known as one of the more fun languages to use
- JS is beginner-friendly and easy to read
- JS integrates with many great libraries and tools
- JS can build unique, creative, and useful projects
Now that you know a bit more about JavaScript and what it can do for your career, let’s take a look at the top 15 places to get started.
1. The Complete Guide to Modern JavaScript
- Price: $39.99
- Prerequisites: Basic understanding of JavaScript or other programming languages
- Who is this course for? Developers of every level, beginner to advanced, looking to improve their JavaScript skills and gain updates on the language specifications since 2015.
- Highlight: Includes an introduction to TypeScript
- Con: Does not introduce libraries or frameworks
This course by Alberto Montalesi, based on his popular book, walks you through everything you need to know to master modern JavaScript and stay ahead of the game. The course covers all of JavaScript’s updated features over the past 15 years, from var vs let to destructuring to async and await. It is divided into three sections: an introduction to JavaScript for absolute beginners; JavaScript updates from ES6 to ES2019; an intro to Typescript.
The course is rich-text based with visualizations, interactive coding environments, and over 20 quizzes to help you learn. It’s a concise one-stop-shop for developers who want to move past the outdated ES5 code and master JavaScript!
2. Learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript from Scratch
- Price: Free
- Prerequisites: None
- Who is this course for? Absolute beginners who want to learn the basics of web development
- Highlight: Moves beyond JavaScript to show how the programming language interacts with HTML and CSS
- Con: less robust dive into JavaScript
This course will teach you all the fundamentals of creating web applications, from using HTML to make a web page, to styling your content, to making your pages interactive. The course is loaded with hands-on practice, so by the end, you’ll be comfortable making a web page on your own and tackling more advanced courses. Instead of scrubbing through long videos, you’ll be guided with rich-text instruction, interactive code, and quizzes.
3. The Modern JavaScript from the Beginning
- Price: $174.99
- Prerequisites: Basic HTML/CSS knowledge
- Who is this course for? Anyone with an interest in web development who wants to learn pure JavaScript coding
- Highlight: Certificate included in price
- Con: No instruction about libraries or frameworks
This course by Udemy tackles all of the basics without relying on frameworks or libraries. The course includes lessons on Object-Oriented programming, DOM Manipulation, Patterns, Async JS, all in up-to-date JavaScript code. The lessons are taught through video instruction and articles, and the course features 10 projects/problems for you to complete. It boasts a 4.7-star rating, and a certificate is included in the price.
4. JavaScript30
- Price: Free, premium courses available
- Prerequisites: Basic JavaScript knowledge
- Who is this course for? Beginners to intermediate learners who learn best through hands-on practice and want to master JavaScript without libraries
- Highlight: Hands-on practice and building real-world projects
- Con: Only demonstrates one approach to building an application
This course is based on the belief that JavaScript is best learned through building things. That’s why JavaScript30 challenges you to complete 30 JavaScript projects in 30 days. The tutorial for each project is accompanied by videos to explain JavaScript concepts and processes, which you can complete as quickly as you please. This course avoids any instruction around frameworks and libraries and instead focuses on pure JavaScript code.
5. JavaScript Introduction
- Price: Free (add-on certificate for $99 USD)
- Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of programming concepts
- Who is this course for? Anyone with an interest in web development who wants to get a good grasp on the very basics of the language.
- Highlight: Guided instruction, good for those with a busy schedule (6-8 hours per week of instruction)
- Con: Npt a deep dive into JavaScript, a very basic introduction
This tutorial from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) offers an overview of all JavaScript basics, including HTML and CSS for building web pages. The course is structured mostly around video instruction with a bit of hands-on practice. It begins with a basic introduction of JavaScript, then slowly vamps up to lessons on HTML interactivity, data structures, and JavaScript objects. The course teaches you up-to-date JavaScript code in a way that an absolute beginner can understand.
6. JavaScript: Understanding the Weird Parts
- Price: $174.99
- Prerequisites: Intermediate to advanced knowledge of JavaScript
- Who is this course for? Developers with basic JavaScript skills or advanced coders from other programming languages who want to master complex JS concepts, particularly frameworks and libraries
- Highlight: Teaches you how to build your own JavaScript framework or library
- Con: Uses ES6 JavaScript
This course by Udemy takes basic JavaScript skills to the next level by teaching developers how Javascript works under the hood. In this course, which is comprised mostly of videos and illustrations, you’ll tackle challenging pitfalls for Javascript developers, frameworks, debugging skills, and advanced Javascript concepts. By the end, the course teaches you how to build your own Javascript framework, an accomplishment that is sure to upgrade your Javascript skills!
7. JavaScript: The Advanced Concepts
- Price: $39/month (unlimited access), $279/year
- Prerequisites: Intermediate to advanced knowledge of JavaScript
- Who is this course for? Intermediate JavaScript developers who want to move beyond the basics and understand the “why” of the toughest parts of JS.
- Highlight: Updated with ES10
- Con: Dense theory, less hands-on practice or examples
This detailed course is great for JavaScript learners who have mastered the basics and want to dive into the modern advanced JavaScript practices, like functional programming, asynchronous JavaScript, Node.js, and much more. The course aims to take you beyond the syntax and dive into the why of JavaScript code for professional use. The course flouts a 4.8-star rating for its easy-to-follow video tutorials and access to excellent online communities.
8. The Modern JavaScript Tutorial
- Price: Free
- Prerequisites: None
- Who is this course for? Absolute beginners or people with a basic understanding of web development who want to focus purely on JavaScript. Great for people who like abstract theory!
- Highlight: Can easily navigate through the menu to personalize your learning
- Con: No hands-on practice or quizzes, dense with theory
This course is designed to be a one-stop-shop for anyone, beginners, and advanced developers, to get a good grasp on pure JavaScript code. The course is organized into three sections:
- the JavaScript language (all the syntax you need to know),
- the browser (how to interact with the web),
- additional articles (advanced JS concepts).
You can click your way through the course chapters depending on the topics you need to learn. The lessons are all in rich-text with embedded examples, a few of which can be run right on the browser.
9. Introduction to JavaScript
- Price: Free
- Prerequisites: Basic understanding of programming terms and concepts
- Who is this course for? Beginners with some knowledge of JavaScript who want to learn by practicing rather than be taught with videos
- Highlight: Lots of hands-on learning, all instruction is accompanied by an embedded platform
- Con: Platform can be challenging to navigate and personalize
This course by Freecodechamp is great for beginners who have little familiarity with programming concepts and want to get a good grasp on JS basics. This course is entirely in rich-text and offers an embedded coding playground where you can work hands-on alongside the lessons. Each chapter is followed by a coding test to check in on your learning.
10. The Complete JavaScript Course 2020
- Price: $199.99
- Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of programming concepts
- Who is this course for? Beginner to intermediate JS developers who want to gain a deeper understanding of the language and are interested in using libraries/frameworks
- Highlight: #1 bestselling JavaScript course on Udemy
- Con: Some lectures are outdated
By the end of this course by Udemy, you’ll be able to make three real-world applications using modern JavaScript code. This course prides itself on its ability to teach you the why of Javascript through industry-standard projects rather than pure theory. This course introduces you to libraries and frameworks as tools to build your applications. All the instruction is in video lectures, and it teaches up to the 2018 JavaScript updates.
11. Complete JavaScript Course: Build a Real-World App from Scratch
- Price: $39.99
- Prerequisites: None
- Who is this course for? Absolute beginners who are interested in programming or experienced developers who want to learn JavaScript on top of their other language skills. This course can either be a great introduction or a refresher for experienced JS developers
- Highlight: Personalized learning through visualizations and embedded development environment
- Con: Only goes up to ES6 JavaScript
This course walks you through all the basics of JavaScript using real-world projects and examples. You will learn how to build a social news web app using a variety of tools relevant to web developers. The course is divided into three main sections
- Basics of JavaScript
- How to use JavaScript for web dev
- Web development on client and server-side
The course is designed so you can experiment with JS code on your own, so you’ll gain a more robust understanding of the theory. Plus, the instruction is all rich-text, so you’ll get straight into learning without any video scrubbing.
12. JavaScript Fundamentals
- Price: Free with 10-day trial
- Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of JavaScript or programming concepts
- Who is this course for? JavaScript beginners or advanced programmers in other languages who want a crash-course introduction to JavaScript
- Highlight: Short course (just under 3 hours)
- Con: Less robust than other courses, hasn’t been updated since 2011
This course on Pluralsight examines each important aspect of JavaScript for web development in quick, easy-to-grasp instruction. The course begins with an intro to JavaScript, including a history of the language, and it then moves to all the building blocks necessary for writing JS code. This course is taught in short videos with hands-on practice sprinkled throughout, and each chapter ends with a useful summary.
13. JavaScript Basics for Beginners
- Price: $15 for single course payment (limited time at this price), $19/mo all-access membership
- Prerequisites: None, basic familiarity with HTML recommended
- Who is this course for? Aspiring developers or advanced developers in other languages who want to focus on pure JavaScript code and like learning through theory
- Highlight: 6 hours of instruction, easy to fit into a busy schedule
- Con: Does not introduce libraries or frameworks
This course on JavaScript uses easy to digest videos that cut through the confusing stuff to get straight to pure JS code and theory. The course starts from scratch, moving from basics to the advanced concepts in an effective, clean way. Unlike other video instruction courses, this once comes with 30 built-in exercises as well as recommendations for your next steps. It’s a self-paced learning platform, so you can learn at your own pace.
14. Deep JavaScript Foundations
- Price: $39/month (unlimited access), $390/annually
- Prerequisites: Intermediate to advanced JavaScript developers, advanced developers using other programming languages
- Who is this course for? Developers who want to deeply understand JavaScript and find the theories and philosophies behind a language useful to their learning
- Highlight: Robust and unique dive into the “why” and “how” of JavaScript
- Con: Dense theory, very little hands-on practice
This course by Kyle Simpson, author of You Don’t Know JS, teaches the language around its core pillars: types, coercion, equality, static typing, scope, and more. It’s designed to show you how the philosophy behind the language drives the way we use it. It uses video lecture instruction to offer robust explanations of concepts and theories not typically taught in JavaScript courses. You also get access to some of Simpson’s experienced opinions about controversial JS concepts.
15. Beginning JavaScript
- Price: $25/mo (basic package), $49/mo (pro level)
- Prerequisites: Basic understanding of programming concepts
- Who is this course for? A beginner JavaScript developer who wants to learn by building at different stages of web development
- Highlight: Moves naturally through tracks that are designed around a beginner’s needs
- Con: Only goes up to ES2015
This course is designed in well-organized tracks that naturally move from introductory basics to complete DOM manipulation. The courses in the track are:
- Introducing JavaScript
- JavaScript Basics
- JavaScript Loops, Arrays, and Objects,
- The Landscape of JavaScript
- Getting Started with ES2015
- JavaScript DOM
Several of the courses introduce you to a new project, and it guides you to completion through interactive instruction. The course is video-based with short quizzes to test your knowledge as you go. By the end, you’ll create a web game and an RSVP web application.
The article was written by Amanda Fawcett.
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