20+ Places to Learn Programming for Free

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Elijah Trillionz

Programming is hard, now imagine teaching what is hard. You would need an in-depth understanding to be able to break it down for others to learn it.

Making a Programming course takes time, sacrifice. So for you to get a course will require money, of course, to compensate the author of the course for his/her time.

Times have changed (though programming is still hard), and some persons in the world of programming have decided to teach it for free. Wow! Isn't that generous?.

So in today's article am going to show you 20+ places you can learn programming for free. Am also going to give you a little tip on using any of these platforms. Let's dive in

#1: W3Schools

W3Schools is the #1 free tutorial website online. All its tutorials are free and well structured. It is also one of the biggest Web Dev reference tools

Each tutorial is divided into different topics, and for almost all topics there are exercises to assess yourself. There are also quizzes for almost all tutorials.

Tutorials: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, PHP, Python, Web Front-End Frameworks & Libraries etc.

#2: FreeCodeCamp

FreeCodeCamp is a non-profit organization that will teach you programming for free. FreeCodeCamp has thousands of useful videos, articles, and coding lessons all for free. Simply select your preference, your highness.

The beautiful thing about these guys is that they engage you with projects at the end of each course. You definitely have to give it a try. // TWEET THIS

Courses: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ReGex, Object-Oriented Programming, JavaScript Algorithms, and Data Structures, Data Analysis with Python, Machine learning, etc.

#3: Codecademy

Codecademy is an online platform where you can learn how to code in your desired language for free.

Codecademy has one of the best systems to teach you how to code. Apart from its website it also has a follow-up app to follow up and revise what you have been learning.

Courses: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Web Development, Machine Learning, Python, Java, etc.

#4 Edx

Edx is one of the founding platforms of learning programming for free. It gives you free access to programming courses from more than 160 Universities including the prestigious MIT and Harvard and companies as well.

You are not abandoned by Edx after you have been given a course, there are all other activities from Edx like practicing with quizzes, etc.

Courses: HTML, CSS, Cloud Development, Python, Data Science, etc

#5 Khan Academy

Khan Acadamy is yet another non-profit organization you can trust to get good courses on programming from. They have a mission to provide free world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

They are the guys Elon Musk supported with $5 Million U.S Dollars early this year.

Courses: HTML, CSS, SQL, JavaScript, Computers and the Internet etc.

#6: Coursera

Coursera is an online learning platform that offers courses from over 200 Universities and companies. Some of which are Google, IBM, Illinois, Stanford, etc.

Courses: Python, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Java etc.

#7: Lynda.com

Lynda.com is a LinkedIn learning platform that offers courses in programming. Software Development has over 600 courses, Web Development with over 700 courses, etc.

Lynda.com is a very popular tool with great resources from a lot of great instructors. Lynda.com may not be free but they do offer a 1-month free trial.

With a 1 month free trial, you could finish one or two courses or even more. From then on you can decide whether to continue or opt out.

Courses: PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ASP.NET, SQL, VueJs, NodeJs, C# etc.

#8: MDN Tutorials

MDN as a lot of developers know is good web documentation and web reference tool. But something that some of them don't know is that they have tutorials too for web development.

Tutorials: HTML, CSS & JavaScript.

#9: Udemy

Udemy is by far the most popular learning platform for programmers. It is packed full of skilled and experienced instructors all around the globe.

Most courses in Udemy are paid courses. As a result, it is almost not possible to find a good free course. Nevertheless, you may find. I don't fully attribute it as a free learning platform though.

Course Categories: Cyber Security, Ethical Hacking, Web Development, Machine Learning, etc

#10: SoloLearn

SoloLearn is a well-structured, beginner-friendly, project-oriented learning platform to learn to program for free. SoloLearn is also very interactive and competitive due to features like quizzes, code showcase (called code bits in the app).

Courses: HTML, CSS, Python, C++, JavaScript, Java, Front-End Web Frameworks, Machine learning, etc.

#11: W3resource

W3resource is a tutorial website to learn to program for free. One beautiful thing about this website is its exercises for tutorials on the website. Hundreds and Hundreds of tasks with detailed explanations to every solution.

Tutorials: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Front-End Web Frameworks, Python, Ruby, NodeJs, ASP.Net, NoSQL Systems etc.

#12: Real Python

Do you want to be a Pythonista, or you want a great community of Pythonistas, give Real Python a try. Real Python has tutorials and courses that are for python only.

Tutorials are free, as well as access to their community. But the courses are not. There are also quizzes available to you.

#13: TutorialsPoint

I recently discovered this site when I was making research on some programming languages syntax. For almost all languages that I searched for, TutorialsPoint always popped up.

I was like how many languages do these people have in this tiny little website. Long story short, I discovered they had everything.

Machine learning tutorials, Computer science tutorials, Web development tutorials, Programming tutorials with languages like Python, Java, C++, etc, Mobile App tutorials with languages like Swift, Kotlin, React Native, Database Tutorials, etc.

All these tutorials are completely free, only courses from this website are not. Oh, almost forgot to mention, they have a free online IDE and Terminal.

#14: Grasshopper

Grasshopper is a very interactive learning platform to learn the basics of programming. With it, you can learn concepts that apply to any programming language.

Concepts like Functions*or *Methods, Variables, Loops, Arrays etc. These are all applicable to any programming language. So learning with this platform puts you ahead by the time you take a course/tutorial in any programming language.

#15: Programming Hub

Programming hub is a simple and interactive platform to learn the basics and more of programming. There are free courses and paid courses on this platform.

Some free courses are on HTML, AI, Android development, Machine learning, CSS, Data Science, etc.

#16: Mimo

Mimo is a fun and easy platform to learn the basics and more programming for free. It is also a very interactive platform that can help you plan out a project to build.

#17: Code Avengers

Yeah, that's the name. On this website, they fight the Thanos and Aliens of programming. Just kidding.

Code Avengers is an online digital education service for learning programming essentials for kids.

If you're a parent and you would want your child to play around coding, code avengers are what you need.

Courses: Python, HTML, CSS, JavaScript etc

#18: MITCourseWare

The MITOPENCOURSEWARE is an MIT platform where they publish some of their courses online free and widely available to everyone.

Here is a list of their programming courses.

#19: aGupieWare

aGupieWare is an independent app developer with a blog that contains programming tutorials available to all for free.

Courses: Python, Swift, Hacking & Security testing, Angular, Linux, etc.

#20: Wibit.net

Wibit.Net is a video tutorial website offering fun/entertaining programming courses.

It is a great place to start learning programming.

Courses: Objective-C, Java, C#, C++, Object-Oriented Programming, C, Python, Scripting Languages, etc.

#21: Class Central

Class Central is our list's 21 and 20+. It is an online platform to search for free courses from any platform. Courses from universities like MIT, Havard, Stanford, and 1000 others.

Not to be confused with Coursera or Edx listed above. While Coursera or Edx gives you a course for free, class central will tell you* Coursera has a free course on this programming language* or topic or subject.

Simply visit classcentral.com, then search and programming language or subject.

Conclusion

It's amazing how these platforms teach you programming for free and in a fun and interactive way. Most courses that people pay for are not as good as some courses from the above list.

But I must advise you to take learning programming seriously while using any of these platforms. You may not want to place a high value on it because it's free, which will make you not take it seriously.

There you have it. You can join my Discord Community for programmers for free. Thank you for reading, let me know what you think in the comment section.

If you found this article useful and helpful, how about a Coffee for me.

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Elijah Trillionz