8 System Design Couress to learn Distributed System Architecture (2025)

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Soma

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Hello friends, if you want to learn Software Architecture and System design in 2025 and are looking for the best resources then you will be happy to know that  I will share the 8 best Udemy courses to learn System Design and Distributed System Architecture for 2025.

If you are preparing for technical interviews for a Software Engineering job, you may be aware of Software or System design.

It is one of the most important but at the same time, very tough topics to master, and many programmers even experienced developers struggle to solve System design problems during interviews, particularly while interviewing with top tech companies like Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix etc, popularly known as FAANG (now MAANG) since Facebook is now Meta. 

If you are also preparing for a programming job interview and looking for the best System design and Software design resources then you are at the right place. 

Earlier, I have shared many popular system design questions like API Gateway vs Load Balancer and Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling, Forward proxy vs reverse proxy as well as 50 system design problems and today I am going to share the best System Design Interview courses from Udemy, one of my favorite places to learn programming and technical stuff.

A couple of years ago, you could hardly find any decent System design course on Udemy, the ones that were available hardly touched topics that matter like scalability, resiliency, and flexibility but things have changed since. 

Nowadays there are so many System design resources you can find online but again not everything is great and you need to be careful while choosing the right resource for you.

I often receive questions about which System design course to join on Udemy to prepare for programming interviews so I decided to share my recommendations. 

The list includes System design interview courses from those who have been part of those interviews and have experience from both sides of the table, as a candidate and interviewer.

For example, Frank Kane, whose System Design interview course is one of the best on Udemy is an ex-Amazon hiring manager.

You can join one or more of these System design courses to prepare well for your System design interview.

One of the best things about Udemy is that it's very affordable and now is probably the best time as they are running the biggest sale of the season where all the top courses are available for almost 85% discount and you can join a couple of nice courses with a price of one.

Anyway, let's jump into the best System design courses from Udemy and find which one is right for you.

8 Udemy Course to Learn System Design and Software Architecture in 2025

Without wasting any more of your time, here is a list of the best online courses you can join on Udemy to learn about essential System design concepts and prepare for System design interviews in 2025.

As I said these courses have been created by System design experts and people who have cracked FAANG interviews and worked for companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc. 

So you will be learning from the best and also get a first-hand experience about which System design topic to prepare to do well on your System design interviews.

From the topic, I remember this System Design Interview template by DesignGuru.io which list all the key topics you should prepare for interviews.

Now, let's start with the Udemy courses for System Design and Software architecture: 

1. Mastering the System Design Interview by Frank Kane

This is my personal favorite and one of the best Udemy courses to prepare for System design interviews. This course is prepared by none other than Frank Kane, one of my favorite Udemy instructors, and a Big Data and System Design expert. 

He is also one of the ex-hiring managers of Amazon so he knows what is expected from a candidate during System design interviews, which he has shared in this course.

In this course, you will learn everything about designing a system that scales, often known as Google's scale to handle millions and billions of users and transactions as well as Algorithms and Data Structures like Bloom Filter which plays a critical role in large-scale systems. 

The course will also teach you System design strategies which can be crucial even if you don't know the answer. 

Apart from System design essentials, This 5 hour-long course will also give you insider tips for your system design interview from a former Amazon hiring manager as well as 6 mock interviews for practice! 

Talking about social proof, more than 46,756 students have joined this course and it has an average 4.6 rating from close to 6500 raters which is a testament to how good this course is. 

Here is the link to join this System design course -Mastering the System Design Interview by Frank Kane

2. Software Architecture & Design of Modern Large Scale Systems

Created by Michael Pogrebinsky this Software architecture course will teach you how to design large and distributed systems in 2025.

Having joined his High Performance and Concurrency course it was no brainer for me to join this course and I must say I wasn't disappointed.

If you are an experienced developer who not only wants to crack a System design interview but also learn about Software architecture to become a Software architect or solution architect then this Udemy course is perfect for you. 

Here are things you will learn in this course:

1. How to design large-scale systems which can handle millions of requests/day

2. How to design for scalability and high availability. 

3. Software architectural patterns, building blocks, and best practices

4. How to define the system's technical requirements, high-level components, and API

5. Software Architecture & Technology of Large-Scale Systems

After going through this course, you will also gain confidence for your upcoming System Design Interview. I highly recommend this Software architecture course to experienced Java developers.

Here is the link to join this System design course -Software Architecture & Design of Modern Large Scale Systems

After the huge success of this course Michael has also launched two more courses on System Design and Software architecture, first one is Software Architecture & System Design Practical Case Studies and the second one is The Complete Cloud Computing Software Architecture Patterns, both of them effectively complement this course.

If you can afford it, you can join all three courses to master both System design and Software architecture in 20254. 

3. Software Architecture & Technology of Large-Scale Systems

This one is another Software architecture course on Udemy which is worth checking out. It's one of the most comprehensive System design courses with more than 25.5 hours of content while other course only provides content of 5 to 8 hours. 

It also covers key system design topics like how to create Software Systems with High Performance, Scalability, Availability, and Security using Modern Technologies.

The course starts with a basic three-tier application architecture and then moves along with advanced and modern software architecture like Microservices and distributed systems.

You will also learn how to cater to Non-Functional Requirements like How to design architecture considering Performance, Scalability, Reliability, and Security.

You will also get exposure to highly scalable technology and tech stacks like Nodejs, Redis, Cassandra, Kafka, Hadoop, Elasticsearch, etc.

More importantly, you will learn how to use Docker and Kubernetes for large-scale production deployment, a key skill in this era of cloud computing. 

Here is the link to join this course - Software Architecture & Technology of Large-Scale Systems

4. The Complete Cloud Computing Software Architecture Patterns by Michael Pogrebinsky

The Complete Cloud Computing Software Architecture Patterns is another great Udemy course to learn the knowledge and skills needed to architect large-scale systems using cloud computing, software architecture patterns, and modern system design principles. 

This comprehensive but not too long course has 4.5 hours of on-demand video, 2 articles, and 1 downloadable resource.

In this course, you will learn how to architect modern large-scale software systems, solve challenging system design problems, utilize software architecture patterns effectively, and leverage cloud computing to serve millions of users globally.

Here is the link to join this course - The Complete Cloud Computing Software Architecture Patterns

By the way, if you like Michael's teaching style then you will also like his other courses on software architecture and distributed system design like Software Architecture & Design of Modern Large Scale Systems  and The Complete Microservices & Event-Driven Architecture, both are awesome courses like his course on concurrency and Java performance. 

5. Rocking System Design by Rajdeep Saha

This is another system design course you can join on Udemy to learn about System design and Software design in general. This course is created by Cloud Architect Rajdeep Saha.

In this Udemy System Design course, you will learn how to solve any system design problem by mastering the basics like scaling, sharding, hashing, microservices, load balancers, security, well-architected framework, and more.

You will also learn about how to answer system design interview questions which is an important skill if you are serious about cracking System Design Interviews with FAANG companies. 

The best thing about this course is that it will also teach you AWS implementation of the design using Kubernetes, Lambda, API Gateway, EC2, ALB, NLB, etc.

The course also covers important topics about software architecture like the pros/cons of different design decisions, bad vs. good answers, pitfalls to avoid, and more. It also contains many quizzes to test your knowledge with up-to-date system design quizzes. 

Here is the link to join this course - Rocking System Design by Rajdeep Saha

6. System Design Interview Guide for Software Architecture by CodeKarle

This is another amazing System design course created by Facebook engineer Sandeep Kaul. This 8-hour long course covers a lot of essential System design topics as well as solutions to common System design problems like how to design Facebook and how to design Instagram etc.

This course also moved down to 1 position from 3rd to 4th this year, not because its content became outdated but because of Michael's System design courses and System design case studies.

Its content is still relevant and evergreen, especially solutions to popular System design questions and their explanation. 

Here are the common System design questions that are explained in this Udemy course:

1. URL shortener design

2. Airbnb Booking System design

3. Amazon System Design

4. How to design WhatsApp

5. Uber System Design 

6. Twitter System Design

7. How to design YouTube

8. How to design Zoom

9. How to design Google Map

1. How to design a notification system like Netflix

The best thing about this System design course on Udemy is the different case studies it shares which can be used to learn how to design a modern system that can scale as well as run 24x7 all the time.

I highly recommend this course to anyone who is preparing for a System Design Interview. 

Here is the link to join this course -System Design Interview Guide for Software Architecture

7. Pragmatic System Design by Alexey Soshin

If you are looking for a to-the-point course that covers all key System design topics like Concurrency, Scalability, SQL vs NoSQL, Microservices, etc then this Udemy course is the perfect course for you. 

It also teaches you how to solve the most popular FANG interview questions like Yelp Design, Netflix Design, and Amazon System design questions. 

Here are key topics you will learn in this course:

• Scalability concepts

• Common communication protocols

• Caching and Redis

• Concurrency

• Database design and PostgreSQL

• Sharding strategies

Even if you are not preparing for Technical interviews, you can join this course to improve your knowledge about System design and Software architecture in general.

I particularly recommend this course to senior engineers who want to learn about system design. 

Here is the link to join this course -Pragmatic System Design by Alexey Soshin

8. Microservices Architecture - The Complete Guide by Memi Lavi

Memi Lavi is another instructor on Udemy which I admire a lot for his immense knowledge in Software architecture, cloud computing, particularly Azure, and system design and this course is another exhibition of his awesome skill to explain complex software concepts in simple, human language. 

The course covers a range of topics related to Microservices Architecture, including understanding its fundamentals, identifying predecessors and associated problems, and exploring the nine attributes of Microservices.

You will also learn about the architecture process, designing robust and reliable microservices, deploying and testing them effectively, delving into Service Mesh concepts, understanding when not to use Microservices, and exploring strategies for breaking a monolith into microservices. 

Whether you are a beginner or an experienced developer, this course stands as a valuable resource in mastering Microservices Architecture, and if you like this course, you can also checkout Mavi's other courses on Software architecture, many of them are worth watching. 

That's all about the best System Design Interview course on Udemy in 2025. To be honest, these are the top resources and it's hard to leave anyone out but considering the time I recommend you to join only one or two of these courses as the price is not a problem. 

If you like to learn from multiple resources then you can also join all of them but make sure you use them judicially as you will not have enough time to go through every course*.*

I generally make one course as the cornerstone and then keep referring others to solidify different topics.

If I connect to one instructor better then I always stick with his course more because when you connect to the instructor you tend to learn better, faster, and more in-depth.

You can also watch previews of these courses to see if you are connecting with the instructor before joining these courses to save your time and money.

If you cannot withstand watching previews for any course then you won't enjoy the course either. So make sure you watch the preview System design lesson to see if the course deserves your time and money.

System Design Courses from Other Platforms (Udemy Alternatives)

If you don't like Udemy for some reason and need an alternative to these System design courses then you can either join ByteByteGo by Alex Xu, which is one of the best platforms for learning System design topics for an interview or you can join the Grokking the System Design Interview course by Design Guru, both are great resources.

And, If you need mock interviews and personal coaching you can also check tryexponent.com which not only provides System design courses but also mock interviews and personal coaching a

And, if you are looking for a Leetcode-style website where you can practice popular System design interview questions then Codemia.io is a great place to start with.

It also has more than 120+ questions on System Design and Object Oriented Design which you can use to improve your System design skills.

They also provide editorial solutions which is one of the best ways to check and improve your solution.

And here is also a nice cheat sheet of Software architecture diagrams from ByteByteGo which is quite useful while designing a distributed system.

Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like these best System Design Interview Courses from Udemy then please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback then please drop a note.

P. S. - If you are looking for free online courses to learn Software Design and System design to learn this useful skill then you can also check out this list of best free Software design courses where you can find best free Software design courses from YouTube, Udemy, Coursera, ByteByteGo, and other websites.

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Soma