6 Best Courses to Learn Maven for Java Programmers in 2024
These are the best online courses to learn Apache Maven for Java developers from Udemy, Pluralsight, and other online learning portals.
Hello guys, if you want to learn Maven and looking for the best Maven courses then you have come to the right place. Earlier, I have shared free Maven and Jenkins courses and best DevOps Courses, and in this article, I will share the best courses to learn Maven, an essential tool for Java developers.
Disclosure — Btw, some of these links are affiliate links and I may get paid if you join these courses using my links.
The Apache Maven or commonly known as just “Maven,” is an essential tool for Java Programmers. It allows you to build your project, manage dependencies, generate documentation, and a lot more.
I can vouch for Maven’s usefulness because I have come from the pre-Maven world of Software development, where you need to manage all the JAR files required by your project. It may seem easy to you that just download the JAR file but it’s not so easy in practice.
For example, you added a new library in your project say Spring framework which also needs log4j but you thought log4j is already there so you didn’t do anything, only to realize that your application is not starting anymore and throwing long and convoluted errors.
This can happen because of version mismatch like Spring needed a higher version of log4j than available in your project.
This is just a tiny bit of an example, which shows how manually managing dependencies can create nightmares. Maven took away all those pain by not only automatically downloading those JAR files for you but also created a central place, known as Maven repository to store those JAR files for better management.
Btw, Maven is not just a dependency management tool, it’s in fact much more than that. The most significant advantage of using Maven is the following convention, which makes software development easy.
In a Maven project, you know where is your source code, where is your test code and where are your resources. You don’t need to spend countless hours going through a large ANT build file to figure out how exactly is your artifact is created.
Because of these useful qualities, the Java ecosystem adopted Maven generously. Most of the open-source project is a Maven project, which makes it easy for developers to understand them and contribute better.
5 Best Maven Online Courses for Java Developers
Even though Gradle is making inroads, 70% market is still using Maven, and that’s a big enough reason to learn Maven. If you also think so, here are some of the best courses to learn Apache Maven online by yourself.
1. Apache Maven: Beginner to Guru (Udemy best course)
In this course, you will learn about the Maven Build Lifecycles, how to use Maven to build and package Java projects, understand how to use Maven with popular alternative JVM languages, including Groovy, Kotlin, and Scala, etc.
I am a big fan of John Thompson, having attended his Spring 5 course, Spring 5: Beginner to Guru I have hooked to his teaching style and information delivery.
When I found that John has a Maven course, I immediately bought it even though I know Maven and worked on several Maven projects, including a multi-module Maven project.
Though I wasn’t disappointed, and the course helps me to fill some of the gaps I had in my learning. It’s particularly useful if you are coming with no Maven experience as information density is perfect from a beginner’s perspective.
Here is the link to join this course — Apache Maven: Beginner to Guru
You will also learn to configure Maven to run your unit and integration tests written in JUnit 3, JUnit 4, JUnit 5, TestNG, and Spock framework generate source code from XML and JSON Schemas, and leverage annotation processing at compile time for Project Lombok and Mapstruct.
The course also covers the Apache Maven plugin system and teaches you how plugins are used in the build lifecycle.
Finally, you will also learn to build Spring Boot applications with Apache Maven, learn about the Spring Boot Maven plugin, deploying project artifacts to Maven repositories, and how to develop multi-module Maven projects.
In short, a perfect course to master Maven and ideal for both intermediate and senior Java developers.
2. Maven Crash Course (best course for beginners)
I personally like crash courses because I am always in a hurry and don’t really have too much time to invest. A crash course will teach you just 20% of things, but those are the ones you will need most and used 80% of the time.
This course is also not an exception, in which instructor Bharath Thippireddy has done a fabulous job to explain the core concepts of Maven in just less than 3 hours.
In this course, you will not only learn all the core concepts of Maven but also work hands-on to create a multi-module Maven Java web application project. If you are in a hurry and want to learn Maven, this is the course you should join.
The course is also suitable for beginners as it teaches Maven from scratch right from downloading and installing Maven, using in the command line, and creating a Maven web application in Eclipse using the m2eclipse plugin.
Here is the link to join this course -Maven Crash Course
3. Maven 101 (Udemy Course)
The 101 kinds of courses are precisely opposite of the crash courses, they cover the topic in-depth, and if you want to learn Maven in-depth, this is the perfect course to start with.
In this hands-on course, you will learn how to use Maven with other tools like IDEs Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA and Version Control tools like Git or Github.
As I told you, I know Maven and have been using both Maven and Eclipse for years, but having gone through this course, I learned a couple of things about maven, which I didn’t know before.
I feel that now I have a much better understanding of the maven’s overall lifecycle/phase/goal architecture and using Maven with Eclipse WTP for creating Maven based web applications.
Here is the link to join this course — Maven 101
4. Learning Apache Maven
This is an excellent course to learn Maven with a good instructor, clear explanation, and just the right kind of information depth an intermediate Java developer needs to learn Maven.
The course starts by teaching you how to build a project, then jumps into dependency management. From there, Kevin shows you about the Maven lifecycle, maven commands, and plugins, including plugin parameters and custom plugins.
The course also covers goals and plugins, including how to install and deploy a plugin. Finally, you will learn about archetypes, additional features, and the .M2E Eclipse plugin.
Once you have completed this online Maven course, you should be able to work on an existing Maven project and configure Maven to build your own Java projects.
Here is the link to join this Maven course — Learning Apache Maven
5. Maven Fundamentals By Bryan Hansen
In this course, Bryan has covered all of the basic concepts of Maven you need to know, like directory structure, dependencies, plugins, repositories, IDE integrations, and all the basic commands of Maven.
Bryan Hansen is another instructor that I personally admire and follow. Having attended his Spring courses like Spring Fundamentals and What’s New in Spring 5, I know how he makes things more straightforward, and this course is no exception.
The course has also recently updated to cover changes in Java SE 11 and 12 and other up-to-date Maven Features, which makes it even more useful.
here is the link to join this Maven course —Maven Fundamentals
The only thing is that you would need a Pluralsight membership to access this course, which costs around $29 per month or about $299 per annum. This might look a bit expensive at first, but it’s its complete worth of money because you would get access to more than 5000+ online courses on the latest technology.
A small bit of investment in learning can pay a rich dividend; hence, I advise all programmers to join Pluralsight. But, even if you don’t have a membership, you can still access this course for free by taking advantage of their 10-day FREE Pass, which allows 200 minutes of watch time, enough to finish this course.
6. Java: Build Automation with Maven
This is an intermediate level Maven course for Java developers from LinkedIn Learning. In this course, you will learn how to use Maven to build automation in Java and reviews the other features and functions to consider adding to your development workflow.
This course is created by Peggy Fisher which will show how to install Maven on Mac or Windows, work with the Project Object Model (POM), and use its extensive library of plugins for compiling, testing, deploying, packaging, reporting, and more.
Additionally, you will also learn how to create a complete start-to-finish project using Maven and two different Java IDEs: NetBeans and IntelliJ.
Here is the link to join this intermediate Maven course — Java: Build Automation with Maven
By the way, you would need a LinkedIn Learning membership to watch this course which costs around $29.99 per month but you can also watch this course for FREE by taking their 1-month-free-trail which is a great way to explore their 16000+ online courses on the latest technology.
6 Things Java Developers should Know about Maven
If you still have doubts about learning Maven, here is some of the vital information about Maven which will help you to realize it’s valued as the most popular build tools for Java developers:
1. Maven has almost 70% of the market, 20% Gradle, and 10% ANT.
2. A maven is a build tool like make or ANT, take your source code and generate a JAR file, a distributable library. It can also run tests and generate Javadoc when you build your software. It also helps in build-automation. It allows each developer to kick-off the same build to make the same deployable.
3. Maven is also a Dependency management tool — we build an application that requires a third-party library. Maven helps to bring those JAR and keep them up-to-date
4. Maven command-line tool — you can use maven from the command prompt, but you can also use Maven from IDE, also like Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA.
5. Maven as a project management tool — It helps to tell you about what is being used in your project. It can also hold an artifact in a repository like Nexus.
6. Maven provides a standardized approach to building software, a consistent approach like source and test directory, build artifacts as it promotes “Convention over Configuration.”
You can further read my post 10 Maven things Java developer should learn to learn more about Maven and here is a snapshot of the common Maven lifecycle in Java application:
Now if you want to learn Maven and just want to do one thing now, I suggest you to join Apache Maven: Beginner to Guru course on Udemy, its engaging, up-to-date, and comprehensive enough to learn Maven for Java development.
That’s all about some of the best courses to learn about Apache Maven. As I have said, Maven is the most popular build tool, and you will find it in most places.
It offers a really cool advantage like dependency management, build-automation and it’s also well integrated with other standard tools like IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans, or IntelliJ IDEA) and version control tools like Git and Github.
Other Programming Resource articles you may like to explore
- The 2024 Java Developer RoadMap
- 10 Things Java Programmer Should Learn in 2024
- 5 Free Spring Framework Courses for Java Developers
- 10 Free Courses to Learn Data Structure and Algorithms in Depth
- Top 5 Java design patterns courses for experienced Java devs
- 10 courses for Programming/Coding Job Interviews
- 5 Courses to learn Shell Scripting in Linux
- The Complete DevOps Developer RoadMap
- The 2024 Web Developer RoadMap
- 10 Free Course to Learn Python Programming
- How to become a Moder React JS Developer in 2024
- 10 Free Online Course to Learn Java Programming
Thanks a lot for reading this article so far. If you like these Maven courses, 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 a complete beginner in Apache Maven and If you are looking for some free stuff to start with your Maven journey, then you can also check out this list of free Maven courses for Java Programmers.
