Top 10 Free Courses to learn Node.js in 2024 — Best of Lot
These are the best free online courses from Udemy, Coursera, Pluralsight, edX, and freeCodecamp to learn Nodejs online in 2024
Node.js has completely changed the way JavaScript is used for development. Earlier JavaScript was considered as a client-side language because it runs on a browser and is mostly used for client-side validations, animations, and interaction.
Node.js takes that to the next level by allowing JavaScript to run on a server-side, which means you can now write JavaScript applications that can execute without a browser. Node JS uses Google Chrome’s execution engine and asynchronous processing to do this.
All you need to do is include a node.js script in your application, and you are ready to create server-side applications in JavaScript, which wasn’t possible until a few years back.
Node.js has also played an essential role in doing full-stack development using just one programing language because now it’s possible for a JavaScript developer to create an end-to-end web application using Node.js and React.js or whatever stack they want. The bottom line is they will be using JavaScript on both the client and server sides.
Because of the immense popularity of Node.js and JavaScript, many programmers are also learning JavaScript and Node.js framework to become web developers, mainly full-stack developers, and that’s where these online courses help a lot.
In the past, I have shared some of the best Node.js online courses for Web developers, which many of my readers liked a lot and appreciate it. Still, some of them also asked about the free alternatives of those paid courses so that they start without investing any money.
Thankfully, the internet is full of excellent free resources, and I also encourage you to learn from them. They are not only best to get an idea of what node.js is and how it helps you to create a server-side application in JavaScript but also can teach you all the nitty-gritty of node.js and walk you through creating an end-to-end application.
Even though I am a nerd and have read hundreds of books, online courses have changed the way I learn new technologies. Now I start with a class, learn the basics like setting up my dev environment and writing my first few programs. Once I get the hang of technology, I follow up with a book to further consolidate and learn that in depth.
I’ll share the Node.js books later, but this is the time for some of the best free online Node.js courses from Coursera, Udemy, Pluralsight, and edX.org to kick-start your Node.js development journey.
Btw, If you don’t mind paying a few bucks for learning something as valuable as Node.js, then I also suggest you check out Nodejs — The Complete Guide by Maximilian, one of my favorite Udemy instructors. This is also, one of the best courses to self-taught Node.js yourself.
10 Best Free Online Courses to Learn Node.js for Beginners
These courses focus on Node.js basics and fundamentals and some hands-on coding. If you already know Node.js, you may find them a bit repeating, in that case, I suggest you take some advanced Node.js courses I have shared earlier.
Without wasting any more of your time, here is my list of some of the excellent free Node.js courses which you can take online at the comfort of your office and home. I have hand-picked these Node.js courses for beginners.
1. Node JS API Development for Beginners (Udemy)
This is one of the best Node JS beginner courses you can get online. In this course, you will learn Node JS API Development from absolute scratch.
This course is like complete beginners getting started guide, as you will start from what is node js and why learn node.js to installing node js dev environment and understand how JavaScript executes in a browser and a non-browser background.
In this course, you will learn Modern JavaScript, Node JS event loop, Asynchronous programming, using node modules, npm modules, creating your own modules, creating a server, connecting to the database, and sending json responses.
It has a really nice mix of theory and hands-on practice, which is very difficult to get in a free course. Talking about social proof, more than 11,605 students have already benefitted from this, and it has, on average, 4.3 ratings from close to 500 participants.
Here is the link to sign up for this course —Node JS API Development for Beginners
A big thanks to instructor Ryan Dhungel for creating this course and making it free for learners.
2. Server-side Development with NodeJS, Express, and MongoDB
This is another free Node.js course from Coursera, my favorite site for online learning from a reputed institution. This course is also offered by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
The course starts with a brief overview of the Web protocols like HTTP and HTTPS and then explains what NodeJS and NodeJS modules like Express for building web servers are.
On the database side, you will review basic CRUD operations, NoSQL databases, in particular, MongoDB and Mongoose, for accessing MongoDB from NodeJS.
After that, you will learn basic REST concepts and how to build a RESTful API with authentication and security features. Finally, you will learn about backend as a service (BaaS) approaches, including mobile BaaS, both open-source and commercial BaaS services.
Here is the link to sign up this course — Server-side Development with NodeJS, Express, and MongoDB
This course is also part of Full-Stack Web Development with React. If you don’t know, A Specialization is a series of classes that help you master a skill. When you complete this course, your progress will count towards your learning in this Specialization.
Like many Coursera courses, this is also free-to-audit, which means you can access the course for free but won’t get a certificate or grading. If you need a license, then you need to pay for that and complete the other courses on Specialization, which also contains a project perfect for some real-world experience.
And, if you find Coursera courses useful, which they are because they are created by reputed companies like Google, IBM, Amazon, and best universities around the world, I suggest you join the Coursera Plus, an annual subscription plan from Coursera.
This single subscription gives you unlimited access to their most popular courses, specialization, professional certificate, and guided projects. It cost around $399/year but its complete worth of your money as you get unlimited certificates.
3. Introduction to NodeJS (edX)
This is another excellent free course to learn Node.Js from Microsoft and edX Team. The ultimate beginner guide to creating web applications using Node.js, Express, and MongoDB.
In this free Node JS course, you will learn the basics of Node.js and its core modules. You will also learn how to import additional modules and configure your project using the npm.
From there, you will see how to use Express to set up a web server and how to interact with a MongoDB database using Mongoose.
By the end of the course, you will have created several real-world projects such as a web scraper, a blogging API, and a database migration script using node.js. Overall, a perfect node.js beginner course to kick-start your journey.
Here is the link to sign up this course —Introduction to NodeJS
4. Intro to Node JS & Express (Udemy FREE Course)
This is another introductory free course on Node JS and Express for beginners. The course is very informative and takes a step-by-step approach to teach Node JS and Express. The 10-part series covers:
- Project Structure
- Static Assets
- Templating Engines
- Dynamic Requests
- Handling POST data
- Rendering Dynamic Data
- Styling and Images
- Middleware
- Deployment
By the end of this series, you will understand the basics of a Node/Express project and be able to deploy a full-functional web app. I would highly recommend this course if you’re a beginner in the NodeJS and Full Stack development.
Here is the link to sign up this course — Intro to Node JS & Express
5. Node.js: Getting Started (Pluralsight)
If you have Pluralsight membership, then you can also take this excellent Introductory course on Node.js for Beginners then this is it.
Created by Samer Buna, the course provides an excellent overview of Node.js, including writing asynchronous code with callbacks and streams and modularizing your application with NPM and require().
You will learn the following things about Node.js in this course:
- What, How, and How of Node JS.
- Node’s REPL, Patterns, Globals, and Utilities
- Node’s Package Manager
- Working CommonJs modules
You will also learn about how to use built-in APIs for building and scaling web applications as well as a few critical third-party modules.
Here is the link to sign up this course — Node.js: Getting Started
Btw, this course is not exactly free as you would need a Pluralsight membership to access this course, which costs around $29/month or $299/year but also provides access to more than 5000+ high-quality online courses on latest technologies on Pluralsight.
A membership like this is beneficial for programmers who need to continually learn to keep themselves up-to-date. Even if you don’t have a membership, then also you can get access to this course by signing up for their 10-day free trial, provided you haven’t taken it already.
6. Code with Node: Learn by Doing (Udemy FREE course)
This one is one more hands-on Node js course which his freely available on Udemy. This is a great course for beginners and experienced programmers who want to become a full-stack developer by learning how to create and deploy a REST API
Unlike some other free online courses which are very short and cover only one or two topics, this is a comprehensive Node.js course with over 19 hours of content and downloadable resources. More than 22,694 student students have already put their trust in this course.
Created by Ian Schoonover, this is an ideal course to learn intermediate to advanced level web development and programming using Node.js and Express.js.
You will learn things like how to debug errors on the fly and how to build real-world features like pagination, search, filtering, geolocation, clustering, geospatial indexing, authentication, authorization, admin dashboard, user profiles, image upload, payments, and more!
Here is the link to sign up this course for FREE —Code with Node: Learn by Doing
7. Learn Node.js in 3 hours (FreeCodecamp free course)
This is another completely free course to learn Node.js on FreeCodecamp Youtube channel.
In this 3 hour, ad-free course, you will learn about Node.js from scratch
In case you are having the error of “Error: Cannot find module ‘ejs’ “ when you run node app from 2:25:24 run “npm install ejs” to fix this err
You can watch this course for FREE on Youtube or just here using this link:
8. Portfolio Website with Node JS & Express (Udemy FREE course)
This is another awesome free course to learn Node.js on Udemy, my favorite online training platform. In this hands-on, project-based course you will create a fully-working, professional portfolio site using Node.js and Express.js
This course is created by Daniel Kwon and it has over 3 hours of content and 8000 students have already trusted this course. While you get to start early on your capstone project, a Portfolio website and along the way you will also learn about request routing, templating engines, working with a database, REST API, image uploading, and AJAX requests with jQuery.
Overall, you will learn the following things in this course:
- Project Structure
- Templating Engine
- Request Routing
- REST API
- CRUD operations
- File uploading
- CMS for blogs and projects
- AJAX with jQuery
This free Node.js course is perfect for those looking to break into professional web development as a full stack developer
Here is the link to sign up this course for FREE — Portfolio Website with Node JS & Express
9. Complete Node.js Developer in 2024 on ZTM Academy [Not FREE]
This is another comprehensive and up-to-date online training course to learn Node.js in 2024. With 48 hour of Node.js content, this is one of the most comprehensive and premium training course available online.
It not only covers Node.js basics but also all the related technologies like Express, GraphQL, REST, MongoDB, MERN + more.
You will also learn about essential web development concept and work like integrating APIs, Authentication, File I/O, Databases (SQL, MongoDB), Express Framework, Sockets, and many other important topics a Backend Developer should know.
The best thing about this course is that its project based and you will build and deploy a MERN (MongoDb, Express, React, Node) fullstack app and into production. Along the way, you will also learn key concepts like load balancing, Monitoring, CI/CD, and Zero Downtime Deployment.
Overall, one of the best Node.js course for backend developer in 2024. Unfortunately, this is not free but its definitely worth looking, you can watch preview lessons to learn Node.js basics and get an idea about the quality of the course.
Here is the link to learn more — Complete Node.js Developer in 2024
As I said, its not free, you would need a ZTM membership to watch this course which costs around $39 per month but also provides access to many super engaging and useful courses like this one. You can also use coupon code FRIENDS10 to get a 10% discount on this course or any subscription you choose.
That’s all about some of the best free online courses to learn Node.js or Node JS in the 2024 and coming years. These are fantastic resources for any beginner learning Node.js and include free courses from sites like Udemy, Coursera, edX.org, and Pluralsight.
They are not classroom training, so you don’t need to go anywhere to attend them. You can take these courses online from your office and home.
Once you have gone through these courses and want to learn advanced Node.js concepts or explore Node.js in-depth, then you can also refer following resources, they are not free, but they are not very expensive either and are completely worthy of your time and money.
Other Web Development Resources you may like:
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- The 2024 React Developer RoadMap
- It’s Never too late to learn Web Development.
- 10 Free Courses to learn to React in 2024
- The Web Developer Roadmap (Frontend + Backend)
- 5 Free HTML and CSS Course for Web Developers
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Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like these best free Node JS courses, then please share it with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback, then please drop a note.
P.S. — If you don’t mind paying a few bucks for learning something as valuable as Node.js, then I also suggest you check out The Complete Node.js Developer course by Andrew Mead and Rob Percival, one of the best courses to learn Node js online.
