Top 10 Free courses to learn Spring Framework for Java developers in 2024

Hello guys, I have been sharing a lot of resources like books and courses recently and when I published my list of Top 8 courses to learn Spring and Hibernate, many of my readers asked about a similar list of free courses to learn Spring Framework like Core Spring, Spring MVC, Spring Security, and Spring Boot.

To honor that request, earlier I have published 10 free Spring Boot courses and today I am going to share free Spring framework courses to learn core Spring and Spring MVC.

In this list, I have compiled some of the best online free courses to learn Spring Framework from scratch, online at your own pace. You can not only learn the core Spring like framework that provides dependency injection, but also Spring MVC, the most important framework for a Java Web Developer, Spring Security, and Spring Boot to take your career to next level.

I love free resources like books and courses, but there are many people who think that free resources are not just worth it, they are often not up-to-date and learning from them is just plain waste of time.

Well, they do have a point that free resources are mostly outdated but free resources don’t mean they are not valuable. Paid resources are definitely better than free resources but then, they have to, you are paying money to use them.

There was a time when I buy a lot of books, I still do but now I also focus on free books and courses. Most of the things I have learned are from free resources. We just need to be careful to choose the courses which are not outdated and good.

These courses are designed to not only explain how to use the Spring framework to build Java projects but also introduce you to Spring ecosystems like other projects under the Spring framework umbrella, like Spring MVC, Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, Spring Batch, Spring Microservice, and Spring Integration, etc.

Though, if you don’t mind spending a few bucks on learning a valuable skill like spring framework then I also suggest you check out Spring Framework : Beginner to Guru course on Udemy. It’s not free but very affordable and you'd get in just $10 on a Udemy sale. It’s the most up-to-date course and covers Spring 5.

Spring Framework : Beginner to Guru Tutorial

10 Best Free Courses to learn Core Spring, Spring Boot, and Spring MVC

Without wasting any more time, here are some of the best free Spring courses for Java developers to learn Spring Core, Spring MVC, and Spring Boot online at their own pace.

I will keep this list up-to-date and add Spring 5 courses once I find good free courses to share. Btw, most of the courses on the list are still valuable and teach timeless and fundamental concepts.

1. Spring Framework And Dependency Injection For Beginners

This is one of the best free courses to learn the basics of the Spring framework like Dependency Injection and Inversion of control. When I first learn Spring those were the driving factors. I was amazed at how those techniques help you to write loosely coupled code, something which was both easier to test and maintain.

In this step-by-step Spring course, you will first learn how to create a new Spring application, and then you will understand the fundamentals of the dependency injection (IoC) features of Spring using Java and annotation-based configuration.

Here is the link to join this course — Spring Framework And Dependency Injection For Beginners

This is also one of the most popular Spring framework courses available online for free, with 27,604 students already enrolled.

In short, If you are new to Spring Framework, or you know Spring but are new to Java or annotation-based Spring configuration, then this is the right course for you.

2. Introducing Spring Boot [Free]

Spring Boot is a new and better way to use the Spring framework and it has really taken off in the last couple of years. This course will not teach you what is Spring boot but also help you to set up your own development environment, which is the hardest thing for anyone starting with new technology.

You will also create a Hello World application from scratch and understand the tools needed to build Spring Boot Applications.

As a pre-requisite, you should be familiar with Java or Groovy and Spring framework. If you are not familiar with the Spring framework, I suggest you take the first Spring course on this list.

It’s also one of the most popular free Spring boot courses and 20,0000 students are already enrolled in this course. Once you enroll, you can access this course on mobile and TV and you will also get a Certificate of Completion, after successfully completing the course.

Here is the link to join this course — Introducing Spring Boot

3. Spring Fundamentals

This is one of the best courses to start with the Spring framework from Pluralsight. The Author Bryan Hansen is a Director at Software Technology Group, a consulting company based out of Salt Lake City, and has authored and taught numerous courses in Java and Spring.

In this course, you will learn the fundamentals of Spring development by going through the various configuration methods that are available in Spring-like:
1. XML Configuration
2. XML Configuration using Annotations
3. Java Configuration
4. And how to read properties files.

After this course, you are ready to explore the other Spring projects like Spring MVC, Spring Boot, and Spring Microservice. You don’t need any prior Spring experience to attend this course but you should be familiar with Java.

Here is the link to join this course —Spring Fundamentals

Though, this course is not exactly free as you would need a Pluralsight membership which costs money, around $29 per month or $299 per annum. Though, if you want, you can get this course for free by taking their 10-day-free-trial which allows 200 minutes of free learning.

There is also a new updated version of this course by the same author Bryan Hansen Spring Framework: Spring Fundamentals, if you want, you can also check that.

Spring Framework: Spring Fundamentals

4. Introduction to Spring Boot 2 and Spring Framework 5

This is another great free Spring boot and Spring 5 free course for Udemy which is great for beginners, particularly for Java Web developers who want to develop internet-based Java web applications using the Spring framework.

In this course, you will learn the basic introduction to Spring Boot and Spring Framework 5. It covers building a basic app, architecture, controllers, views, tags, validation, and ajax within Spring MVC.

You will learn the following thing in this course:

1. How to create a Spring Boot Web Application
2. How to create a new Spring Boot Project
3. How to Store and Retrieve Data with Spring Data JPA
4. How to use Thymeleaf to Display Data from a Database to a Web Page

Here is the link to join this course — Introduction to Spring Boot 2 and Spring Framework 5

5. Spring Boot: Complete guide from development to deployment

This free Spring boot course provides a complete guide from development to deployment. Created by Bhupendra Sharma this course will teach you how to build a micro-service application using Spring boot

This course has more than 2.5 hours of learning content and more than 32,000 students have joined this course.

Here is the link to join this course — Spring Boot: Complete guide from development to deployment

6. RESTful Web Services with Spring Framework - A quick start

This is another popular free Spring framework tutorial and occurs from Udemy. It provides a quick start to building your REST API with Spring Boot and Spring MVC.

In this 3 hours long course, you will learn the following things:

1. How to create a RESTful Web Service using Spring Framework
2. Ho to use Postman to send HTTP requests and receive HTTP responses in JSON or XML format
3. How to create Web Service endpoints to handle HTTP Requests
4. How to read and Validate URL Query String Request Parameters and HTTP Request Body
5. How to handle Java Exceptions and return back a proper HTTP Response
6. How to build and run the RESTful Web Service Application as a Standalone app

Here is the link to join this course — RESTful Web Services with Spring Framework — A quick start

6. Build an Angular and Spring MVC Web Application

If you are looking for a free online course to learn full-stack web development using Java and Spring then this course is for you. In this 2 hours long course, created by Bushan Sigur you will learn a lot of things a full stack Java developer should know.

After completing this course you should be able to :

1. create a web application using Angular and Spring MVC
2. make HTTP calls using Angular
3. Create a RESTful API using Spring MVC
4. Create a Database application using Spring MVC and Hibernate

Here is the link to join this course — Build an Angular and Spring MVC Web Application

8. Developing Cloud-Native Apps w/ Microservices Architectures

If you are looking for a free online training course to develop Microservices using the Spring framework then this course is for you.

This is an official Red hat training course by Burr Sutter and in this 2.5 hours course you will learn the following things:

1. Microservice architecture fundamentals and basics
2. Practice techniques for deploying a variety of microservices frameworks through a DevOps pipeline.

Here is the link to join this course — Developing Cloud-Native Apps w/ Microservices Architectures

9. Learn Spring Boot the Easy Way!

This is a short course to learn Spring basics and you will learn Spring Boot the Easy Way, with examples and Interview questions.

In this course you will learn the following things:

1. What is spring boot?
2. what does spring boot do?
3. Spring boot starter dependencies
4. Auto-configuration and Spring boot initializer
5. How to create Spring boot application in Eclipse
6. Embedded servers
7. Fat Jar, Self-contained jar, Runnable jar

Here is the link to join this course — Learn Spring Boot the Easy Way!

Though, if you want to become a full-stack Java developer, I also suggest you take a look at Karthikeya’s full-stack Java bundle, which comprises many courses to become a full-stack Java developer. He is kindly offering the bundle for $1 for one month especially for Javarevisited readers,

Karpado Premium Member!

10. Learn Spring Core the Easy Way!

This is a great, comprehensive, and free course to learn Spring Framework, particularly Spring Core. Created by @Karthikya This 5-hour long course will teach you the basics of the Spring framework.

You will learn the following things in this course:

1. Dependency Injection and Inversion of control Container
2. Autowiring and Singleton Beans
3. Prototype Beans
4. Aspect-Oriented Programming
5. Property Editors and Factory Beans
6. Aware Interfaces and Bean life cycle

Here is the link to join this course — Learn Spring Core the Easy Way!

11. Spring & Hibernate for Beginner

This is not really a free course but I put it here because it’s one of the most practical courses I a come across. In this course, you will build a complete project with Spring MVC and Hibernate from scratch and since you can get it on just $10 in Udemy, so, it’s not expensive at all.

There is another reason for putting a Spring + Hibernate course in this list because of many projects in real-world use both of these frameworks together. Spring is used in Presentation, Business, and Service layer while Hibernate is used in the backend and DB layer.

Unlike other courses that explain only core concepts, the author of this course Chad Darby, explains every single line of code you type, very useful for beginners.

In short, one of the better online courses to learn Spring and Hibernate together, especially if you are starting from scratch.

Here is the link to join this course —Spring & Hibernate for Beginner

That’s all about some of the best, free Spring courses for beginners to learn online. Like Java, the Spring framework is also vast and it’s not easy to get everything from just one course.

You may need to separate courses to learn Spring MVC, Spring Boot, Spring Batch, Spring Microservice if you want them to learn in good detail, but don’t worry, I’ll be sharing some of the free books and courses to cover them individually as well.

Btw, if you can’t wait then you can also look through these resources to start with, they are not necessarily free but valuable:

1. Spring Framework 5: Beginner to Guru
2. REST with Spring Master Class
3. Spring Security Master Class by Eugen Paraschiv
4. Full Stack Java Developer by Karpado

Thanks for reading this article, if you like these courses, then please share them with your friends and colleagues. It’s free and everybody should take benefit of that. If you have any questions or feedback then please drop a note.

Learn Spring: The Certification Class