8 Best Websites to Learn Web Development for Free

In today’s saturated job market choosing the right career is very important.

Career choice is a difficult process though, since there are several criteria to take into account, such as whether it suits you well, whether it makes you happy, the salary, working hours, benefits, etc.

And in comparison, web development seems to be one of the most favorable choices, even when the technology is evolving and websites can be created in minutes using  website builders. Here’s why people want to learn web development:

• The average annual salary ranges from $26.533 to $109.845 (in the USA).
• Web developers are in high demand throughout the world and the demand (along with the average salary) is rising. This offers flexibility to switch countries or choose to freelance.
• Statistical predictions indicate that rapid growth will continue in 2019-2022.

And these days, you can learn anything online: Spanish and literature, econ or photo editing.

But before you go ahead and sign up for just any web development class, I suggest we take a look at the variety of courses you can choose from to save money and time by learning web development online free.

1. Coursera
2. Codeacademy
3. Udacity
4. W3Schools
5. Udemy
6. Alison
7. TheNewBoston
8. edX
9. P.S.

Let’s get started with our list!

Coursera

Coursera is a huge online course catalog where you can easily find the web development class you’re looking for. The courses are designed in partnership with distinguished universities and educational institutions, corresponding to the demands of the best educators and best practices.

The sophisticated filtering system allows the student to choose not just the field and topic, but also the degree and level of the course, the institution that offers the online course, the language, length, etc.
The topics and levels vary from a simple HTML/CSS/JS beginner course offered by Johns Hopkins University to more in-depth Ruby on Rails and Angular JS courses for intermediates.

Finally, what’s cool about Coursera, is that upon graduation you get an online certificate as formal proof of completion and can attach it to your resume.

Codecademy

Codecademy is like the Bible of web development newbies. Based on the 15 most popular development languages in the world, these free courses contain the core basic knowledge you need to get started. Most of the courses start at the zero level, defining variables and giving simple introductions into coding. I’d say if you’re looking to learn web development free, this is the best option.

The HMTL/CSS courses are followed by JS courses, which then lead to more advanced Node JS courses. Here you can also find back-end classes, such as Ruby or Ruby on Rails courses.

Each course in Codecademy is divided into separate sections. Each section has its small units and each unit contains supporting exercises to test your knowledge. Most of the courses also include a final test for checking your level.

However, Codecademy only offers certificates upon graduation of Pro Intensive programs, and the free courses don’t include certification.

That being said, knowledge and experience these days are so valuable that if you have them, certification becomes trivial. My advice would be to get some practice taking courses on Codeacademy and then hone your skills by taking on freelance projects. Don’t charge a lot at first because you need the experience. After all, you did learn web development free, so not getting much return on this initial investment of time at first is to be expected.

Udacity

Udacity offers great free online courses in partnership with such leading IT companies as Google, AT&T, Github, Amazon, etc. The course levels vary from beginner to intermediate to advanced as Udacity offers a variety of courses, from simple HTML5/CSS courses to a compact web development courses with Javascript, Backbone.js, etc.

Udacity puts an emphasis on practice, which anyone who has ever studied computer science or web development knows is a big plus. The classes are all interactive, with videos and quizzes to test yourself and check your level of understanding every once in a while. Most of the courses are also supported by a big helpful community of students. Some courses also require building mid-course projects for an even more practical learning experience.

Since Udacity offers non-degree courses only, it doesn’t provide certifications.

W3Schools

I’d never claim W3Schools is a place where you can actually learn web development and become a pro. It’s not.

However, if you’re an absolute beginner and are still looking to understand the very basics, W3Schools could be very helpful. You can find HTML, CSS, JS, BootStrap and XML tutorials there.

Each tutorial is written in simple and non-techy language, so that people who have absolutely no experience in coding can understand. The topics are supplemented with a set of simple tasks inviting the user to put their knowledge to use.

Udemy

Udemy is a huge school and offers courses in extremely diverse fields, from health and music to photography and programming.

Most of the Udemy courses are paid, however, there’s also a set of free courses, that are pretty decent for getting started. The filtering system will allow you to find the kind, of course, you’re looking for.

The free course topics and levels vary drastically: from HTML5, CSS3 and Angular JS courses to PHP and MySQli building.

Udemy is very comfortable for people with busy schedules, since the courses come with lifetime access, so you can take the course at flexible times and easily return to wherever you dropped the course next time. But this does detract from the urgency of learning: you can postpone your plan to learn web development online indefinitely and ultimately just forget about it.

As a plus, each and every course taken at Udemy comes with a completion certificate that can be added to your online resumes, for example, your LinkedIn profile.

Alison

Alison is another big skill-building platform with courses varying from languages and lifestyle to web development. The owners of the website believe free education is the base of progress, so all the courses are absolutely free.

However, if you need a certificate, you’ll have to pay for it.

There are three main course level to choose from. Students can also select courses based on the learning area: academic, workplace or personal development.

The course materials mainly consist of audio and video classes to make the process more interactive. The web development course topics include CSS3, HTML5 and JS, as well as Angular, Node, etc.

Alison also wants to motivate the students to make the most of the course material, which is why there are several graded assessments throughout the course and, in order to be considered a course graduate and get official certification, a minimum score of 80% should be achieved.

TheNewBoston

TheNewBoston is for all those who prefer video classes. It’s a Youtube channel containing endless video courses of HTML, CSS, PHP, Node JS, Python, and other popular languages and frameworks.

However, it should be noted, that the videos of the channel are for beginners and mainly bear introductory nature.

Each video is a short, 3-10 minute on average, answer to a very specific question/topic, such as the installation processes, setting up code blocks, running the code, etc.

edX

edX is fantastic for those of you who loved college and are constantly tempted to give grad school a shot. It’s basically as close as you can get to taking a web development course on campus.

If you’re looking for a true academic course of web development, edX is the choice for you. Edx offers both degree and non-degree courses from distinguished universities, such as MIT, UC Berkeley, Harvard University, Sorbonne, etc.

EdX courses provide a true classroom experience, with the university syllabus and corresponding assignments, tests, and exams.

Each course description contains detailed course information, such as average course length, average effort, the subject, the language, the institution that offers the course, etc.

One of the most popular web development courses is the Ruby on Rails program offered by the University of California.

The program consists of two 6-week courses and dives into Agile development fundamentals based on Ruby on Rails.

However, here’s the deal with edX: if you’re looking for free courses, you can indeed enroll in any edX course as an auditor and pass all the exams, but to get an official degree or even a course graduation certificate you’ll have to pay the full course fee.

P.S.

Forgot to ask you one very important question. Why exactly are you trying to learn web development online? Are you actually interested in making a career out of it or are you just looking for a way to build a website for your business or blog?

Because if the latter’s the case, you definitely don’t need to know everything these courses teach. You can just use one of our awesome website templates and then tweak it with 10Web builder on top of the most popular and intuitive WP builder Elementor. Get started with a free trial today and you’ll have your website up and running in a few hours. We’ll even optimize your site’s performance so your designer-made website loads in no time and attracts more visitors.

Did this article answer your “learn web development free” Google search? Have you picked the course that suits you best? Then it’s high time to start learning and become a web developer. Don’t forget to let us know in the comments section below what’s the best website to learn web development in your opinion.