Contents
Introduction
For over 10 years, JavaScript has been the most widely used programming language in Stack Overflow’s annual developer survey, used by two-thirds of professional programmers. It’s a fantastic skill to add to your repertoire as a developer, and there's always more to learn to get great at JavaScript.
There are millions of courses teaching JavaScript, from the basics to advanced concepts. But very few courses are worth your time or money, because very few will actually help you get very good at JavaScript.
How do I know? Because my team spent several hundred hours meticulously testing and reviewing dozens of the top-rated JavaScript courses and learning paths from various vendors around the web.
This guide outlines the best courses that teach JavaScript, from the foundations to advanced concepts. We boosted courses that teach practical, professional usage, and left off courses that serve mostly as a library of JavaScript’s features. Whether you're just starting out or continuing to grow your skills, and whether your budget is $0 or $199+, you’ll find a great JavaScript course on this list.
Learning JavaScript Foundations
Scrimba's Learn JavaScript - Our Top Pick to Learn JavaScript Foundations
$18 per month (free option available) | 10-15 hours to complete
Scrimba’s Learn JavaScript course is far and away the best free resource for learning foundational JavaScript, as well as one of the best paid options if you choose to subscribe.
This Course Is Great For
- Beginners
- Project-based learning
- Frequent practice
- Feedback on your work
Scrimba's Learn JavaScript course covers the essential topics to get you working with JavaScript. The course is highly interactive, with a sequence of hands-on exercises that build small bits of a larger project, so you work towards building something interesting the whole time and spend most of the course with your hands on the keyboard.
The entire course curriculum is available for free, so you could choose to use Scrimba to learn JavaScript entirely for free. But we highly recommend purchasing a Pro subscription for a month or two while going through this course in order to get a certificate, full access to the community, and code reviews.
Scrimba's code reviews are stellar, providing a high amount of personalized feedback. Reviewers give feedback via Scrimba's interactive screencast format, so you get audiovisual feedback on your code.
To get really good at JavaScript, we suggest continuing with the Essential JavaScript Concepts and Next-level JavaScript courses. Both are part of the Frontend Developer Career Path.
Before You Buy
One small drawback is this course is organized by the projects you're building, with each section labeled by the functionality that you're implementing. As a result, it can be difficult to find where a specific topic is covered, to go back and review particulars of topics like looping through arrays.
Codecademy's Introduction to JavaScript - Also Great For Learning JavaScript Fundamentals
$30 per month (free option available) | 20 hours to complete
A solid option for learning JavaScript through hands-on exercises, though it provides a bit too much hand-holding.
This Course Is Great For
- Hands-on learning
- Beginners
This course takes learners from the basics of JavaScript and walks through most of the key features you’ll use when writing programs with JavaScript. You’ll learn variables, data types, conditionals, how to write functions, global and block-level scope, using arrays to store lists of data, using loops to execute blocks of code multiple times, using iterators to simplify looping over arrays, and working with objects.
Most of the learning takes place through short readings and coding exercises, meaning you spend most of your time with hands on the keys, coding. This is a great way to quickly and effectively learn programming.
However, the projects provide a bit too much hand holding, with detailed instructions that don't really push you to solve problems. To get really good at JavaScript, you'll want to supplement this course with additional independent practice projects. For example, through Exercism or Frontend Mentor.
Before You Buy
After this course, you'll be ready to take on a JavaScript project by yourself, but you may find yourself struggling a bit at first because Codecademy provides a lot of help along the way. You'll want some additional practice to synthesize what you've learned into job-ready skills.
You can take the course for free and access most of the course materials. However, to get the most out of the course, you’ll want to purchase a subscription, which gives you access to all of the course materials, including quizzes and projects.
FreeCodeCamp's Basic JavaScript - Also Great for Learning JavaScript Foundations
Free | 40 hours to complete
If you’re brand new to programming, this is a great starting point for learning the basics, especially since it's free. But after getting up to speed with the basics, you should consider moving to another more robust solution grounded in real world application.
This Course Is Great For
- Hands-on learning
- Beginners
- Learning Programming Concepts Through JavaScript
This course is part of FreeCodeCamp’s JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures Certification, and covers the essentials of programming with JavaScript. After taking the course, you’ll understand variables, arrays, objects, loops, and functions and be able to write basic programs with JavaScript.
Before You Buy
Many of the challenges are actually quite simple to game or guess at, because the reading gives away too many clues. We would prefer to see more difficult challenges built into the curriculum in order to help students build skills along the way. You may want to take on some additional challenges at LeetCode to practice the concepts as you’re learning them.
The projects at the end of the section aren't quite real world, as they’re most focused on applying Data Structures and Algorithms. They'll definitely push you to apply the skills you've learned. To get the most out of the course, we recommend trying to build some real-world websites at the end of the course to make sure you can fully apply your newly-learned JavaScript skills.
Learning Intermediate JavaScript
Udacity's Intermediate JavaScript - Our Top Pick for Learning Intermediate JavaScript
$249 per month | 120 hours to complete
The price point is high ($249 per month), but the quality of instruction is also among the highest. If you complete the Intermediate JavaScript Nanodegree, you will be a strong JavaScript developer and have three portfolio projects you can use when applying for jobs.
This Course Is Great For
- Novice programmers
- Hands-on learning
- Personalized feedback
The Intro courses will get you up and running with the core functionality of JavaScript, and the Intermediate JavaScript nanodegree continues into Object Oriented JavaScript, Functional Programming, and Asynchronous JavaScript, three courses that will take you to the professional level.
Each course contains a combination of videos, quizzes, hands-on exercises, and projects. You'll spend a lot of time practicing and developing JavaScript skills.
The projects are the real star here. All projects follow a real world scenario and have specs that you need to meet in order to pass, and are graded by a human. You'll receive personalized feedback, which is incredibly helpful.
Before You Buy
Udacity’s classroom app has integrated ChatGPT, so you can get instant help on each course. Additionally, you can get 24/7 technical support from a network of mentors.
Frontend Masters' Learn JavaScript Path - Also Great for Learning Intermediate JavaScript
$39 per month | 40 hours to complete
One of the top video-based JavaScript learning resources available. If you complete the introductory JavaScript courses plus the first 3-4 courses in the Learn JavaScript path, you'll become fairly solid with JavaScript.
This Learning Path Is Great For
- Code-along workshops
- Expert teachers
- Real world insights
Frontend Masters courses are taught by some of the leading teachers and industry practitioners, so you'll learn how JavaScript is actually used by developers in the real world.
These courses are recorded as real-time workshops, and include code files so you can follow along.
Since their instructors come from the front lines of some of the world’s top startups, their courses are loaded with real-world insights and examples.
As a subscriber, you have access to a Discord server where Frontend Masters staff and instructors hang out and answer questions. It's one of the more valuable learning communities out there.
Before You Buy
The first two courses, Introduction to JavaScript and Getting Started with JavaScript v2 are available for free. A subscription is required for the rest of the path.
Since the workshops are recorded in real time with a live audience, sometimes the instructors get led off on tangents. Not a dealbreaker, but it's a small drawback to the format that you don't encounter with other solutions.
Pluralsight's JavaScript 2022 Learning Path - Also Great for Learning Intermediate JavaScript
$29 per month | 40 hours to complete
Pluralsight is one of the best video-based learning options, largely due to the quality of Pluralsight's expert authors and their consistently high production quality.
This Course Is Great For
- Code-along screencasts
- Micro learning
- Learning from expert authors
Pluralsight’s JavaScript 2022 path contains a series of video courses covering everything from the basics of JavaScript to object-oriented programming with JavaScript and functional programming with JavaScript.
The courses are concise and scoped well to cover the core topics without too much overlap.
Concepts are always explained well and demonstrated using a scenario - a fictitious real world context that make explanations and demonstrations more practical and realistic to what you'll encounter when building websites with JavaScript.
Before You Buy
Pluralsight is short on hands-on practice or interactivity, so if you prefer a course with coding challenges or projects, we suggest going with another resource from our list, or supplementing Pluralsight courses with some independent practice.
Pluralsight has one interactive JavaScript course on their path, but we found it extremely limited. It's hyper-focused on practicing JavaScript arrays, and in our opinion, not worth spending time on.
Learning Advanced JavaScript
Once you've learned intermediate JavaScript concepts like callbacks, higher order functions, types & coercion, and JavaScript's object-oriented system, you can move to mastering advanced JavaScript. Explore some of the advanced language features like hoisting, scope chains, and closures, as well as how to write highly performant JavaScript, and how to test JavaScript.
Frontend Masters' JavaScript Path Electives - Our Top Pick for Learning Advanced JavaScript
$39 per month | 30 hours to complete
This series of video-based courses will take your JavaScript knowledge to expert-level.
This Learning Path Is Great For
- Code-along workshops
- Expert teachers
- Real world insights
We listed the Frontend Masters JavaScript Path among our top Intermediate JavaScript picks. The same strengths apply here - expert teachers, real-world insights, and a thriving community - and here are in service of some highly advanced concepts like performance, testing, and functional programming.
As an advanced learner, hands-on practice isn't quite as essential in the training materials, since by this point you're probably able to create your own practice opportunities, whether on side projects or in a professional context.
Happy Learning!
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