JavaScript (or JS) is a lightweight, interpreted programming language that is used to make web pages interactive. As it can insert dynamic text into HTML, JavaScript is also known as a browser’s language. JavaScript is fun, but not easy to learn. These 15 top Udemy courses teach you JavaScript from basic to advanced while making the process less painful.
But first, let’s not confuse JavaScript and Java.
Though both languages are widely used in Web applications, JavaScript and Java are not similar nor related. You can check out this article from GeeksforGeeks to know more about the differences between Java and JavaScript.
With that cleared up, now you need to answer two important questions:
1 Where are you with JavaScript?
Are you a beginner? Or are you able to distinguish which code to copy and paste?
2 How far do you want to go?
People learn JavaScript for different reasons. You need to visualize a concrete goal at the end of your path to learning JavaScript. Once you have that goal in mind, you can start working backward on the things you need to get there.
Many people struggle when they try to learn things too advanced or set too high expectations. You need a detailed roadmap and correct materials to help you through the difficult phases. The roadmap takes time to form as it needs to be personalized. But, things get easier when you have the materials.
These best Udemy courses contain a variety of JavaScript fundamentals and exercises, which will help you shorten your path to learning JavaScript.
If you’re wondering why I choose Udemy to learn JavaScript and many other subjects, check out my latest review about the site.
1. Best JavaScript Course on Udemy:
The Complete JavaScript Course 2019: Build Real Projects!
Length: 28 hours
Total students: 229.000+
Includes: 10 articles, 1 downloadable resource
Created by: Jonas Schmedtmann
The Complete JavaScript Course 2019: Build Real Projects! by Jonas Schmedtmann is the most-enrolled Udemy course in the JavaScript department. There are actually several reasons for that.
First of all, this Udemy class is one of those standout JavaScript courses that are beginner-friendly.
Jonas’ style is accessible and he tends to gear towards beginners. He makes sure the newbies are not left out by throwing in four hours of the basics at the beginning of the course. Even advanced concepts like hoisting and scoping are explained in a way that even a newbie can understand.
However, if you’re completely new to programming, you still need to replay the tutorials a couple of times to get the hang of it.
At 28 hours, this is perhaps the most in-depth JavaScript course on Udemy.
With The Complete JavaScript Course 2019: Build Real Projects!, you won’t just learn the language. You will learn how to program, how to solve problems, how to structure and organize code using common JavaScript patterns.
Aside from coding sessions, coding challenges, and theory lectures, you can challenge yourself through three projects, including a feature-rich budget app. You also have the opportunity to test your knowledge in a 30-question final course exam.
As a bonus, The Complete JavaScript Course 2019: Build Real Projects! features a Node.js mini-crash course near the end. This is extremely handy if you’re planning on becoming a full-stack or backend developer.
But…
There is always a “but.”
The “but” in this course is Schmedtmann’s accent. His German accent (I’m just guessing here) can sometimes throw you off. There are parts where, without the closed English captions, I wouldn’t have understood half the things he said. His microphone quality is good though.
2. JavaScript: Understanding the Weird Parts
Length: 11.5 hours
Total students: 131.000+
Includes: 7 articles, 50 downloadable resources
Created by: Anthony Alicea
The Complete JavaScript Course 2019: Build Real Projects! is meant for beginners. It shows you the basics and fundamentals of JavaScript and gets you to practice with real projects. However, a lot of people are also learning and mastering JavaScript at the same time you do. To really stand out, you need more than just basics and fundamentals.
That’s where JavaScript: Understanding the Weird Parts comes into play.
Aside from being the second-best JavaScript course, JavaScript: Understanding the Weird Parts by Anthony Alicea also scores a spot in the 25 top Development courses on Udemy.
You can learn how JavaScript actually works.
The course offers a deeper understanding of Javascript and how it works under the hood. That knowledge helps you avoid common traps and improve your problem-debugging capability.
You will find clarity in the parts that even experienced coders may find incomprehensible. In time, you will start to appreciate the beauty and deceptive power of this language.
You won’t have to worry about the code.
What I like most about the course is its downloadable source code. You’ll have “starter” code which gives you the base to start writing, and “finished” code to compare your code to.
Also, if you’re not keen on taking notes or afraid you have missed a couple of points during the lesson, GitHub gets you covered. Jason Baciulis, a person on GitHub has generously shared his note for the JavaScript: Understanding the Weird Parts with the community.
You can easily make use of this note to make the learning process more efficient.
3. Modern JavaScript From The Beginning
Length: 21.5 hours
Total students: 42.000+
Includes: 111 articles
Created by: Brad Traversy
The world of programming is literally infinite. There are JavaScript, and React, and Node, and everything in between. It’s easy to want to skip through the variables and prototypal inheritance and get to the cool stuff.
However, the vanilla JavaScript, the one where no framework and jQuery are allowed, is the solid path to learning the language. It will also set you up for success when it comes to learning other things from NoSQL databases to run-time environments like Node.
Modern JavaScript From The Beginning is a course dedicated to vanilla JavaScript only.
The course was created by Brad Traversy, a well-known YouTube content creator.
Brad Traversy has a knack for taking tough concepts and turning them into plain English. His code editor is his chalkboard, where he sketches out everything from object-oriented programming (OOP) principles to design patterns.
He’s most known for his project-focused tutorials. You can check out his Traversy Media Youtube channel to know more about his teaching methods.
His Udemy courses are not an exception. In Modern JavaScript From The Beginning, Brad spends the first three hours going through the fundamentals of JavaScript before moving on to error handling.
What makes the course more special is its projects.
As mentioned earlier, Brad’s teaching method is project-focused. His Udemy classes, of course, won’t go without a project. Or ten.
Throughout the course, you will tackle ten different projects from easy to hard. The projects include:
- Task List With Local Storage
- Loan Calculator
- Number Guess Game
- OOP Book Listing App (ES5 Prototype & ES2015 Classes Version)
- Chuck Norris Joke Generator
- Easy HTTP – Custom HTTP Library (3 Versions – Callbacks / Promises / Async & Await)
- Github Finder
- WeatherJS App
- Calorie Tracker (Module Pattern)
- Microposts – Frontend CRUD for REST API (Webpack & Babel)
The course doesn’t include any libraries or frameworks.
This can seem like a negative point, but it’s not. If you need projects on libraries and frameworks to practice with, you always have The Complete JavaScript Course 2019: Build Real Projects! on your back.
In this course, you won’t be distracted with the bells and whistles of web development. Instead, you can focus entirely on JavaScript, the kind you need to build websites and web applications.
4. ES6 Javascript: The Complete Developer’s Guide
Length: 6 hours
Total students: 30.000+
Includes: 1 article, 36 coding exercises
Created by: Stephen Grider
Since modern web frameworks like React and Angular 2 were released, web developers who understand ES6 syntax have been highly sought after. It’s high time you brushed up your knowledge or started learning the language.
This Udemy course will teach you the core knowledge of ES6.
You start by mastering the fundamentals of iteration over Arrays using helpers like “forEach,” “map,” and “reduce.” After an introduction to Array helpers, the instructor dives right into advanced ES6. Topics like enhanced object literals, default function arguments, and classes are all well-covered.
The lessons have a smooth flow and progression.
The course is explained in a way that outlines the most important concepts. Each topic features multiple live coding exercises to ensure you understand new concepts. This is actually great since all the key concepts will naturally be retained.
Stephen Grider makes it easy to understand things.
The course is ideal for visual learners and people who could do a brief recap of what was previously discussed in order to progress into the following chapters. The instructor is also using comparisons and analogies to make it easier to follow and digest the course material.
5. The Modern JavaScript Bootcamp (2019)
Length: 29.5 hours
Total students: 27.000+
Includes: 128 downloadable resources
Created by: Andrew Mead
Being able to write code on your own is vital in learning JavaScript. The Modern JavaScript Bootcamp (2019) helps complete beginners start on this wonderful JavaScript adventure through writing code.
The course is perfect for people who are brand-new to JavaScript.
Much of the materials used in this course mirror those of Traversy’s Modern JavaScript from the Beginning above. The difference is that Andrew Mead takes a lot more time on the basics. For instance, he spends over two hours to cover arrays. The variables and flow control section also runs for about two hours each. These make it the most expansive JavaScript course on Udemy.
Andrew has recently added a section called Cutting-Edge JavaScript with Babel and Webpack which is nearly 5 hours. These supplemental materials are super helpful later on.
Another selling point for this course is the challenges.
There are a total of 80 challenges in this course. 80 (!!)
That’s a lot to cover. And that’s probably enough to keep you busy for months. The challenges include writing code, adding features to applications, and solving various JavaScript problems.
During the class, you’ll play around with three JavaScript applications:
- The first app, a note-taking app, is the starter application. You’ll learn what it is required to build a program that allows users to add, edit, delete, and save their notes.
- You’ll be building the second app, a to-do application, by yourself. This will test your real-world experience and problem-solving skills when writing JavaScript code.
- The last app, a hangman word game, helps you explore the world of JavaScript. This third app allows you to understand ways set up applications that rely on data from third-party services. These services usually offer real-time information like the user’s current location.
But…
Here comes that “but” again.
My only critique with The Modern JavaScript Bootcamp (2019) is that lots of the time, Andrew just provides the knowledge, the what, instead of explaining why something is the way it is, the why. He usually gets lost doing whatever he’s doing and forgets to stress on why he’s doing that.
6. Accelerated ES6 JavaScript Training
Length: 6 hours
Total students: 20.000+
Includes: 16 articles, 12 downloadable resources
Created by: Maximilian Schwarzmüller
Modern JavaScript, ES6 (ECMAScript 6), is the next big thing in the world of JavaScript. It adds tons of new features, methods, objects, and helpers. As a result, the earlier you feel confident using them, the better.
You’ll be learning with Maximilian, one of the best teachers in the area of web development.
As a freelance Web developer, Maximilian Schwarzmüller, the creator of the course, has to use JavaScript on a daily basis. He gets the importance of understanding the language and the annoyance of the lack of resources. So, he decided to produce this course to pass on his knowledge and save you the trouble.
If you’re looking for a trainer with in-depth knowledge, Maximilian Schwarzmüller is the one you should be looking for.
The course follows a hands-on, example-driven approach.
Accelerated ES6 JavaScript Training follows a hands-on, example-driven approach to show and explain all the important features added to JavaScript. This includes important syntax changes and additions like let, const, Rest, and Spread Operators.
At the end of the course, you’ll start to build a complete project, using many of the new features above.
7. Advanced Javascript
Length: 3.5 hours
Total students: 16.000+
Includes: 2 articles
Created by: Asim Hussain
Have you ever thought of learning JavaScript in just three hours?
Well, you kind of can with this particular course, Advanced Javascript.
This Udemy course teaches you advanced JavaScript through a series of 20 interview questions.
Asim Hussain, the instructor of the course, finds that when he faces an upcoming interview, he tends to review the knowledge and outline it in a query form. Therefore, he has decided to turn this course into a series of interview questions.
He claims that Javascript interviews are designed to dig deeper into your knowledge to see if you are just copying the code or if you have a proper understanding.
In this course, you’re going to learn:
- Types and Equality: Different types in JS and how to check if two values are really equal.
- Scopes: Different scopes a variable can be declared in and how to manipulate those scopes.
- Object Orientation: How to perform OO in Javascript with both Prototype Pattern and Pseudo-Classical/Constructor Pattern.
- Advanced topics in Networking such as CORS and JSONP.
- Advanced topics in Event Handling.
What I like best about this course is that each lesson was named an interview question.
As said earlier, this course is based on a series of 20 interview questions. What’s even better is that the lessons were named in a format of a question.
Let’s look at some examples of how a lesson was named.
- In the Basic lesson, you’ll run into “What is ‘use strict’ and what does it do?”
- In Types and Equality, you’ll get the answer to “What are the different types in JavaScript?”
- Object Orientation is started with the question ” What does this keyword mean?”
Turning a whole course into a series of questions is a fresh and great idea. Not only are you learning the knowledge, but you’re also preparing yourself for your next job interview. What a way to kill two birds with one stone.
8. Advanced JavaScript Concepts
Length: 24.5 hours
Total students: 15.000+
Includes: 25 articles, 2 downloadable resources
Created by: Andrei Neagoie
If most of the courses above are for newbies, I wouldn’t recommend Andrei Neagoie’s Advanced JavaScript Concepts for beginners, at all.
Advanced JavaScript Concepts is the combination of Andrei’s years in the industry, the best resources, and tools available. As the title suggests, it’s an advanced JavaScript course. Unless you’re already familiar with some of the JavaScript patterns, you may want to look into other courses.
Many of the topics in Advanced JavaScript Concepts haven’t been seen in other Udemy courses.
Advanced JavaScript Concepts covers:
- Javascript Engine
- Javascript Runtime
- Interpreter, Compiler, JIT Compiler
- Call Stack + Memory Heap
- Stack Overflow + Memory Leaks
- Garbage Collection
- Node.js
- ES6, ES7, ES8, ES9 features
You won’t just learn patterns and techniques. You’ll understand the “why” of the most difficult part of the language. Any web developer, React, Angular, Vue.js developer (frontend), or a Node.js developer (backend) will benefit from this course as Javascript is the meat of these careers.
If you’re looking for a “but” of this course, here it is.
The course is great and everything. However, the instructor went a little too far with the marketing strategies. If you click on the course description, you will see a line promising:
You will be in the top 10% of JavaScript Programmers by the end of this course.
Well…
I’ve been taking a lot of Udemy JavaScript courses. I’m actually earning a living on Udemy. I can safely tell you that no course whatsoever is going to get you into the top 10% of JavaScript programmers.
These courses serve as an instruction, or as far as a motivation. However, without practice and experience, this knowledge is going to waste. At the end of the day, it all comes down to you, and not the Udemy courses, that makes you a great JavaScript developer.
9. Essentials in JavaScript ES6 – A Fun and Clear Introduction
Length: 2 hours
Total students: 57.000+
Includes: 11 articles, 7 coding exercises
Created by: David Joseph Katz
David Joseph Katz is a software engineer at Zendesk, with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of San Francisco. His working experience has given David valuable insight into the tech industry. By incorporating the best practices he has learned, he hopes to create the highest-quality learning experiences.
Both of David’s JavaScript ES6 courses on Udemy has made this list of “best.”
- The first one is Essentials in JavaScript ES6 – A Fun and Clear Introduction, which is this one.
- The second one is The Full JavaScript & ES6 Tutorial – (including ES7 & React).
The two courses are, in fact, quite similar. The main difference is the latter offers ES7 and React while the first mostly focuses on ES6.
Both courses ensure you learn ES6 in a stimulating, informative, yet fun way.
Pre-taped tutorials get you typing code and explain the reasons for each code. Optional quizzes and coding challenges reinforce key concepts while coding breaks in each section let you approach the course at your own pace.
If you’re new, these two courses provide a great introduction to ES6. On the other hand, if you’re already experienced, you’ll find a nice overview of the language.
10. Best Free JavaScript Course on Udemy:
Javascript Essentials
Length: 6.5 hours
Total students: 181.000+
Includes: 19 downloadable resources
Created by: Lawrence Turton
Javascript Essentials is one of the best courses on Udemy. What’s more, it’s completely free.
The course was created by Lawrence Turton, a technical instructor, a web developer, and a graphic designer.
His career length gives him a unique perspective on real-world projects from start to finish and a wealth of information for newcomers to the web industry.
He has made this course to teach the Javascript essentials for web development or any type of programming. You will learn all the basics of Javascript including primitive types, arrays, functions, assignment operators, the window object, and much more.
Lawrence also provides clear explanations of objects, constructors, and arrays. You’ll also dive into some more detail about how Javascript works and even advanced topics like prototype inheritance, scope, and execution context.
Although Javascript Essentials is a good course, Lawrence Turton tends to talk a little too much.
Well, he’s an instructor. Isn’t he supposed to talk?
Yeah, of course, an instructor needs to explain things to the students. However, this is a JavaScript course. Maybe he could transform a bit of the talking into coding.
At first, I thought this was just me. But, after reading the reviews on Udemy, I can see that plenty of students feel the same way. One student even commented:
I had to use 1.5x video speed to not die of boredom.
Which Language to Choose?
JavaScript first appeared as an extra Turing-complete option that Netscape added to its browser. Many programmers dismissed it as a toy, a vehicle for double-checking the data in the form or adding annoying pop-up windows.
It’s now more than two decades later and everything has changed. Web applications have become the main way that people interact in the computing universe. JavaScript is the foundation.
JavaScript is very different from many of the other popular languages, like Java, Python, or PHP. Time after time, it continues to be the only language that all browsers understand. Despite its many warts, it seems like JavaScript will still be a primary language for front-end developers.
It totally makes sense to start learning the language of the future as soon as you can. Hopefully, these best Udemy courses will help you in your way of becoming a JavaScript developer.