- Nick Babich
- Jan 30, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 1, 2024
It’s midnight. You’re deep in a client project and just can't figure out why the hover animation you’ve created isn't working as expected. Turns out your coding skills are a little more rusty than you remember. A quick refresh with some online coding classes can help.
Not to worry—we’ve got you. Here, we put together a list of the best online coding courses for professional web devs and designers like you, both free and paid, so you can get ahead of the coding challenge next time.
We’re not judging your preferred time to work, night owls, but at least next time midnight strikes you’ll be able continue full steam ahead without needing a <br> (unless you want one).
Udemy | Paid ($159.99, varies by location)
This all-in-one course will teach you everything you need to know to master web coding skills. Learn how to make real web applications using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python and MySQL. Even if you don’t plan to become a full-time web developer, completing this course will give you generalist knowledge in web development, giving you more confidence in your interactions with front-end developers.
Having some baseline webdev knowledge also gives you fact-checking skills. I can tell you from personal experience that this comes in handy for when someone tells you a design isn’t possible. You’ll be able to evaluate the technical feasibility of your design, so that the next time front-end developers tell you that something is hard or even impossible to build, you’ll know if what they’re saying is the real deal.
Udacity | Paid ($249/month x 4 months)
If you’re building a large-scale website or web service (web apps) that can scale to support hundreds of thousands of users, check out the 4-month full stack web development nanodegree program.
This is an advanced course about building web apps. You’ll learn how to do data modeling for scalable websites, develop an API for your web application and deploy web apps to Amazon AWS infrastructure. (Amazon AWS can integrate with your Wix Studio website, btw.) The great thing about this course is that you can join it with basic coding skills (if you want to master your coding skills, look to another course in the list).
Pluralsight | Paid ($29)
Even in 2024, JavaScript is still one of the core languages for web developers. So if your goal is uplevel your JavaScript development skills, this course is for you. (Try Udemy’s Complete Web Developer Course 3.0 to build a strong foundation.)
This course will help hone your coding skills. You’ll gain an advanced understanding of the core mechanics of how JavaScript compiles, optimizes and executes in the browser. And that knowledge will help you write code that will both perform better for the client's users and be more secure.
04. Advanced React
Coursera | Free
React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It’s built around the concept of components, or pieces of the UI, and a web application's UI is typically made up of many such components. It’s also the go-to choice for web devs who want to build interactive and dynamic web apps.
If you want to master your React skills, the Advanced React course from Meta is a popular choice among web designers right now. You’ll learn how to create robust and reusable web components and test React applications seamlessly with the React Testing Library.
Udacity | Free
Good design is accessible design, and accessible design requires learning accessibility guidelines like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, and being able to recall them quickly. The fact that there are still so many inaccessible sites that are unusable to people with different abilities shows that this is an ongoing problem—but it’s also easily fixable.
Google’s online course takes you through the key foundational knowledge you need to build accessible digital products for your clients. Its teaching quality is top-notch, and it’s rich with interactive quizzes for testing your knowledge as you learn to code.
Maximilian Schwarzmüller for Udemy | Paid ($159.99)
Angular is a JavaScript framework used for creating web applications (most commonly, single-page applications). Angular The Complete Guide is a comprehensive online coding class for web developers. After finishing this course, you’ll fully understand the architecture behind an Angular application and will be able to use it to create your own web apps.
Wes Bos | Free
It's not enough to design an aesthetic web layout; it's essential to code it properly. When it comes to coding web layouts, CSS Grid and Flexbox are two crucial tools in a web developer's toolbox. They make it possible to create complex, two-dimensional layouts and align content elements horizontally and vertically. You can create a template for rows and columns, and place elements into these defined areas, giving you precise control over the layout.
There are a lot of places to learn these two concepts. I’d first recommend Wes Bos’ free tutorials for CSS Grid and Flexbox—you get access to 45 videos that take you from zero to layout-expert in no time.
Once you’ve understood the concepts, you could try your hand at Grid Garden and Flexbox Froggy by Codepip. They gamify the learning process byasking you to write either CSS Grid or Flexbox code to align game elements correctly, which gives you the greenlight you to continue to the next stage.
Google | Free
Firebase is a comprehensive app dev platform that allows the development of web services. It’s like the Swiss-army knife of web tools. You can do a lot with Firebase, including backend infrastructure management, monetization of your application with ads and monitoring user engagement with analytics.
This short course will give you all the knowledge required to build your first web app using Firebase.
Mosh | Paid ($15)
One of the beauties of learning JavaScript is that it means you can basically work anywhere on the tech stack—you can build intuitive interactions on the front-end, develop APIs to communicate between different layers and write functionality on the back-end.
Node.js is an industry-standard for back-end development and JavaScript is at the heart of it. This online coding class for designers will allow you to build, test and deploy complex apps. You’ll also learn how to manipulate data in a database.
Hands-on exercise is what makes this course great. I find that the best way to learn coding is by building something yourself, and this course gives you this opportunity to do so. You’ll implement data validation, handle user authentication and authorization and learn how to deploy your Node applications.
Stanford Online | Free
It’s mission-critical that web devs understand how their own applications could be used against their clients by cyber-attackers. This online coding course from Stanford University introduces you to the threats faced in modern web development and puts you one step ahead in the cloak and dagger world of cybersecurity. You’ll cover topics like password breaching and compression attacks, which can be critical vulnerabilities if not protected against properly.
The Chang School | Free
While not strictly an online coding course, this digital book from The Chang School and Ryerson University is a fit for devs who want to audit websites and applications for accessibility issues. It’s free to download and available in a few formats, so there’s really no reason not to give it a read.
Udacity | Free
If you’re comfortable with your knowledge of building APIs (if not, check out the Full stack web development course), the next step in your professional development is understanding and developing RESTful APIs. A RESTful API is a type of API that has an agreed-upon set of characteristics that help standardize how the API works, and make it easier for other developers to understand and use.
Udacity offers a free course that explains the concept in more detail and allows you to practice your new skills by building a social foodie application.
Udemy | Paid ($159.99)
Python is a super versatile and popular choice for learning how to build dynamic web applications. That’s because both Django and Flask are both popular web frameworks written in Python, so, if you want to use them, yep, you need to master your Python skills.
The Python mega course will teach you Python by building 20 real-world apps, like a data science & machine learning app, a chatbot and online recommendation service. All this building help you gain practical Django and Flask skills in real time.
This mega course is one of a few online coding classes that’s similar to a university course, in which you learn concepts as part of a bigger picture, rather than cherry-picking what to add to your armory of web dev skills.
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