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The Best Online Courses for Learning Node.js in 2023

We spent several hundred hours meticulously testing and reviewing several dozen Node.js courses from various vendors around the web. Here are the absolute best online Node.js courses available right now.

Updated: August 10, 2023

Fullstack JavaScript Developer Nanodegree

Fullstack JavaScript Developer Nanodegree

Udacity

By Rachel Manning, Alyssa Hope, Andrew Wong, and Guillaume Bibeau Laviolette

$$$$$
VIDEOS | READINGS |

Bottom Line

The premium option for learning Node.js for fullstack web development.

This Course Is Great For

  • Hands-on Learning
  • Portfolio Projects
  • One-to-one Mentorship and Support

This Nanodegree is comprised of four courses, each of which is designed to be completed in one month at 10 hours per week.

The first two courses in the Nanodegree (Backend Development with Node.js and Creating an API with PostgreSQL and Express) will cover the majority of the footprint you’ll need to work with Node professionally.

Each course contains a combination of videos, quizzes, hands-on exercises, and projects. You'll spend a lot of time practicing and developing skills.

One of the best features of Udacity's Nanodegree product is their projects, which are based on a real world situation. Each project is graded by humans, who provide personalized feedback. In this Nanodegree, the projects include creating an API that allows users to resize and adjust images, building an e-commerce backend for a small business, and then creating a frontend for the e-commerce site and deploying it to AWS.

This Nanodegree is one of the only offerings in our guide that covers security, testing, and deployment to AWS as core curriculum. All are topics that you should learn as a fullstack developer. Udacity's subscription offering gives you flexibility to decide after the first two courses if you want to continue or move to another solution.

Before You Buy

There’s a third course in the program all about building the frontend with Angular. If that’s interesting to you, you can take that to supplement your learning, or skip to the fourth course, where you’ll learn about deployment to AWS.

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Build Web APIs and Applications with Node.js Path

Build Web APIs and Applications with Node.js Path

Frontend Masters

By Scott Moss, Will Sentance, Kyle Simpson, Brian Holt, others

$$$
VIDEOS | CODE-ALONG | CODING CHALLENGES

Bottom Line

Outstanding video training option, with in-depth real-world Node coverage.

This Course Is Great For

  • Code-along workshops
  • Expert teachers
  • Real world insights

Each course is packed with real world insights, from instructors with years of using Node.

Between the first few courses (Introduction, the Hard Parts, and Digging into Node), there’s a bit of overlap in topics covered. It’s three great teachers covering a lot of the same topics. If you take all three courses, you should have a solid understanding of how Node works.

In this path, you’ll also learn how to work with Node and a variety of database technologies, including MongoDB and Postgres. And you’ll also learn how to work with Node and GraphQL, and Node and Prisma for APIs.

In several of the courses, the instructor pauses for short coding exercises to check for understanding. These are incredibly valuable.

Throughout many of the courses, particularly those after the introductory sections, you’ll go step by step through building a practical application. These code-along courses are super helpful for learning how it’s done in a real world context, but to flesh out your skills, you’ll also want some additional practice without the instructor’s help.

Before You Buy

While the code-along workshops will guide you step by step through building a real world application, be sure to supplement with real world, hands-on practice in order to get really good at Node. Several of the instructors conclude their courses with suggested ways to supplement your learning.

The courses in the path's core curriculum cover pretty much everything you need to know to start using Node professionally. Consider taking the elective coursework for ongoing learning.

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learnyounode

learnyounode

NodeSchool

By Various

free
CODING CHALLENGES

Bottom Line

An excellent resource for anyone learning Node. Perhaps not the complete Node guide that you'll need to become a professional Node developer, but a decent place to start or practice your skills.

This Course Is Great For

  • Hands-on learning
  • Practice

This course is a series of hands-on workshops built entirely inside Node, for free. All you need is a command line and a text editor.

The course is comprised of workshoppers, which are a series of increasingly complicated challenges exploring a particular feature of Node. The workshoppers are typically tackled in a NodeSchool meetup, with mentors, but you’re free to do them remotely on your own.

The workshops are fairly simple. Just a series of instructions and a couple hints. The workshops are tested and graded.

Before You Buy

The offering is a bit dated, and a bit light on some of the more advanced features of Node. But if you’re looking to get started with Node, and you want a purely hands-on experience, this is a decent option. You can supplement with the MDN documentation on Node and Express, or use the workshoppers to supplement a video course.

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Working with Node.js

Working with Node.js

Pluralsight

By Paul O'Fallon, Samer Buna, Joe Eames, More

$$$
SCREENCASTS | CODE FILES | QUIZZES | ASSESSMENT

Bottom Line

Solid option for learning real world Node through a series of high quality screencast courses.

This Course Is Great For

  • Code-along screencasts
  • Micro learning
  • Expert authors

The path begins with an overview of the core of Node in the Getting Started course, and then goes deep into npm. With this foundation, the path shifts to more practical application for web developers, with coverage of using MongoDB with Node, building web applications with Express, HTTP, and OAuth for authorization.

The courses follow a similar style and structure, so you can be confident of consistent production value even though the courses are taught by different authors who specialize in particular topics.

The courses are short, concise and focused, typically running between 1-3 hours. This makes the courses valuable for ongoing reference.

We particularly like that the courses emphasize real world usage, covering not just how to use features of Node, but why.

Before You Buy

In order to use Node professionally, you'll want hands-on practice. Pluralsight's platform includes guided labs, which can give some hands-on practice, but you should also supplement with a real world project on your own system, without step-by-step guidance.

You’ll want to continue with some additional courses to learn topics like testing with Mocha, building secure Node services (especially Cloud-first services), and websockets.

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Learn Node.js

Learn Node.js

Codecademy

By Jiwon Shin

$$$
READINGS | VIDEOS | CODING CHALLENGES | ASSESSMENTS | GUIDED PROJECTS

Bottom Line

Solid option for learning to use Node hands-on.

This Course Is Great For

  • Hands-on learning
  • Getting Starting Quickly

This course introduces the concepts of server-side web development with Node. You’ll learn the different parts that make up the back-end of a website or web application, and you’ll gain familiarity with the Node runtime environment. After this course, you’ll be set up to explore popular Node frameworks like Express.js to build powerful applications.

The interactive exercise format is interesting. You're required to take existing functions and wrap them into an exportable module for open-sourcing, which is a fairly real-world situation as well as a great illustration of Node modularity.

This course varies somewhat from the Node.js coverage in the Introduction to Backend sections of the Backend Engineer and Full-Stack Engineer Career Paths. We actually recommend taking the Node content in one of those paths, depending on your career orientation. The paths include an open-ended project that's a great test of skills.

Before You Buy

If you choose to take this course separately from the skill paths mentioned above, be sure to supplement your learning with a project outside of the Codecademy platform, so you have practical experience troubleshooting when things go wrong.

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Become a Node.js Developer

Become a Node.js Developer

Educative

By Various Authors

$
READINGS | QUIZZES | CODING CHALLENGES

Bottom Line

Solid option to learn Node with readings and hands-on exercises.

This Course Is Great For

  • Ongoing Reference
  • Efficient Learning
  • Learning Without Videos

We like that Educative puts readings and exercises at the center. This is a great alternative to videos, for learners who prefer traditional learning. It’s like a better book - one that lives in your browser and alongside where you’ll be building.

This course doesn't contain as many casual real world insights as you’ll get with some of the expert-led training courses. But the focus here is on efficient learning and hands-on practice.

This skill path offers some of the most in-depth security and authorization coverage that you'll find.

Before You Buy

This learning path is light on coverage of testing and database integrations. However, there are other courses on the Educative platform that cover these topics.

Be sure to supplement your learning on this path with hands-on projects on your own system, to solidify your understanding.

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Why Learn Node.js

Node.js is an open-source runtime environment that allows you to execute JavaScript code on the server-side. Node enables developers to use JavaScript, the world's most popular programming language, for both frontend and backend development, streamlining the development process for fast, real-time, and highly performant web applications.

Many of the world's top technology companies and high-traffic applications use Node.js, including Netflix, Spotify, and GitHub.

Key Topics to Learn

To start using Node.js professionally, focus on mastering the following key topics:

  1. Node.js Fundamentals: Learn about Node.js's architecture, event loop, and non-blocking I/O model. Understand how modules, require statements, and the global object work in Node.js.
  2. Node Package Manager (npm): Get comfortable using npm for installing third-party packages, managing dependencies, and running scripts.
  3. Asynchronous Programming: Understand asynchronous concepts in Node.js using callbacks, promises, and async/await for efficient handling of I/O operations.
  4. Core Modules: Familiarize yourself with built-in Node.js modules like fs (file system), http (HTTP server), and path (file paths) for essential functionalities.
  5. Express.js: Learn Express.js, a popular web application framework for Node.js. Explore routing, middleware, template engines, and creating RESTful APIs.
  6. HTTP and APIs: Understand how to create HTTP servers and consume external APIs using Node.js.
  7. Databases: Learn how to interact with databases like PostgreSQL or MongoDB using appropriate driver libraries.
  8. Error Handling: Gain proficiency in handling errors and exceptions effectively in Node.js applications.
  9. Authentication and Authorization: Learn how to implement user authentication and authorization using packages like Passport.js.
  10. RESTful Services: Learn how to build and consume RESTful APIs, and understand concepts like status codes and CRUD operations.
  11. Websockets: Explore Websockets for real-time communication in applications, using libraries like Socket.io.
  12. Middleware: Understand how middleware functions work in Express.js for handling requests and responses.

By focusing on these topics, you'll develop a strong foundation in Node.js and be well-prepared to create scalable and performant server-side applications for web development. Practical application of these skills through projects and hands-on exercises will help solidify your knowledge and professional expertise.

Prerequisites for Learning Node

There are a few prerequisites that can greatly enhance your learning experience when starting to learn Node.js:

  1. Web Development Basics: Familiarity with HTML, CSS, and web development concepts will help you understand how Node.js fits into the broader web development landscape.
  2. JavaScript Foundations: A solid understanding of JavaScript is essential, as Node.js is built on JavaScript. Make sure you're comfortable with concepts like variables, data types, functions, loops, and objects.
  3. Basic Command Line Usage: You'll work with the command line interface (CLI) to run and manage Node.js applications, so basic command line usage is helpful.
  4. Asynchronous Programming: Node.js heavily relies on asynchronous programming. Understanding concepts like callbacks, promises, and async/await will be beneficial.

While not all of these prerequisites are strictly required, and can be learned alongside Node.js, having a foundational understanding of these concepts will significantly accelerate your learning process and enable you to grasp Node.js concepts more effectively.

After You Learn Node Fundamentals

Continue with more advanced topics with Node and Fullstack Development:

  1. Security: Learn about security best practices, including data validation, preventing common attacks (e.g., SQL injection), and using HTTPS.
  2. Testing and Debugging: Explore testing frameworks like Mocha and debugging tools like Node.js Inspector for effective code testing and debugging.
  3. Deployment with AWS or Azure: Learn best practices for deploying Node applications to the cloud.

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