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Course Review
Here is our in-depth review of Basic JavaScript, based on hours of rigorous testing and evaluation.
Updated: July 6, 2023
If you’re brand new to programming, this is a great starting point for learning the basics, especially since it's free. After getting up to speed with the basics, you should consider moving to another more robust solution grounded in real world application.
Fast Facts
FreeCodeCamp
By Unknown
#7 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
#7 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
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.
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.
Scrimba
By Per Harald Borgen
#1 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
#1 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
Scrimba’s Learn JavaScript course is far and away the best free resource for learning JavaScript, as well as one of the best paid options if you choose to subscribe.
Udacity
By Various Authors
#2 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
#2 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
The price point is high, but the quality of instruction is also among the highest. If you complete the intro course and intermediate JavaScript Nanodegree, you will be a strong JavaScript developer and have three portfolio projects you can use when applying for jobs.
Frontend Masters
By Various Authors
#3 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
#3 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
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.
Treehouse
By Various Authors
#4 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
#4 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
Treehouse's Fullstack JavaScript path will equip you with the skills you need to write JavaScript professionally, either as a frontend developer or fullstack JavaScript developer.
Exercism
By Unknown
#4 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
#4 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
If you’re brand new to programming, this is a great starting point for learning the basics, especially since it's free. After getting up to speed with the basics, you should consider moving to another more robust solution grounded in real world application.
Codecademy
By Various Authors
#4 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
#4 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
A solid option for learning JavaScript through hands-on exercises, though it provides a bit too much hand-holding.
Pluralsight
By Various Authors
#6 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
#6 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
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.
Coursera
By Meta
#6 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
#6 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
While this course contains some well-produced video lectures and frequent multiple choice quizzes, the pace is too slow, the examples aren't as grounded in the real world, and the quality of peer feedback is too inconsistent.
Egghead.io
By Various Authors
#6 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
#6 in The Best Online Courses for Learning JavaScript in 2024
Generally, egghead.io is best for professional web developers who want to stay current. Their format is concise screencast courses that cover the essentials of topics. As a result, we don't recommend it for learning JavaScript unless you already know a fair amount of it and want to brush up on specific topics.
Our course reviews are conducted by a team of technical professionals, course developers, and lifelong learners.
The lead of this project, Brian Green, has worked in developer education since 2009. He built the content development teams at Pluralsight and Udacity, implementing quality standards and tutorials to improve course quality and working with hundreds of authors to create courseware. Most recently, he built the product team at App Academy. As of writing, he estimates he has spent nearly a year of his life taking or reviewing online courses, on topics ranging from Web Development, Networking, Server Administration, DevOps, Cybersecurity, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence.
We reviewed this course using the following criteria:
