Learn JavaScript for Free: 13 Online Resources for Every Level of Expertise

JavaScript is the programming language of the web. It isn’t necessarily the easiest programming language to learn, but if you’re interested in building web applications or becoming a developer, learning JavaScript will help you even if you are an advanced programmer, plus it enables you to learn additional programming languages with ease.

Once considered a strictly client-side language, Node.js now allows JavaScript to run both the front-end and the back-end. That yields a lot of benefits, both for learning web development and in the job market.

But which JavaScript resource is for you? We’ve compiled a list of the best resources to learn JavaScript for free, whether you’re just starting out or you already know how to use booleans, strings, and data structures.

Beginner Javascript Courses

JavaScript for Cats

This free intro course is similar to Code School’s JavaScript Courses. This is a beginner JavaScript tutorial that will help you get familiar with basic functions, libraries, data structures, and all other JavaScript fundamentals.

This course is so easy that even your pet can start coding in no time.

Codecademy’s Intro to JavaScript Track

If 0 is a pure beginner and 100 is a professional fullstack developer, 15 to 20 hours of Codecademy’s JavaScript track will take you all the way to 6.8. In all seriousness, Codecademy’s step-by-step tutorial system is great for an introduction to programming in JavaScript. You will learn functions, loops, data structures, and many other data types. It also has other online courses for many other languages like CSS, HTML, SQL, and Python.

Fullstack Academy’s Intro to Coding

Fullstack Academy’s Intro to Coding course helps you learn the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Designed for total beginners, the 15 hours of videos and challenges focus on the world’s most popular software language and prepare you for the coding bootcamp’s top-ranked software immersive programs.

Treehouse’s JavaScript Basics

It’s not technically free, but Treehouse offers a multi-platform learning experience that includes videos, coding tutorials, and quizzes. If you’re looking to gain a solid foundation in a short amount of time, the 14-day free trial might suit your needs. The benefits of this three-hour course will help you understand where JavaScript is used, basic concepts for variables, data types and conditional statements, and how to troubleshoot programming problems.

MDN JavaScript

Published by Mozilla, this site incorporates tutorials and lessons in addition to a glossary of JavaScript functions. This could be a good tab to have open next time you’re attempting those codewars.com challenges. MDN JavaScript is offered in many other languages and it's a great refresher of the JavaScript programming language. For non-expert programmers, you can use JavaScript Garden to avoid common mistakes and bugs.

Learn-JS

Learn-JS.org is intended for everyone who wishes to learn the JavaScript programming language. This website is an interactive JavaScript tutorial where you can run free JavaScript code directly from the web browser. You are able to try JavaScript without even installing it. Here you can learn the basics, take advance tutorials, or help others learn by contributing with tutorials.

Khan Academy

This a nonprofit organization that provides a free, world-class coding education to everyone. Khan Academy is a good learning platform where you can find tutorials not only for computer programming but also for other subjects like math, arts, economics, and finance. It has a JavaScript tutorial that can help you work with DOM events with jQuery, used for making animations and effects on a webpage. As its motto states, “You can learn anything. For free. For everyone. Forever.”

Intermediate Javascript Courses

Fullstack Academy’s Bootcamp Prep Online

This workshop-based video course has 40 hours of content and teaches all the fundamentals of JavaScript. Besides instruction on core concepts, it also reviews a large number of coding challenges, which are arranged by level of increasing difficulty, and each is followed by an instructor tutorial. If you’re searching for advanced tutorials, Bootcamp Prep is a more demanding course for those who are committed to attending Fullstack Academy or other elite coding schools.

CoderByte

CoderByte challenges are an excellent resource, especially if you want to apply to a more selective coding bootcamp as part of a career transition. These coding problems are a pretty accurate representation of the challenges on the Fullstack application’s technical coding assessment. Keep in mind that the beginner-level challenges are still pretty hard. If you find these too difficult, review the beginner resources listed above.

Eloquent JavaScript by Marijn Haverbeke

Intermediate-level programmers will benefit from the first four chapters of this book, which include an overview of JavaScript syntax, functionality, loops and arrays, and last but not least, atoms of the data structures (numbers, booleans, and strings).

The rest of the chapters are for advanced programmers, where you can find more about HTTP and Forms, the difference between POST and GET requests, and Node.js, which is a back-end JavaScript technology that executes code server-side.

Intermediate/Advanced Javascript Tutorials & Courses

Scotch.io

Scotch.io is a blog that provides educational tutorials for programmers of all levels. This is a great resource for intermediate and advanced students who are looking to increase their knowledge of the MEAN stack and other emerging JavaScript technologies. It touches on Angular.js (web application framework for front-end development maintained by Google) and the jQuery library.

Egghead.io

To paraphrase this website’s slogan: Life’s too short for any of those other resources on the internet—just watch these videos! Egghead offers short videos for proficient JavaScript developers to level-up their skills. Receive access to a decent number of lessons for free, or sign up for a paid subscription and get all the knowledge you can handle.

Douglas Crockford Videos

Learn JavaScript from one of the language’s foremost pioneers. While a Hawaiian-shirted employee at Yahoo, Douglas Crockford created this lecture series on the creation, rise to popularity, and implementation of JavaScript. These presentations are not only informative but entertaining and anecdotal too.

Next Steps on Your Journey to Javascript Mastery

If you’re a beginner who wants to learn JavaScript, working your way through down this list is a great start. We recommend bookmarking this page for future reference.

If you’re looking to take the next step toward a career as a developer, check out the immersive courses at Fullstack Academy, where we teach an award-winning JavaScript curriculum and excellent hiring outcomes for graduates.

The possibilities with fullstack JavaScript are endless.

Want more resources? See more free coding classes in NYC. Or learn about the top programming languages to learn in 2023 (spoiler: JavaScript is #1).