Free Online Courses for Beginners

Harvard's dedicated Python course: functions to unit tests, regex and object-oriented programming.

Harvard's famous intro to computer science, from Scratch and C to Python, SQL and the web.

The University of Helsinki and MinnaLearn's free AI literacy course for non-programmers.

Google's free Skillshop certification for Google Analytics, backed by four free courses from beginner to advanced.

Kaggle's quick start to machine learning: build, validate and improve your first models.

Cisco's short free starter course on cyber threats, protecting your data and what a cybersecurity career looks like.

Dr. Chuck's free Python course and textbook, the same material as his Coursera course.

freeCodeCamp's rebuilt HTML and CSS certification with lessons, workshops, labs and a free exam.

Microsoft's free self-paced prep for the AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals exam, covering cloud concepts, core Azure services and governance.

One of the world's most popular online courses: practical, research-based techniques for learning, memory and beating procrastination.

Laurie Santos's Yale course on what psychology says really makes us happy, with practical exercises.

Interactive first course in calculus with videos and mastery practice on limits, derivatives and integrals.

HubSpot's free certification on answer engine optimisation: staying visible in search and AI-generated answers.

Anthropic's free course on working with AI effectively, efficiently, ethically and safely.

IBM SkillsBuild's free AI learning plan with a shareable IBM digital badge.

Short Open University course on talking about food, eating out and ordering in French.

Short Open University course on places, personal information and café conversations in German.

Open University beginner Spanish on places, directions and getting around Spanish-speaking cities.

Saylor Academy's free financial accounting course, from recording transactions to the statement of cash flows, with a free certificate.

Saylor Academy's free introduction to corporate finance: statements, time value of money, markets, risk and capital budgeting.

Saylor Academy's free marketing principles course, from segmentation to campaign launch and social media, with a free certificate.

Saylor Academy's free project management course covering the full project lifecycle, with a free certificate.

HubSpot's free content marketing certification: storytelling, content strategy, blogging, repurposing, promotion and measurement.

Harvard's free CS50 course on securing accounts, data, systems and software, and on preserving privacy.

Harvard's course on querying, designing and scaling relational databases with SQL.

Harvard's R course: representing, transforming, tidying and visualizing data.

A one-hour free Linux Foundation primer on everyday cybersecurity: malware, breaches, mobile and social network safety.

IBM's free foundational cybersecurity course covering threat actors, attack types, cryptography and incident response, with a Credly badge.

Kaggle's course on fixing missing values, scaling, dates, encodings and messy entries.

IBM SkillsBuild's free data learning plan, ending in a shareable IBM badge.

Kaggle's short course on making line, bar, scatter and distribution charts with seaborn.

A free 10-hour Open University course on how designers think, with a focus on composition and presenting complex information.

HubSpot's free email marketing certification: strategy, segmentation, deliverability, personalisation, design, copy and testing.

Badged Open University course improving everyday English speaking, listening, reading and writing.

A free, lab-heavy Linux Foundation course on instrumenting applications with OpenTelemetry traces, metrics and logs.

Google's free Skillshop certification for building and optimising Google Search campaigns, including AI-powered features.

Google's introductory course on Google Cloud's core infrastructure, products and services.

HubSpot's free certification on the inbound method: attracting, engaging and delighting customers with the flywheel model.

Kaggle's quick introduction to SQL queries using Google BigQuery public datasets.

A free eight-hour Open University introduction to bookkeeping: essential numeracy, double entry, the balance sheet and profit and loss.

An eight-week Open University course on protecting yourself online, with a free badge and statement of participation.

A free overview of DevOps and SRE practices: cloud, containers, infrastructure as code, CI/CD and observability.

A free Linux Foundation course explaining containers, orchestration and Kubernetes architecture, with hands-on Minikube practice.

The Linux Foundation's long-running free course on using Linux from the desktop and command line, through to basic shell scripting.

A free Linux Foundation course on running serverless functions on Kubernetes with OpenFaaS.

University of Helsinki's free Java course in 14 parts, with free certificates for each half.

freeCodeCamp's rebuilt JavaScript certification: language basics to DOM, events and async code.

A free beginner JavaScript course from Cisco and the JavaScript Institute.

An evergreen CSS course on web.dev from the Chrome team, from box model to modern layout.

web.dev's free HTML course on semantics, forms, metadata and accessible markup.

web.dev's free JavaScript course covering the core language from the ground up.

An eight-week Open University course on earning, budgeting, borrowing, credit ratings and planning ahead, with a free badge.

Badged Open University course on budgeting, tax, debt, credit and planning ahead.

A short, free introduction to the Linux command line from Cisco Networking Academy and NDG, with a browser-based practice environment.

Kaggle's short hands-on course on reading, selecting, grouping and cleaning data with pandas.

A free Saylor course on writing clear workplace messages: purpose, audience, drafting and polishing, with a free certificate.

A free Saylor course on managing time, boosting workplace productivity and handling stress, with a free certificate.

A free Saylor course on interpersonal communication: building relationships, listening and improving everyday conversations.

Kaggle's quick Python primer for data science, run entirely in browser notebooks.

freeCodeCamp's new interactive Python certification, launched December 2025, with a free exam.

Cisco and Python Institute's free beginner Python course, aligned with the PCEP exam.

University of Helsinki's free Python course with automatic exercise checking and optional credits.

freeCodeCamp's rebuilt certification on Bash, SQL, PostgreSQL and Git, with a free exam.

A free, under-an-hour SEO crash course from Semrush Academy with Brian Dean, covering keywords, content and backlinks.

Open University creative writing course on building characters and drafting a short story.

Short Open University taster on split brains, memory, relationships and group pressure.

An eight-week Open University course on planning your career, writing strong applications and doing well at interview.

Badged Open University course to help adults return to learning with confidence.

A free course explaining each OWASP Top 10 web application risk, from broken access control to SSRF.

Amazon's own free foundational course on AWS cloud concepts, core services, security and pricing, and the standard prep for Cloud Practitioner.

HarvardX course on reading the sky and forecasting tomorrow's weather from your own observations.

Harvard Medical School course teaching five CBT-based skills for managing stress and anxiety.

Andrew Ng and OpenAI's Isa Fulford on prompting LLMs through the API to build apps.

Short free Alison course on Spanish greetings, pronunciation, core vocabulary and ordering food.

University of Minnesota course on divergent and convergent thinking to boost everyday creativity.

An NPTEL primer from IIT Madras on the design thinking process: empathise, analyse, solve and test, with workshops and stories.

A popular 8-week NPTEL course from IIT Kanpur on goal-setting, habits, listening, email etiquette, body language and presentations.

Beginner-friendly HarvardX course building probability from basic counting up to the normal distribution.

A short free video course on Figma basics through small UI exercises such as an onboarding flow and a homepage redesign.

Nobel laureate Robert Shiller's Yale course on how financial markets, insurance, banking and regulation work.

CalArts' popular introduction to graphic design: imagemaking, typography, shape and colour, and composition.

University of Chicago course explaining the physics of climate change and simple climate models.

A short free introduction to graphic design: composition, colour, typography, branding and design for print and digital.

Wharton's popular marketing course on branding, customer centricity and go-to-market strategy, taught by three senior professors.

University of Edinburgh tour of big philosophical questions: knowledge, morality, mind and free will.

Paul Bloom's Yale introduction to the science of the mind and behaviour.

IIT Kanpur NPTEL course introducing perception, learning, memory, emotion and personality.

University of Washington course on crafting and delivering clear, memorable speeches.

Part 1 of Microsoft's free SC-900 prep: core security, compliance and identity concepts such as Zero Trust and authentication.

The W3C's own free course on digital accessibility: who it affects, the business case and the principles behind WCAG.

Michael Sandel's famous Harvard course on moral and political philosophy and today's debates.

Bob Ziroll's free interactive React course on Scrimba, with code you can edit inside the video.

An 8-week IIT Kanpur course on marketing fundamentals: environment scanning, research, buyer behaviour and segmentation.

Harvard survey of world literature from Gilgamesh and Homer to Borges and Lahiri.

Follow-up to Learning How to Learn on reinventing yourself and adopting a lifelong learning habit.

University of Florida course on building a personal financial plan: tax, credit, insurance and investing.

Madhavan Mukund's NPTEL course on Python, sorting, searching and core data structures.

Johns Hopkins course on supporting people in the aftermath of a crisis using the RAPID model.

IIT Madras' short NPTEL course on Python, pandas and visualization with two case studies.

HarvardX introduction to mapping, analysing and strengthening everyday arguments.

HarvardX astrobiology course on how life arose and how we search for habitable planets.

IIT Ropar's popular NPTEL course that teaches Python through games and puzzles.

UC Berkeley course on the roots of a happy, meaningful life, with weekly happiness practices.

UC Irvine course on planning, delegation, scheduling and focus for better productivity.

Kristin Sainani's Stanford course on clear, effective scientific and professional writing.

MIT's classic intro to computational thinking and Python, with full lectures and problem sets.

MIT's 2022 full-semester intro to programming in Python, taught by Ana Bell.

MIT's self-paced introductory mechanics course, from kinematics to rolling motion.

Microsoft's free 10-week, 20-lesson open curriculum introducing data science.

Shelly Kagan's Yale philosophy lectures on death, immortality and how mortality should shape life.

Figma's official beginner course: learn frames, shapes, text, auto layout, components and prototyping by building a portfolio site.

Khan Academy's free personal finance course: budgeting, credit, loans, insurance, investing, taxes, banking and housing.

The Odin Project's free starting course: Git, HTML, CSS, Flexbox and JavaScript basics.

Yale lectures on exoplanets, black holes, dark matter and dark energy.

MIT introductory biology covering biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics and recombinant DNA.

Microsoft's free 21-lesson course on building generative AI apps in Python and TypeScript.

Microsoft Learn's free beginner path on AI, generative AI and agents in Azure.

Canva's free 44-minute course on design basics: layout, hierarchy, fonts, colour, images and exporting.

Donald Kagan's Yale survey of Greek history from the Bronze Age to the classical period.

John Gabrieli's MIT survey of psychology, from the brain and vision to personality and disorders.

Zerodha's free, plain-English module on how Indian stock markets work, from regulators and IPOs to indices like Nifty and Sensex.

Mozilla's free, standards-based web curriculum from first HTML page to frameworks and accessibility.

Google's updated ML crash course: regression to neural nets, embeddings, LLMs and fairness.

Microsoft's free 12-week, 26-lesson curriculum on classic machine learning with scikit-learn.

Catherine Drennan's MIT introductory chemistry course, from atoms to kinetics.

MIT's self-study version of first-year calculus, organised into units with lectures, recitations and problems.

Khan Academy's full free statistics course, from describing data to significance tests.

Joanne Freeman's Yale lectures on how colonists became revolutionaries and built a new nation.

MIT's short course on the shell, Git, debugging and the tools every programmer uses.

Microsoft's free 12-week, 24-lesson project curriculum on HTML, CSS and JavaScript.