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The Best Web Development Courses in 2021
The best web development courses that will surely help you become a web developer in 2021 (and beyond).
By Magda T.
If you're interested in an IT job, you may have hit the jackpot when it comes to potential job opportunities.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, "IT employment is expected to grow 11 percent from 2019 to 2029, much faster than the average for all occupations -- which add up to about 531,200 new jobs in the industry.
You don't even need an IT college degree - just take advantage of online courses! Definitely, one of the main advantages of the internet is the endless amount of resources and learning opportunities. But, we know that seeing so many options can be a little bit overwhelming.
During the last couple of months, here at Bejamas, we have been working on the Discovery Hub and while doing so we’ve been exploring the best ways to share our knowledge. Mind you, we are web devs, not educators so we needed a frame for thought in this case.
Seeing the many interesting online classes that are available out there, I thought it'd be worth it to share with our readers. That's why we decided to curate a list of top quality educational courses for IT skills.
Web Development in 2021
Let’s start with the basics. For beginners, what exactly is web development? For those who may have dabbled into it previously, maybe even in the MySpace ages 😉 -- how much has web development changed over the last decade?
Web development represents the building and maintenance of websites including the back-end, front-end, UI, and UX to help both the business owner and the end-user meet their goals. I’d invite you to check our post about custom web development where we talk some more about it.
Now, while 15 years ago, web development may have only referred to utilizing HTML, CSS, and a bit of PHP or JS (yes I know it's oversimplified) for creating a website, web development services have transformed through the years. Today, it is not just about a website -- there are a wide array of choices:
- a single static page or web app,
- progressive web app,
- Jamstack websites,
- decoupled and headless architecture websites, etc.
And better yet, we now have lots of tool and stack alternatives to build any of those.
It’s impossible to cover all of it! So, for this post, I will share a list of the best general web development courses, front-end, and back-end courses, best courses on the most popular front-end frameworks like React and Vue, and the best Jamstack courses as one of the biggest differentiators in modern web development.
Now that we've got the basics out of the way, let’s see which courses you can enroll in now.
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Web Dev Courses
Beginner Level
Getting Started as a Web Developer
This is the perfect course to learn about the basic elements of web development.
The course includes 15 videos that will help you set up your environment, teach you about Sublime Text 3 as an editing tool, the command line, and the basics of version control with Git.
Over 50,000 students have gone through this course which has an average rating of 4.5/5.
Web Design for Everybody: Basics of Web Development & Coding Specialization
An all-encompassing University of Michigan course designed with beginners in mind, this is a group of five different sub-courses that each cover a specific topic within web development.
Over 100 hours of lectures deal with HTML5, CSS3, interactivity with JavaScript, and advanced styling with responsive design, as well as the opportunity to build your own professional-quality level web development portfolio.
This course is the right place to start for anyone who wishes to go really in-depth with web development right away.
BYOL: Beginner Web Design Using HTML5, CSS3 & Visual Studio Code
This great beginner’s course is actually a free 4-hour YouTube video that covers the basics of building professional responsive websites that look good on mobile, tablet, and desktop screens.
It teaches everything that you need to build your first website with the free web design tool, Visual Studio Code. As part of the course, you will build four websites together with Daniel Scott and get access to his project files that you can compare to yours.
Modern React with Redux
With no prior experience required, this course is great for beginners who want to master one of the most popular JavaScript libraries.
After you go through 50 hours of video lessons, you will learn the theory behind React and Redux, build your own web apps, and set up your web dev career.
Vue JS 2 - The Complete Guide
This great Vue course will take you from the very basics of the framework to the more advanced concepts such as the Composition API introduced with Vue 3.
You will learn the theory behind Vue JS, build web apps, and get up to speed with the latest Vue version - and best of all, this is all taught with real examples and demo projects.
Mastering Next.js
This is a great, beginner-friendly vide course created by Lee Robinson. It will teach you the basics of Next.js.
Intermediate Level
Web Developer Course HTML CSS JavaScript Learn Web Design
After you’ve made sure you understand the ways in which web development works, it isn’t a bad idea to take this course that focuses on the main web development programming languages: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
After 82 lectures that it takes to complete, you will be tasked with creating a website from scratch using these three languages.
Explore and Master Chrome DevTools
If you’re already familiar with JavaScript, this course will help you learn and master the 8 panels of Chrome DevTools.
After almost 3 hours of video materials, you’ll be able to debug modern client-side web applications with confidence.
Full Stack Web Developer Nanodegree
This course will teach you to build database-based APIs and web applications, although you will have to possess extensive knowledge of writing and testing software in one of the object-oriented programming languages.
The Complete React Developer Course (w/ Hooks and Redux)
If you understand the core JavaScript functions, objects, arrays, callback functions, etc, this course will help you learn all you need to know to build and launch your own React web apps.
From the first line of code to the final production deployment, you’ll learn by doing to ensure you’re ready to start working as a React developer once you have completed the course.
Nuxt.js - Vue.js on Steroids
Take your Vue JS expertise to the next level with Nuxt.js, a library for Vue JS that helps make the development of more optimized and more capable Vue apps easier at no additional cost.
In the course, you will build entire Nuxt/ Vue apps from scratch, and pick up impressive skills as great competitive advantages in the job market.
This course requires some Vue JS knowledge.
Senior Level
The Advanced Web Developer Bootcamp
If you have an understanding of HTML, CSS, JavaScript (including, but not limited to variables, conditional logic, looping, objects, arrays, and functions), this advanced Bootcamp is just what you need to take your web development career to the next level.
Over 34 hours of lectures from some of the highest-rated lecturers make up the only full-stack developer course that covers Advanced CSS, Advanced JavaScript, NodeJS, D3, React, and Redux.
JavaScript: Understanding the Weird Parts
Developed with intermediate or advanced JavaScript developers, this course will help you learn the ways in which JavaScript works under the hood to help you increase your efficiency.
Learn to React with Codeacademy
Learn to solve the most persistent front-end issues and build dynamic and interactive web apps easily.
In the course, you’ll gain a strong understanding of React: JSX, class and function components, props, state, lifecycle methods, and hooks.
A strong foundation in JavaScript is a prerequisite for this course, as well as basic HTML.
Advanced Components of Vue
This advanced Vue course will help you gain a complete understanding of this framework, debugging your apps, and extending Vue functionality.
You’ll learn about template compilation, render functions, functional components, render props and scoped works, internal mounting process, and other design patterns and techniques.
Wes Bos Courses
Experienced web developer Wes Bos has a really decent list of both Free and Premium courses. And our developers at Bejamas love them!
Some of the free courses he has put out include trickier topics like flexbox and modern command line workflows. If you're looking for more advanced courses, Wes also has some Premium courses that are paid (but pretty affordable). Some of the premium training courses are: Learn Node and Sublime Text Power User.
Jamstack Courses
If you’d like to differentiate yourself in the competitive web development job market, I wholeheartedly recommend checking out Jamstack, the modern web development architecture based on JavaScript, APIs, and Markup.
And why Jamstack? Because it enables you to choose your own tech stack while building incredibly fast, secure websites that are easy and cheap to scale.
In the past few years, Jamstack has become very popular with increasing demand, but there are not as many web developers with the skills necessary.
Jamstack Course - Build websites that are simpler, faster, and more secure
Beginners will gain an understanding of the core concepts of Jamstack, static pages, static site generators, generating pages from content API, client-side rendering targeted API content, as well as how to gradually incorporate Jamstack into your existing infrastructure.
Jamstack Training Guide
Whether you’re a beginner or just looking for help in building a specific Jamstack web app, this training guide with 11 courses has got you covered.
Introduction to the Jamstack, creating a Jamstack blog, creating an e-commerce app with Gatsby, pre-generating static pages with dynamic content, serverless functions, and databases, Gatsby with Contentful CMS, and creating a Jamstack app with Nuxt.js and Firebase are just some of the courses available in the guide.
Introduction to the Jamstack
This course is all a beginner needs to grasp the Jamstack concepts.
You’ll cover the Jamstack architecture, building apps out of only static assets, handling asynchronous interactions with serverless functions, setting up authentication, retrieving information from databases, and shipping your new website to production.
Jamstack: The Complete Guide
Head to this course to learn about Jamstack from start to finish, including the Jamstack architecture, static site generators (HUGO), headless CMS (Netlify CMS) and continuous integration and delivery.
Explore as well…
On the Jamstack path, you’ll most often deal with static site generators, headless CMS, CI/CD platforms, and e-commerce solutions. And there are a lot of different solutions in each of these categories. To find your way in an evolving landscape check, consult, and why not, explore the DISCOVERY HUB that we build for that specific reason ie to help you explore and learn more about the tools in the space.
Try these as well:
WordPress as a Headless Content Management System (CMS) and GraphQL API
One of the biggest issues businesses usually has when considering the Jamstack and headless approach is the content editing experience which is a bit on the technical side. That’s where headless WordPress fits in. Marketers get to keep the familiar WordPress as the content database, while the developers are free to use Jamstack without any limitations.
This course will guide you through building Wordpress as a headless CMS, from start to finish. The only prerequisite is some PHP knowledge.
Gatsby JS: Build Gatsby static sites with React & WordPress
This is a great course for React JS developers who want to learn to develop static Gatsby websites that use WordPress as the backend.
You’ll be gaining valuable skills today, and especially for the future, and significantly improve your value as a developer.
Learn Eleventy From Scratch
Get a step-by-step lesson on how to go from zero to a thousand with Eleventy. This course will show you the fundamental aspects of the Eleventy platform and by the end of it, you will have built your own project.
The modules go from the core basics like partials, Front Matter, and data to setting up your assets (Sass, Google Fonts, Images), and even building the front-end.
Conclusion
There have never been as many job prospects in web development, but there has also never been so much competition. That’s why it’s crucial to constantly further your skills to stay on top of the game.
Whether you choose to go more in-depth on what you already know or hone on some of the upcoming varieties of web development such as Jamstack, make sure you're always challenging yourself to improve.
