Hello friends, I’m going to review top Free Online Full Stack Web Development Bootcamps in 2020. I think 2020 is going to be a golden year of free online education with so many resources to kick start your web development journey.
Here is the list of free online web development bootcamps I’ll be covering in this post.
- freeCodeCamp
- The Odin Project
- Full Stack Open
- App Academy Open
- CS50 Web Programming
freeCodeCamp
freeCodeCamp is one of the top web development resources recommended online especially to the beginners. It’s a non-profit started in the year 2014 by Quincy Larson who aims to provide top quality software education to the students for free. This initiative has helped thousands of students get jobs and earn a decent living.
freeCodeCamp offers you certifications on following topics which are divided into modules.
- Responsive Web Design
- JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures
- Front End Libraries
- Data Visualization
- APIs and Microservices
- Information Security and Quality Assurance
- Coding Interview Prep
Each modules takes about 300+ hours to complete and focuses on core topics related to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Data Structures and Algorithms, Front end tools such as React, Redux, Bootstrap, Sass.
Backend Development is taught using NodeJS and Express and MongoDB for Database technology. So at the end of this you can call yourself an Junior Developer in MERN (Mongo, Express, React and NodeJS) Stack.
The best part what I like about freeCodeCamp is that there are detailed modules focused on improving the quality of code such as Information & Security, Quality Assurance and Testing and Project Oriented learning.
Ultimately if you spend an year on freeCodeCamp and put what you have learnt to practice, you’ll definitely be a better web developer.
The Odin Project
The Odin Project is one of the top resource since 2013. It was founded by Erik Trautman during his time as an instructor for a web development bootcamp. Main aim of the project was to provide structured learning resources or a path for beginners and learners. Before this, they were lots of resources all over the internet, but no sane way to go through all of them in a structured path.
Today The Odin Project is maintained by volunteers and backed by supporters and sponsors. The best part about The Odin Project is that it provides you a spartan way to learn web development. This means that you have to set up your own development environment, download and install stuff, tinker with command line look around for help. This is as real world as it gets with very less hand holding. Ultimately The Odin Project makes you a better developer who is self reliant.
The curriculum at The Odin Project has 3 tracks or paths
- Full Stack JavaScript
- Front End Only
- Full Stack Ruby on Rails
The tracks start from web development basics (or 101 topics) and also gives you taste of real world stuff such as Text Editors, Command Line, Git. Core topics covered in the tracks are HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Ruby, Front End Frameworks, Backend with NodeJS or Ruby on Rails.
The Odin Project is one among only few free online bootcamps to teach Ruby and Ruby on Rails.
There are plethora of hands on project challenges such as Rock Paper Scissors, Etch-a-sketch, Calculator, Tic Tac Toe, Restaurant Page, ToDo List, Weather App, Battleship, Photo Tagging App, Message Board, Inventory App and finally a Social Network clone.
The Odin Project offers some insights on how to get hired.
As an interesting fact, there are few students who work on freeCodeCamp and The Odin Project side by side. They use FCC for learning theoretical concepts and TOP for practical projects.
App Academy Open
App Academy Open is a free full stack web development curriculum offered by App Academy, a top coding bootcamp in US. Apart from free track, they also offer Mentorship, live lectures, pair programming, career services which are paid premium services.
I’m gonna discuss here only about the free curriculum.
App Academy Open curriculum consists of Video Lectures + In-Browser Coding. They cover through a vast list of topics which may take over a year to complete.
- Welcome To Coding
- Intro to Programming
- Full Stack Online – Intro to Programming
- Software Engineering Foundations
- Ruby
- SQL
- Rails
- JavaScript
- React
- Full Stack Project
- MERN Stack Curriculum
- Full Stack Online – Job Search
- Docker Curriculum
- GraphQL Curriculum
- Data Structures and Algorithms
Each topics are quite voluminous on their own and there are lots of projects to be completed at the end with detailed guidelines. This program will definitely help you get job ready and your projects will impress a lot of people.
Full Stack Open
Full Stack Open is a recent online web development bootcamp collaboration by Houston, a Finnish software company and The University of Helsinki (of Java Mooc.fi fame).
Full Stack Open is aimed for advanced web development learners with a focus on topics such as React, Redux, Node.js, MongoDB and GraphQL. It assumes you have a familiarity with HTML, CSS and Javascript.
The objective is to build single page applications with React that consumes API’s build with Node.
The course is divided into 9 parts on following topics
- Fundamentals of Web apps
- Introduction to React
- Communicating with Server
- NodeJS + Express
- Testing Express Servers
- Testing React Apps + Custom Hooks
- State Management with Redux
- React Routeer + Styling with CSS + Webpack
- GraphQL
Full Stack Open is a very professional course which is frequently updated and aims to make course learners job ready by the end of the course. This online bootcamp needs to be your priority when you have mastered the basics of web development.
CS50’s Web Programming
CS50 by legendary David J. Malan of Harvard University is a brand by itself which revolutionized the way Computer Science fundamentals are taught in the classrooms across the world.
CS50’s Web Programming with Python and JavaScript is web development focused curriculum by the makers of CS50 which can be considered as a sequel to the original course.
CS50’s Web Programming with Python and JavaScript deep dives into following topics
- Git
- HTML, CSS
- Flask
- SQL
- ORMs, APIs
- JavaScript
- Front Ends
- Django
- Testing, CI/CD
- GitHub, Travis CI
- Scalability
- Security
Each topic is an hour long video lecture which are followed by project with detailed guidelines. The final project is to build a web application of your choice with Python, JavaScript and SQL.
Just like CS50, this course is also very popular with web development learners. At the end of the course, you will have solid fundamentals and you can gain a fresh perspective on web development.
If you are a newbie starting to learn web development, I highly recommend you make the best use of any or all of the above Free Online Fullstack Web Development Bootcamps. Each bootcamp is unique on its own, just experiment and find out which appeals more to you. The most important part is to build a solid portfolio for yourself and develop your skills to be job ready.
That’s it for this post. Follow my blog for more resources on web development in days to come.
Happy 2020, Happy coding !
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