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Udemy lists thousands of free courses, and most of them are free because nobody would pay for them. These ten are the exception: each one has been rated by at least 8,000 students, none scores below 4.4, and together they have been reviewed more than 350,000 times. They are ranked by the number of student reviews, one course per subject, so the list covers Excel, SQL, C++, web design, cloud computing, SEO, computer fundamentals, Git, software testing and React.
Every rating, review count, length and last-update date on this page comes from our catalogue and is refreshed with it, so the numbers you see are current. The pros and cons are written by CourseDuck’s editors from the course syllabus and a sample of the written student reviews; no course pays to be on this list.
What “free” means on Udemy
- Free courses are free at list price, not on a coupon that expires: you enrol and keep access.
- They do not come with a certificate of completion or instructor Q&A; you get the videos and the downloads.
- Since 2020 a new free course cannot be longer than two hours, which is why the long courses on this list (Excel, C++) are older recordings that were published before the cap.
- Ranked by the number of student reviews; each course also had to be rated 4.4 or higher and be the most-reviewed free course in its subject.
1. Useful Excel for Beginners
The most-reviewed free course in our whole catalogue, and it earns the spot the slow way: 89 lectures and almost ten hours that start with what a cell is and end with tables and charts, using a bookstore dataset you download and work through alongside the video. Recorded in Excel 2010 on Windows, so the ribbon looks a little different from yours, but the fundamentals have not moved. If you have never used a spreadsheet and want to be walked through it at a gentle pace, start here; if you already know your way around Excel, our Excel course roundup has paid options that go much further.
Pros
- Free, with 9.6 hours and 89 lectures covering data entry, calculations, visualizing, and tables
- Bookstore exercise files to download and practice alongside the videos
- Reviewers call the explanations simple and not rushed, good for true first-timers
- Ten quizzes and a 4.6 rating from over 86,000 reviews
Cons
- Recorded in Excel 2010 for Windows and last updated in 2020, so it shows its age next to current Excel
- Subtitles and transcript often don’t match the audio, several reviewers say
- Slow, repetitive delivery that at least one reviewer found dull; no certificate
What students say
Carnette BallThis has been very helpful. There were specific things I was expecting and hoping to learn, but I have learned so much more. This will speed up my work efforts. Thank you
Blessing Sundaylistening to the video is quit uncomfortable, but they gives a better explanation of each topic i must recomend udemy as a good website where u can learn anything you want.
Reviews from students, via this course's page on CourseDuck.
2. Introduction to Databases and SQL Querying
Rakesh Gopalakrishnan’s two-hour SQL primer has been taken by about 625,000 people, and the reviews keep saying the same thing: he assumes nothing and explains everything. You install SQL Server Management Studio and the AdventureWorks sample database, create your first table, and work up to joins, dates, string functions and aggregation, which is most of what an analyst gets asked to do in a first job. Two caveats from the reviews: it is Windows-only and there are no exercises, so plan to practise on your own data afterwards. Our SQL category lists the longer courses to move on to.
Pros
- Free, and finishes in about 137 minutes across 11 lectures, so it fits in one sitting.
- Reviewers say the explanations are clear and assume nothing, even for people who have never seen SQL.
- Covers the practical basics analysts get asked about: joins, dates, string functions, and aggregation.
- Starts from installation, so a Windows user can follow along without any prior setup.
Cons
- No exercises, quizzes, or reference sheet, so practice is entirely up to the student.
- Last updated January 2018, and the recordings are Windows only; Mac and Linux users need a VM.
- No certificate, and it skips subqueries and MySQL, which the lower-star reviews flag.
What students say
Pedro CorreiaGood course all around, it provides a guide on installing , getting training material and on simple initial level querying syntax.
AMRITA MUNSHITill now it is very helpful. The trainer is has made it very easy, step by step approach. Just exactly how it should be for beginners.
Reviews from students, via this course's page on CourseDuck.
3. C++ Tutorial for Complete Beginners
Eighteen hours of C++ for free is unusual, and it exists because John Purcell published this before Udemy capped new free courses at two hours. It goes from printing text to pointers and object orientation and finishes with a real program, a particle fire simulation that takes about five hours to build. Purcell teaches slowly and calmly, which is exactly what most reviewers like about it and what a few find too slow. It was last updated in December 2019, so nothing about modern C++ tooling is covered, but the language basics it teaches are the same.
Pros
- Completely free, with reviewers saying it feels like a paid course
- Purcell’s clear, easy-to-follow delivery gets repeated praise in reviews
- Nearly five hours spent building one real program, a particle fire simulation
- Exercises after lectures let students check their work as they go
Cons
- Last updated December 2019, so expect nothing added to C++ or its tools since then
- No quizzes, coding exercises or certificate; practice is on you
- One reviewer finds the pace too slow, and two recent one-star reviews complain about ads in lessons
What students say
4. Web Design for Web Developers: Build Beautiful Websites!
Jonas Schmedtmann is better known for his paid HTML, CSS and JavaScript courses; this free hour is the design theory that goes with them. Twenty-five short rules for typography, colour, whitespace, images and layout, each one illustrated, plus a free e-book of resources and pointers to free fonts and icons. There is no coding at all. It is for people who can build a page but cannot say why it looks amateurish next to a professional one, and 45,000 reviews rate it 4.5; the three-star reviews mostly say it was too basic for them.
Pros
- Free, and the core 25 guidelines fit in about 45 minutes of video
- Rules are concrete and reusable: text, color, whitespace, hierarchy, conversion tips
- Includes a free resource e-book plus pointers to free fonts, icons and image sites
- Clear, well-produced explanations; 4.5 rating from over 45,000 reviews
Cons
- Shallow by design; 3-star reviewers say there was nothing new for anyone already familiar with the basics
- Published in 2015, and one 3-star reviewer calls it too old despite the November 2024 update
- No coding, no projects, no certificate, and the e-book is hard to locate
What students say
Yahya GhaziIt was really a great course about web design guidlines and rules i really loved it and would recomend it to new web designers!
Jess Erick AnayaI I admit this is one of the easiest courses I've ever taken but very very informational and you start to do the great job of extending the material there you go
Reviews from students, via this course's page on CourseDuck.
5. A Practical Introduction to Cloud Computing
Neil Anderson’s course does the thing most cloud introductions skip: it explains what came before. It builds from servers in your own office through colocation and virtualisation to the cloud, then defines IaaS, PaaS and SaaS with live demos and ends with a cost spreadsheet comparing on-premises against cloud. Last updated in April 2021, so the PaaS demo uses IBM Bluemix and the tooling looks dated, but the vocabulary and the service models it teaches are the ones the entry-level AWS and Azure certification exams still test. The 4.4 rating comes from 41,000 reviews.
Pros
- Builds from on premises and colo through virtualisation to cloud, so the why is clear before the what
- Well paced delivery that reviewers say does not pile on complexity
- Free, and finishable in a single afternoon at 2.6 hours across 20 lectures
- Ends with a practical TCO spreadsheet comparing on premises against cloud costs
Cons
- Last updated April 2021 and the PaaS demo uses IBM Bluemix, so the tooling looks dated
- Intro music is much louder than the narration, and one colo lecture has quiet audio
- Quiz questions are described as ambiguous, and one reviewer wanted more examples
What students say
Natanaiah KistThe content and the instructor are great! But some videos/parts of it are with low volume and it's hard to listen. The opening sound is too loud compared to the instructor's voice.
Vakacharla LokeshThe teachings were on point and the only reason i didnt give a higher rating is because the technology has changed a lot and using modern tools would have given better insight to cloud computing.
Reviews from students, via this course's page on CourseDuck.
6. SEO Tutorial for Beginners
Forty-eight minutes, ten lectures, three topics: keyword research, on-page and off-page SEO. Around 360,000 people have enrolled in Daragh Walsh’s course and the reviews say the same thing over and over: they came away with something to change on their own site that afternoon. It was last updated in February 2021, and a few low-star reviews flag advice and a recommended site that are out of date, but for a website owner who has never done any SEO it is still the quickest free orientation on Udemy.
Pros
- Covers keyword research, on-page and off-page SEO in under an hour, so nothing feels padded
- Reviewers say they came away with ideas they could apply to their own site straight away
- Walsh flags what to focus on instead of explaining everything, which students appreciate
- Free, with 25 caption tracks and about 360,000 enrolled
Cons
- Last updated February 2021; low-star reviews say some information and a recommended site are outdated
- No quizzes, exercises or certificate, and at 48 minutes it only sketches link building
- One three-star reviewer finished unsure how to actually build backlinks or produce the extra content
What students say
Smeeta Padmaksh NaikI really like this course it was really helpful for me to understand the basics of SEO like what is SEO types of SEO these are all covered in this video
Deklan abelloClear speech, conveyed his point well, I understood what he was trying to say easily. I liked how he broke it down, everything just made so much more sense.
Reviews from students, via this course's page on CourseDuck.
7. Programming 101
Lawrence Turton’s Programming 101 is not a course in a language; it is the background nobody teaches you before you learn one. Bits and binary, how memory works, what a CPU does, how packets travel across a network, what a variable and a function actually are, and even software licensing and DRM. Four hours across 35 lectures, rated 4.6 by nearly 24,000 students, most of whom say his everyday examples made things click. Watch it before your first coding course, or after it if you learned to code and still feel like you do not know how the machine works.
Pros
- Free, and short at 4.3 hours across 35 lectures, so it fits in a weekend.
- Reviewers say Turton explains binary, memory and networking with everyday examples that stick.
- Covers ground most coding courses skip: CPUs, packets, operating systems, licensing and DRM.
- Three caption tracks, and a Dutch reviewer says the subtitles and pace make it easy to follow.
Cons
- No quizzes, coding exercises or certificate, so it is watch-only.
- Published in 2016 and last updated July 2024; one recent reviewer asks for parts to be refreshed.
- Delivery can feel dry; a two star review calls the output boring.
What students say
Siyabonga MalazaThere Course Is Great, I Learned So Much More Than I Expected. But Please Update Some Parts Of The Course In Order To Meet What's Currently Going On In 2026/27
Igbokwe DirichkwunduI was basically a novice at programming and here I'm I learning how even my phone works the working principle behind it. also Lawrence Is damn good at explaining things to the tiniest of details.
Reviews from students, via this course's page on CourseDuck.
8. Git & GitHub Crash Course: Create a Repository From Scratch!
Everything you need to put a project on GitHub in under 40 minutes: create a repository, clone it, add files, commit, push, and see the difference between two versions, all typed live on the command line so you can follow along in your own terminal. Kalob Taulien refreshed it in October 2025 and 17,700 students rate it 4.5. It stops before branching and pull requests, which is fine for a first sitting, and it is recorded on a Mac, so Windows users will need to translate a couple of steps.
Pros
- Free, and the whole thing fits in under 40 minutes across 12 short lectures
- Every command is typed live on screen, so reviewers can follow along in their own terminal
- Explains the vocabulary (clone, stage, commit, push, diff) before using it
- Refreshed in October 2025 and still rated 4.5 by about 17,700 students
Cons
- Recorded on a Mac; two reviewers ask for a version showing a Windows setup
- Stops at push and diff; branching, merging and pull requests aren’t on the syllabus, and one reviewer calls it too basic
- Some GitHub screenshots are dated since the site has changed its interface
What students say
Λ Λ D H Λ V Λ Nusing git felt like putting a hand through a bush.. didn't know where to start... i am so lucky to find this course for free on udemy.. and this guy teaches it soo clearly... am soo hyped to finish this course!!
Manish Kumar PatnaikIt was a good beginner course. However, could have been better if it could have a graphic structure in terms of how each command clones, stages, commits and pushes the files in the structure to visually explain it
Reviews from students, via this course's page on CourseDuck.
9. Introduction to Software Testing or Software QA
Admas Kinfu works as an automation engineer, and this 100-minute course is his answer to the question he gets asked most: what does a QA engineer actually do? It shows a manual test case being written, a Python Selenium test running, an API request in Postman and a SQL query, so you see the whole toolkit once before deciding whether to pay for a full testing bootcamp. It was refreshed in August 2025 and nearly 9,000 students rate it 4.5; the consistent complaint is that it is mostly theory and they wanted a project to work through.
Pros
- Free and only 100 minutes, so it’s a cheap way to find out if a QA career appeals
- Live demos of a manual test case, a Python Selenium run, Postman and a SQL query
- Reviewers repeatedly call the teaching clear, concise and easy for absolute beginners
- Refreshed in August 2025 and rated 4.5 by nearly 9,000 students
Cons
- Mostly theory; reviewers wanted a real project to work through, not just demos
- No certificate, no quizzes and just one assignment across 12 lectures
- Too basic for anyone who has already worked in testing, per a two-star review
What students say
Tharindya LiyanagedaraYes. This help me a lot to improve my QA knowledge as well as new things and hope to do more researches to improve my knowledge. Thank you
Kenneth NwosuIt was an eye opener for me as a beginner; He explained every bit of the course explicitly. Hoping to learn more and becoming an Expert soon.
Reviews from students, via this course's page on CourseDuck.
10. React JS Frontend Web Development for Beginners
Ryan Dhungel’s React starter spends its first 72 minutes on modern JavaScript, because that is where most React beginners actually get stuck, then builds a small news app with hooks that fetches headlines from a live API. Under three hours in total, updated in October 2025, and rated 4.5 by 8,300 students who mostly describe the explanations as simple and clear. There are no exercises, so treat it as a taste of React before you commit to a full course from our JavaScript category.
Pros
- Free and under three hours, so it is a low cost way to find out whether React clicks.
- A 72 minute modern JavaScript section patches the gaps before React starts.
- Ends with a real project: a news app that fetches from an external API using hooks.
- Reviewers repeatedly call the explanations simple, clear and easy to follow.
Cons
- No quizzes, coding exercises or assignments; several reviewers wanted examples to practice on.
- Published in 2019 and one reviewer says it needs an upgrade, despite the October 2025 update.
- One reviewer noted a non-native accent; another found the click handling explanation did not match the code.
What students say
Md. Nazmus SakibAlmost all basic things are covered although I don't know much. It's good for beginners as all lecture have practical coding sample which helps people to understand and visualize better.
Mahdi AbdurrahmanGreat course, but you have to work for it! The course would be a lot better, if one could check their code against some source code. I think this is a free course. So, don't complain to loud
Reviews from students, via this course's page on CourseDuck.
How to find more free courses
Every category page on CourseDuck has a Free filter in its toolbar, and every category’s top five includes one free course with real reviews whenever the paid courses would otherwise fill all five slots. Start from the full list of categories, or from the JavaScript, artificial intelligence and data science pages, which have the most free courses.
If you are ready to pay for something more complete, the 10 best Udemy courses is the paid counterpart to this list, and Udemy vs Coursera explains when a Coursera specialization is the better buy.
