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Docker for Node.js Projects From a Docker Captain (Udemy.com)

Build advanced Node images for use in dev, test, and prod with the latest DevOps practices from a container expert

Created by: Bret Fisher

Last updated August 2026

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What you will learn

  • Optimize your local development setup for NodeJS in Docker
  • Operate smoothly in a team of NodeJS developers using Docker and Compose
  • Improve the speed and reliability of your Node builds and testing using Docker
  • Get the best NodeJS tweaks to use for dev, test, and prod
  • Design NodeJS images for use with Kubernetes and Swarm
  • Learn about security scanning and locking-down your NodeJS apps

How it compares

Against the other 118 rated Udemy courses in Node.js on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.6 out of 5higher than 75% of them
  • Reviews1,531#30 of 119 by number of reviews
  • Length8.4 hourslonger than 50% of them
  • Last updatedAugust 2026more recently than 94% of them

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Course Description

This course recommends downloading Docker Desktop and other free virtual machine and container tools. If you are a Udemy Business user, please check with your employer before downloading software.

2023: Fixes still happening when needed, and the course is being maintained regularly.
Welcome to the best course on the planet for using Docker with Node.js!
With your basic knowledge of Docker and Node.js in hand, Docker Mastery for Node.js is a course for anyone on the Node.js path. This course will help you master them together.

I'm your instructor Bret, an Award Winning Docker Captain, DevOps community leader, and a bestselling Udemy author. I built this course for you because I live and breathe Docker containers, and I've enjoyed using Node.js since 2012. They work great together, and I'll show you how!

Learn the cutting edge features of Docker that will make your Node.js apps build faster, smaller, and run more securely and reliability. Containers and Node.js are two of the hottest and most popular topics in tech.

It's just as important to know what not to do, as well the best ways to use Node.js in Docker, and I teach a huge amount of info in this course for do's and don'ts with Node.js in Docker.

You want assignments? We go through assignments using all sorts of Node.js + Docker setups. Single-container CLI apps, database-backed web apps, Express.js, hapi.js, distributed micro-service apps, Angular, Websockets, HTTP Proxies, MongoDB with proper connection shutdown, and more.

**NOTE: Be sure you know Docker basics and Node.js basics before starting this course. I suggest my Docker Mastery course first if you are new to Docker. Also read the course requirements!**

"Bret is amazing. You can tell he knows exactly what he is talking about and enjoys helping others. I have never seen someone so involved with his user base as Bret. Direct messages via slack, live youtube broadcasts, newsletters, etc. I don't know how he does it... I would seriously buy any course that Bret puts out because I have no doubts that it will be excellent." — David Olson, Udemy student, Docker Mastery course.

"Great introduction. Bret delivers great resources and instructions. He is the guy you want to learn from when it comes to Docker. The real deal. Worth the money and more." —Joseph Martinez, Udemy student, Docker Mastery course

Some of the many cool things you'll do in this course:

  • Build Node.js Images that auto-scan for security vulnerabilities

  • Use Docker's cutting-edge BuildKit with SSH Agents and NPM Caches for better image building

  • Use docker-compose with Visual Studio Code for full Node.js debug support in Docker

  • Ensure you're using all the latest features of Docker Desktop

  • Use BuildKit and Multi-stage Builds to create minimal and flexible Dockerfiles

  • Build custom Node.js images using distro's like CentOS and Alpine

  • Test Docker init, tini, and Node.js as a PID 1 process in containers

  • Create Node.js apps that properly startup and respond to healthchecks

  • Build graceful shutdown code into your apps for zero-downtime deploys

  • Dig into HTTP connections with orchestration, and how Proxies can help

  • Study examples of Docker Swarm and Kubernetes deployments for Node.js

  • Migrate traditional (legacy) Node.js apps into containers

  • Simplify your microservice solutions with advanced Docker Compose features

"Bret is a naturally born instructor, docker and swarm GURU...Bret gives clear and unbiased recipes for real world scenarios of handling docker files." — Marciej Domanski, Udemy student, Docker Mastery course.

"This speaker is powerful! The speaker instantly gained my excitement and favor which is exactly what I was hoping would happen. This excellent connection makes it easy for me to follow along." — Kendra, Udemy student, Docker Mastery course.

Extra things that come with this course:

  • Access to the course Slack Chat team, for getting help/advice from me and other students.

  • Weekly YouTube Live Q&A's where you can ask me questions live.

  • Bonus videos I put elsewhere like YouTube and share via Udemy announcements.

  • Tons of reference links to supplement this content.

  • Updates to content as products change their features on these topics.

What you will learn in this course:

You'll start with a quick review about getting set up with Docker, as well as Docker Compose basics. That way we're on the same page for the basics.

Then you'll jump into Node.js Dockerfile basics, that way you'll have a good Dockerfile foundation for new features we'll add throughout the course.

You'll be building on all the different things you learn from each Lecture in the course. Once you have the basics down of Compose, Dockerfile, and Docker Image, then you'll focus on nuances like how Docker and Linux control the Node process and how Docker changes that to make sure you know what options there are for starting up and shutting down Node.js and the right way to do it in different scenarios.

We'll cover advanced, newer features around making the Dockerfile the most efficient and flexible as possible using things like BuildKit and Multi-stage.

Then we'll talk about distributed computing and cloud design to ensure your Node.js apps have 12-factor design in your containers, as well as learning how to migrate old apps into this new way of doing things.

Next we cover Compose and its awesome features to get really efficient local development and test set-up using the Docker Compose command line and Docker Compose YAML file.

With all this knowledge, you'll progress to production concerns and making images production-ready.

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Instructor Details

Bret Fisher

Hey I'm Bret. Thanks for learning about me. I'm a freelance DevOps and Docker consultant, trainer, speaker, and Open Source volunteer working from Virginia Beach, USA. I've helped over 350,000 people learn Docker and DevOps tools and techniques.

I've been a cloud and datacenter ops/sysadmin for more than 25 years. For years I've been exclusive to containers and I help teams Dockerize their apps and systems, and improve their speed of deployment, resiliency, metrics, and awareness. All that DevOps-y stuff.

I'm also a Docker Captain and CNCF Ambassador. I speak at conferences, run a popular Discord server, do weekly live events on YouTube, and love helping others. I'm obsessed with containerizing any app I see, and I'll likely talk your ear off about it next time we meet.

I sometimes develop in Node.js, Bash, Go, and general web, usually for open source. 
When not doing cloud native DevOps stuff, I'm watching sci-fi, playing games (tabletop and xbox), and traveling with my wife and dog.

Please check out my courses and join me with thousands of others who are learning the latest DevOps tools!

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Reviews

4.6

1,531 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Arvi A on 3/25/2023

A "must take" for Node.js developers. The hands-on activities in this course make one ready to apply it in an existing/new NodeJS projects. I find the best practices / tips very valuable and was able to complete this course. The structure of the course is great with a little overview on orchestration and ARM. Some parts (commands/tools) are outdated but the Q&A tab and Discord community are great resources for issues. Thanks Bret!

By Haruki Jay Shimada on 2/3/2022

Don't get me wrong, Bret is an amazing teacher and the course is really good. However, I have to warn potential students that the course material is in dire need of an update. I had a lot of trouble trying to deal with deprecated packages (phantomjs and microscanner) and unmaintained node versions (v8 and v10) with my M1 mac. It would also have been nice if there was something about working with typescript, as it is almost the defacto standard in any node project.

By D10f Dev on the roof on 10/3/2021

Very thorough and well-explained material, nicely packaged for developers. As Bret mentioned in the introduction videos you might also end up learning a thing or two about Node.js. Some lectures are not quite up to date, same as you would expect from any other tech-related course really, but the attached materials are and also there are numerous clarifications throughout the course. The Q&A is also a very well place to look for such discrepancies between the recording and the current state of a particular topic. I'm taking half a star because, while many questions were answered in the past (and were definitely helpful), that doesn't seem to be the case as of this writing. Nevertheless, this is still a great course that I can recommend. UPDATE: Seems I was a bit too hasty writing this review as I did get all my questions answered recently. Fully recommended.

By Jonathan Cheng on 1/12/2021

A comprehensive Node+Docker course, may have a lot of useful tips for people using this setup for production. Even though, for someone that hasn't taken any previous courses from Bret, I'd say I expected different pacing and hands-on. Probably "intermediate" requirement for Docker would be a little more than intermediate, as I felt overwhelmed in some cases, like when the lesson didn't have more live coding examples. Another thing for Windows users, the course is a bit outdated as far as how WSL has evolved (currently v2), so some issues Bret mentions may be different now.

By Sujeet Agrahari on 11/26/2020

It's my personal opinion. I found the course not that much comprehensible. Bret should also consider that people purchasing this course might not be a native speaker, so he should give extra effort on his accent. Illustration is a great way to share your ideas, that lacks in this course. He is mostly talking, it's hard to make notes or remember things in first go. Every section should have at least a graphical illustration about what it contains, also the issues it targets.

By Duminda Karunaratne on 11/14/2020

it's so far so good

By Simen Daehlin on 11/7/2020

Doing docker is great learning to be specific with nodeJS is even more. Using this day to day now as a developer at work. Great course!

By Darcey on 10/10/2020

Some good info, I purchased straight after completing one of your previous courses on the subject but what I would have really liked to have seen (in detail & example) is a section on setting up a production / commercial ready and safe node application using nginx reverse proxy to another nginx server (explain why another instance/container of nginx instead of direct pointing to other containers) and then 3 containers (1 x node web app, 1 x node json api and 1 x mongo), where mongo is storing files outside for mongo and the node web app for user uploads for both secure files and public stored files (secure files which must be requested by node and not accessible via nginx mapping). Then how to scale this up via swarm and how to actually load balance it. Would have been great to see a node instance fall over and get restarted automatically, stress test etc. Also to see a git auto rebuild of a container. Loved the git repo examples, very handy. Your 2 courses have change my bookmarks and git notes repo's considerably on the subject considerably.

By Abdallah KANSO on 10/6/2020

Just I asked a question about an official image exists in docker hub .
My question was mainly about the config value format . And the response was I dont help in personal projects..
very engaging as an answer

By Konstantin Gorbachev on 10/4/2020

Perfect course. Clean explanation and examples!

By Massimiliano Farinella on 9/14/2020

The course is fit for me

By Robert Koprowski on 9/10/2020

Great start to another Bret Fisher course!

Showing 12 of 121 reviews

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Overall Score : 92 / 100