Skip to content
UdemyHighest Rated on UdemySoftware DevelopmentPaid courseIntermediate levelCertificate

Docker Swarm Mastery: DevOps Style Cluster Orchestration (Udemy.com)

Build, automate, and monitor a server cluster for containers using the latest open source on Linux and Windows

Created by: Bret Fisher

Last updated August 2026

Our take

Based on the ratings of 1,788 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in August 2026. No course pays to be reviewed.

This is Bret Fisher's Swarm course, a 9.7 hour, 69 lecture follow-up to his Docker Mastery course. It starts by building a 3-node cluster, then moves through everyday features, the app lifecycle, container placement and running Swarm in production. The biggest block, about two hours, covers rolling updates, healthchecks and rollbacks. It is meant for people who already know Docker and Compose. The course itself says beginners should take Docker Mastery first, and about 16,000 students have enrolled.

Reviewers praise the teaching. They call the instructor knowledgeable, say the material is well structured, and like the many chances to practice. Of the 1,788 ratings, 1,212 are five stars. The complaints are fewer but specific. Some say the closing videos date from 2018 and feel stale, and one says the replacement notes mostly point to Docker's own site. Two three-star reviewers felt it overlaps with Docker Mastery or offers little they could not find online. A four-star reviewer found some of the assignment and feedback parts exhaustive.

The course was last updated in August 2026, but the weakest part is the pile of older clips at the end. Pick it if Swarm is your target and you want to learn it properly, with a Slack chat and weekly Q&A as backup. If you are headed to Kubernetes, this will not get you there.

Best forDocker users who know Compose and want to run a small, highly available Swarm cluster on real servers.
Skip it ifYou are new to Docker, or you have already decided on Kubernetes and want nothing else.

Pros

  • Builds a 3-node cluster early, then layers on secrets, placement and updates
  • About two hours on healthchecks, rolling updates and rollbacks for zero downtime
  • Reviewers say the explanations are clear and the material is well structured
  • Instructor answers comments, and a Slack chat and weekly Q&A come with it

Cons

  • Closing clips date from 2018 and some reviewers call them outdated
  • Some reviewers felt it overlaps with Docker Mastery or adds little new
  • No quizzes or coding exercises, and you must set up your own VMs
Bret is an outstanding teacher. This course helped me set up a small swarm cluster that meets my needs and to know where to look when things become more complex.
Michael Morris Danziger, a student

Intermediate fits: it needs Docker and Compose basics, terminal and SSH comfort, and the ability to run several VMs.

icon
What you will learn

  • Create a multi-node highly-available Swarm cluster on Linux and Windows.
  • Remotely orchestrate complex multi-node systems from macOS, Windows, or Linux.
  • Update your containers using rolling updates, healthchecks, and rollbacks.
  • Ensure zero-downtime updates by understanding service startup and shutdown details.

Course content

12 sections · 69 lectures · 9.7 hours of video 3 assignments, 15 articles

  1. 1Introduction and Course Overview 2 free previews2 lectures · 8 min
  2. 2Course Resources and Tools4 lectures · 3 min
  3. 3Swarm Intro and Creating a 3-Node Swarm Cluster 1 free preview6 lectures · 38 min
  4. 4Swarm Basic Features and How to Use Them In Your Workflow 1 free preview9 lectures · 2 quizzes · 48 min
  5. 5Swarm App Lifecycle4 lectures · 36 min
  6. 6Controlling Container Placement in Swarm 1 free preview7 lectures · 1 quiz · 1 hour
  7. 7Operating Docker Swarm in Production 1 free preview3 lectures · 43 min
  8. 8Limit Downtime with Rolling Updates, Healthchecks and Rollbacks 1 free preview15 lectures · 2.1 hours
  9. 9Docker Production and Future of Swarm 2 free previews6 lectures · 1.6 hours
  10. 10What's Next?1 lecture · 1 min

Who it is for

The instructor says it suits

  • You've taken my first Docker Mastery course and are ready for more Swarm.
  • You're skilled at Docker for local development and ready to use Swarm container orchestration on servers.
  • Anyone who has tried tools like Kubernetes and Nomad and is looking for an easier solution.
  • Anyone in a Developer, Operations, or Sysadmin role that wants to improve DevOps agility.
  • Anyone using Mirantis clustering and wants to learn how Swarm works in Docker.
  • Do *not* take this course if you’re new to Docker. Instead, take my Docker Mastery course, which starts with Docker 101.

What you need before you start

  • No paid software required. Yay Open Source!
  • Understand Docker and Compose basics: creating containers, images, volumes, networks.
  • Be able to setup multiple VMs locally or use cloud VMs.
  • Understand terminal or command prompt basics, Linux shells, SSH, and package managers.

How it compares

Against the other 518 rated Udemy courses in Software Development on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.6 out of 5higher than 62% of them
  • Reviews1,788#92 of 519 by number of reviews
  • Length9.7 hourslonger than 66% of them
  • Last updatedAugust 2026more recently than 91% of them

icon
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.

2021 Update: Ready for Apple Silicon (M1 arm64) and Raspberry Pi's!
Welcome to the most complete and up-to-date course for learning SwarmKit and using Docker Swarm end-to-end, from development and testing, to deployment and production.
  Discover how easy and powerful Docker Swarm Mode multi-host orchestration can be for your applications. This course is taught by a Docker Captain and DevOps consultant who's also a bestselling Udemy author.

Are you just starting out with container orchestration? Perfect. This course starts out assuming you're new to Swarm and starts with how to install and configure it.

Or: Are you using Docker Swarm now and need to deal with real-world problems? I'm here for you! See my production topics around storing secrets, controlling rolling updates, events, healthchecks, and more.

BONUS: This course comes with exclusive access to a Slack Chat and Weekly live Q&A with me!

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

  • Lock down your apps in private networks that only expose necessary ports

  • Create a 3-node Swarm cluster locally and (optionally) in the cloud

  • Use Virtual IP's for built-in load balancing in your cluster

  • Use Swarm Secrets to encrypt your environment configs, even on disk

  • Deploy container updates in a rolling update HA design

  • Create the config utopia of a single set of YAML files for local dev, CI testing, and prod cluster deploys

  • And so much more...

After taking this course, you'll be able to:

  • Use Docker Swarm in your daily ops and sysadmin roles

  • Build multi-node Swarm clusters and deploying H/A containers

  • Protect your keys, TLS certificates, and passwords with encrypted secrets

  • Lead your team into the future with the latest Docker Swarm orchestration skills!

Why should you learn from me? Why trust me to teach you the best ways to use Docker Swarm?

  • I'm A Practitioner. Welcome to the real world: I've got more than 20 years of sysadmin and developer experience, over 30 certifications, and have been using Docker and the container ecosystem for myself and my consulting clients since Docker's early days. My clients use Docker Swarm in production. With me, you’re learning from someone who's run hundreds of containers across dozens of projects and organizations.

  • I'm An Educator. With me, you’re learn from someone who knows how to make a syllabus: I want to help you. People say I'm good at it. For the last few years I've trained thousands of people on using Docker in workshops, conferences and meetups. See me teach at events like DockerCon, O'Reilly Velocity, and Linux Open Source Summit.

  • I Lead Communities. Also, I'm a Docker Captain, meaning that Docker Inc. thinks I know a thing or two about Docker and that I do well in sharing it with others. In the real-world: I help run two local meetups in our fabulous tech community in Norfolk/Virginia Beach USA. I help online: usually in Slack and Twitter, where I learn from and help others.

"There are a lot of Docker courses on Udemy -- but ignore those, Bret is the single most qualified person to teach you." - Kevin Griffin, Microsoft MVP

Giving Back: a portion of my profit on this course will be donated to supporting open source and protecting our freedoms online! This course is only made possible by the amazing people creating open source. I'm standing on the shoulders of (open source) giants! Donations will be split between my favorite charities including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Free Software Foundation. Look them up. They're awesome!

This is a living course, and will be updated as Docker Swarm features and workflows change.

This course is designed to be fast at getting you started but also get you deep into the "why" of things. Simply the fastest and best way to learn the latest docker skills. Look at the scope of topics in the Session and see the breadth of skills you will learn.

Also included is a private Slack Chat group for getting help with this course and continuing your Docker Swarm and DevOps learning with help from myself and other students.

"Bret's course is a level above all of those resources, and if you're struggling to get a handle on Docker, this is the resource you need to invest in." - Austin Tindle, Docker Mastery Course Student

Extra things that come with this course:

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

  • Bonus videos I put elsewhere like YouTube.

  • Tons of reference links to supplement this content.

  • Updates to content as Docker changes their features on these topics.

Thanks so much for considering this course. Come join me and thousands of others in this course (and my others) for learning one of the coolest pieces of tech today, Docker Swarm!

icon
Udemy Discount

The discount is applied through our link. Open the course from here and Udemy's current promotional price is applied at checkout on most courses, no code to type.

Some courses are excluded from Udemy's promotions. If the price does not drop, clear your browser cookies and use the button again.

icon
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!

icon
More courses by Bret Fisher

$16.99

$13.99

$11.99

icon
More Software Development courses

$10.99

$109.99

$19.99

$19.99

$94.99

$94.99

icon
Reviews

4.6

1,788 ratings on Udemy

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

By Anonymized User on 4/13/2021

I enjoyed the intro into docker swarm while looking into container orchestration solutions. This gives a good, in-depth overview. The last chapter could be replaced with some investigative videos, where Bret recreates problems others have described to him and resolves them. It would introduce the tools he talks about and allow creating exercises where users have to solve a puzzle on their own.

By Ivor Scott Cummings on 5/24/2019

Slack community is super helpful. Brett is a great and passionate individual and it shows in his courses. He's super responsive to questions and constantly involved in the slack group. He's architected these courses in such a way that you can master docker basics, docker-compose and docker swarm in a fun and comfortable way with help every step of the way. Thanks Brett!

By Daniel Alksnis on 2/9/2019

I had originally learned docker swarm through a lot of brute force, reading the docs on a need to know basis and plenty of trial and error. I believe had I taken this course I would have saved soooo much time and made so many fewer needless mistakes. The class not only reaffirmed things I had to learn the hard way but filled in the gaps to a lot of smaller details and finer points that have me going back to my previous swarm deployments and making fixes and improvements. I know that new sections are on the way but I can't wait for the sections on monitoring with Prometheus and layer 7 load balancing!

By Abdullah AlJuraini on 1/21/2019

Coming from Docker Mastery course, - Again, Bret is a good teacher - The pace was not too fast and not too slow - Good balance between theory and practice/hands-on - Excellent course “in-depth” on swarm although it is not completed yet I'm looking forward to the additional content to be added. Please keep up the Great work Bret :)

By Philip Lewis on 12/18/2018

I expected this course to be a follow on from the previous one I just finished but it looks like it is just reusing a lot of the other course content :( EDIT: Whilst this still remains true - kudos to bret for taking the time to contact me and discuss the issue. This version of the course does have more sections and there are yet more promised in the pipeline. I did skip through the first five sections as I'd already done them in the previous course only the week before. Overall I enjoyed it and would look for other course from Bret as he is a good instructor but If i'd know this course existed before I bought the docker mastery course I would have just bought this one. Anyway - thanks Bret and can't wait for more :)

By Damien Gilles on 12/17/2018

Excellent cours. Je le recommande. Le prof explique les choses clairement, même si le cours est en anglais, avec le transcript et quelques notions d'anglais, vous pourrez suivre le cours. J'y retourne ;-) ========== update : je viens de finir le cours, parfait. La dernière session avec le healthcheck, rolling update et le rollback, un peu rude, faut dire que ça n'a jamais été ma tasse de thé, mais au moins j'ai appris des choses. Encore merci pour cette formation. Je la recommande +1. Damien

By Vicente Javier Fdez. Godoy on 6/2/2018

Hecho en falta contenido nuevo que amplíe el curso con temas que no hayan sido incluidos en el curso Docker Mastery. Termino el curso con la sensación de haber repasado parte del curso anterior.

By Phillip Ross on 4/8/2018

This course was definitely as good as I was hoping. I had high expectations after having liked the Docker Mastery source, and this swam course continued to provide what I liked about the other course. Specifically, the pace was not too fast and not too slow and Bret shows genuine enthusiasm on the subject material which is always great. The balance between theory and practice is spot on, and the hands-on assignments/labs are actually enjoyable while being educational. I'm looking forward to the additional content to be added... please keep up the great work Bret!

By Ahmedul Haque Abid on 2/16/2018

Docker Swarm Mastery helped me to understand how to do orchestration well. With good explanation of all regular/common commands and features to use, one should be able to start their first orchestrated service with ease. Bret has great knowledge on docker so all things told are well versed. As this course is part of the Docker Mastery course, some parts are repeated here. But it has all other deep lesson on the swarm feature. My request for Bret is to provide some real world application building example/sample so we can relate how to build based on microservice architecture.

By Cliff Gardner on 2/15/2018

The instructor is clearly knowledgeable about the topic and offers reasons for why things are a certain way. The assignments allow you to exercise what you've heard and if you take the time to follow along at the command line, are substantial enough to force you to think about how to go about the task. A fair amount of tips are provided as well. I look forward to other material and courses from Bret!

Showing all 10 reviews on CourseDuck

Read all 1,788 reviews on Udemy

icon
Quality Score

No CourseDuck member has rated this course yet. Taken it? Give each part a thumbs up or down.

Content Quality
/
Video Quality
/
Qualified Instructor
/
Course Pace
/
Course Depth & Coverage
/

Overall Score : 92 / 100