Gatsby.js 3 Tutorial and Projects Course (Udemy.com)
Create Blazingly Fast Websites with latest version of Gatsby.js 3
Created by: Yanis Smilga
Last updated October 2024
Our take
Based on the ratings of 1,748 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in October 2024. No course pays to be reviewed.
Yanis Smilga's course teaches Gatsby 3 in two halves: a long tutorial built around a recipes site, then three projects. The projects are a portfolio, an MDX blog and a design site fed by Airtable. It runs 21.8 hours over 240 lectures, and the recipes tutorial alone is about nine hours. It asks for basic React and nothing else. There are no quizzes or coding exercises, so all the practice comes from following along on screen. Roughly 14,900 students have taken it.
Reviewers keep coming back to the teaching. They describe clear lessons, a sense of humor, and quick answers in the Q&A, and one says complex ideas finally clicked. The real complaint is age. Several say the Gatsby version is outdated, that some modules have gone obsolete, and that the instructor stopped updating, so you end up fixing packages yourself. Smaller notes: one reviewer found a few explanations muddled, and others wanted more on Algolia, localization and wiring in third party libraries.
The rating is 4.5 from 1,748 reviews, and about 69 percent of them are five stars. Only 33 are one or two stars. The listing shows an update in October 2024, but reviewers still describe version 3 material, so treat it as a way to learn Gatsby's ideas and project structure rather than a copy-paste recipe. Check that Gatsby is the right tool for your plans before committing 22 hours. For someone who learns by building and doesn't mind some debugging, it's a solid pick.
Pros
- Four full builds: recipes site, portfolio, MDX blog and an Airtable-backed design site
- Reviewers praise clear explanations that make hard Gatsby ideas stick
- Instructor answers questions quickly in the Q&A, according to reviewers
- Introduces several CMSs, and one freelancer reviewer plans to use them in most projects
Cons
- Teaches Gatsby 3, and reviewers say packages are outdated and need manual fixes
- No quizzes or coding exercises, so practice is follow-along only
- Reviewers wanted more on Algolia, i18n and using third party libraries in Gatsby
This course is amazing for anyone who wants to learn gatsby and grow as a freelancer. John covers everthing in his depth tutorials and we build awesome real world projects along the way.
Listed for all levels, but basic React is required, and comfort fixing outdated packages helps.
What you will learn
- Learn Gatsby
- Build Awesome Projects
- Build Blazingly Fast Websites
- Become Better React Developer
Course content
7 sections · 240 lectures · 22 hours of video 17 articles
- 1Course Info 2 free previews4 lectures · 3 min
- 2Gatsby Tutorial - SimplyRecipes Project 1 free preview93 lectures · 9.2 hours
- 3IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!!1 lecture
- 4Portfolio Project 1 free preview39 lectures · 3.3 hours
- 5MDX Blog 1 free preview55 lectures · 5.1 hours
- 6Design Project with Airtable 1 free preview44 lectures · 4.1 hours
- 7Bonus1 lecture · 1 min
Who it is for
The instructor says it suits
- Everyone Interested in Building Blazingly Fast Static Websites With Gatsby
What you need before you start
- Basic Knowledge of React
How it compares
Against the other 173 rated Udemy courses in React on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.5 out of 5higher than 53% of them
- Reviews1,748#46 of 174 by number of reviews
- Length21.8 hourslonger than 66% of them
- Last updatedOctober 2024more recently than 60% of them
Course Description
Gatsby is a React-based, GraphQL powered static site generator. It combines together the best parts of React, webpack, react-router, GraphQL, and other front end tools to provide excellent developer experience. Gatsby is far more than typical static site generator though. You can think of it more like a modern front-end framework.
It uses powerful pre-configuration to build a website that uses only static files for incredibly fast page loads, service workers, code splitting, server side rendering, smart image loading, asset optimization, and data prefetching.
The course will consist of two parts. In the first part, the tutorial part we will cover Gatsby basics, and in the second part, projects part, we will build interesting projects using Gatsby.
All project intro videos are available for preview.
With the new Gatsby create blazing fast web experiences that integrate your favorite services and content. Build e-commerce sites, landing pages, blogs and more in minutes.
Go from idea to production in literal minutes with a 10x developer experience. Gatsby is built on popular, proven tech like React and GraphQL, has loads of tutorials and starter templates, and over 2500 plugins that can help integrate all of your favorite web services.
Gatsby loads only critical 1 parts of the page, exactly when the visitor needs it, and not a second sooner. Once loaded, Gatsby prefetches resources 2 for other pages so that clicking on the site feels buttery smooth and responsive. Everything is statically generated at runtime - so your site loads as fast as possible.
Instructor Details
- 4.5 Rating
1,748 Reviews
Yanis Smilga
Hello, I’m Jānis Smilga, a web developer based in Sigulda, Latvia. These days, I spend most of my time working with AWS CDK, TypeScript, and Node.js—building cloud infrastructure and scalable backend systems. I enjoy coding and the constant challenge of learning something new. You can also find me on my YouTube channel, Coding Addict.
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Reviews
By Daniel Ouattara on 12/10/2023
The course is good. Projects are interesting. Its true that Gatsby version that John used is completely outdated, but that the true challenge: as a web developer, you must read the docs, search on forums, ask around to update all the stuff by yourself and find the way to link items in order to make things work securely and with stability. So thank you John ! I hope that in John's new NextJS course there will be bunch of various, short, mid-long & long interesting projects. happy coding !
By Marcelino Sileoni on 3/21/2023
Well armed and developed. Unfortunately you have to update some modules that have become obsolete due to the updating of components used. Bien armado y desarrollado. Lamentablemente hay que actualizar algunos módulos que han quedado obsoletos por la actualización de componentes utilizados.
By Mattia Rasulo on 2/25/2023
It's a great course, unfortunately John decided to stop updating so we are stuck at v3. I learned Gatsby and learned beautiful websites with it though and I guess that's what matters!
By Durgesh Chaudhary on 8/22/2021
This course is amazing for anyone who wants to learn gatsby and grow as a freelancer. John covers everthing in his depth tutorials and we build awesome real world projects along the way. I've also been introduced to multiple CMSs now and I think I'll end up using them for most of my projects. Can't recommend this enough! Also, he is super quick and helpful in the Q/A. I totally loved his teaching style.
By Oleksandr Kucherenko on 4/3/2021
Very good and detailed tutorials. Very deep introduction to Gatsby. Missed topics: - i18n (localization) - use of existing react components/libs (quick tutorial how to select library and how to do basic integrations of them into gatsby pages) - how to convert JS scripts of different SDKs into gatsby code (for example: Facebook IM integration on website) Big THANKS for a great education lectures. Well DONE! I would like to highly recommend this course to others.
By Justin T Young on 12/20/2020
Getting excited to learn this, keeping my interest.
By Alan Reid on 12/13/2020
Very specific and detailed to make sure beginners don't get lost. Fantastic.
By Iaki on 12/13/2020
Fantastic step-by-step intruduction to Gatsby. John's explanations are clear, well structured and pretty thorough.
I would buy it again without doubt. If you're getting started with Gatsby, this course will be a great help and also a valuable reference once you're building your own Gatsby sites.
By Alessandro Dantas on 12/13/2020
I've just finished the first parte of the course - the tutorial. Extremely helpful. Although I suspect you could have learned most of what was taught by reading Gatsby's website, the way that the information was structured and presented in the course makes it a much more effective way to learn the platform. One of the huge benefits is seeing how a JAMStack application, regardless of how simple it is, is built taking advantage of online services.
Just concluded the whole course. John has a great strategy to focus on what he is teaching. Instead of building something from scratch, he provides us with a starter project that has all the structure and styling necessary to build a product relatable to a real-world project while maintaining our attention strictly on what he is explaining. That doesn't mean he refrains from explaining how everything works, he just saves us the time and work of typing it all.
Really enjoyed the course, could not recommend it enough.
By Mandi Haase on 12/6/2020
I am very pleased with this course. The instructor is extremely thorough and thoughtful in his teaching, and this course is preparing me to start my own portfolio website with Gatsby.
By Myo Min Thant on 11/24/2020
Instructor's english is a little hard to follow
By Frank C on 11/18/2020
Clearly explained
Quality Score
No CourseDuck member has rated this course yet. Taken it? Give each part a thumbs up or down.
Overall Score : 90 / 100












