SQL and PostgreSQL: The Complete Developer's Guide (Udemy.com)
Become an expert with SQL and PostgreSQL! Store and fetch data, tune queries, and design efficient database structures!
Created by: Stephen Grider
Last updated February 2026
Our take
Based on the ratings of 13,224 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in February 2026. No course pays to be reviewed.
This is a Postgres course that starts with SQL basics and keeps going into territory most database courses skip: how Postgres writes data to disk, how indexes work, query tuning, recursive CTEs, schema migrations, and running tests in parallel. The syllabus shows 289 lectures across 37 sections, about 22 hours in all, with 44 quizzes and 24 coding exercises. It's aimed at developers rather than analysts. If you build apps and want the database to stop being a black box, that's the audience. Complete beginners can start here too, though the second half assumes some comfort with code.
Reviewers consistently praise Stephen Grider's explanations, with several saying he takes complex ideas and makes them simple, and one who knows his React courses saying the same is true here. The exercises and quizzes get credit for keeping things hands-on. The main complaint in recent reviews is practical: the pg-sql.com practice site used early in the course has been down, so students had to install Postgres locally to follow along. Some also feel the course is wide rather than deep, and note that triggers, auditing and production maintenance are missing. One reviewer found the jump from SQL basics into low-level internals an odd ordering.
Value is strong for the length, and the course was updated in February 2026, so the content is current. Next to the general SQL bootcamps on our PostgreSQL list, this one treats Postgres itself as the subject rather than SQL syntax, so it fits developers better than data analysts. Expect to install Postgres locally and take notes by hand, since one reviewer says notes aren't provided and it cost him a lot of time. Recommended for anyone who wants to move past writing queries to designing and tuning a real database.
Pros
- Explanations get praised repeatedly; students say Grider makes complex ideas simple
- Goes well past SQL basics into internals, indexes, query tuning and schema migrations
- 44 quizzes and 24 coding exercises keep it hands-on rather than lecture-only
- Updated February 2026, and the 4.7 rating holds across more than 13,000 reviews
Cons
- The pg-sql.com practice site has been down; plan on a local Postgres install
- Wide rather than deep; triggers, auditing and production ops are not covered
- Notes aren't provided; one reviewer says writing his own wasted a lot of time
It covers many commonly used concepts, but it's not enough to make you an expert. I would have loved to explore some advanced concepts. The instructor's teaching style is effective, and he can explain complex ideas very clearly.
Listed as beginner and it starts from zero, but the audience is developers; the second half assumes you can read code.
Featured in our guide: The 10 Best SQL Courses on Udemy in 2026
What you will learn
- Master the fundamentals of relational databases
- Acquire the skills necessary to obtain a database administrator (DBA) or database developer job
- Design fast and efficient databases using the latest technologies
- Practice your skills with many quizzes, projects, and built-in exercises
- Learn and apply multiple database design patterns
- Optimize queries for superb read and write efficiency
- Understand how PostgreSQL stores information at the hardware level
- Connect PostgreSQL to front-end apps using an API
- Build common app features, such as a 'like' and 'mention' systems
- Handle complex concurrency issues and race conditions
- Advance your database designs using schema migrations
- See how to use PostgreSQL to speed up automated tests
Course content
37 sections · 289 lectures · 22 hours of video 44 quizzes, 24 coding exercises, 10 articles
- 1Simple - But Powerful - SQL Statements 3 free previews11 lectures · 3 quizzes · 38 min
- 2Filtering Records13 lectures · 5 quizzes · 30 min
- 3Working with Tables17 lectures · 6 quizzes · 1.3 hours
- 4Relating Records with Joins18 lectures · 4 quizzes · 1.3 hours
- 5Aggregation of Records15 lectures · 4 quizzes · 46 min
- 6Working with Large Datasets6 lectures · 2 quizzes · 20 min
- 7Sorting Records5 lectures · 1 quiz · 13 min
- 8Unions and Intersections with Sets6 lectures · 1 quiz · 22 min
- 9Assembling Queries with SubQueries25 lectures · 7 quizzes · 1.9 hours
- 10Selecting Distinct Records3 lectures · 1 quiz · 5 min
- 11Utility Operators, Keywords, and Functions3 lectures · 10 min
- 12Local PostgreSQL Installation3 lectures · 15 min
- 13PostgreSQL Complex Datatypes8 lectures · 38 min
- 14Database-Side Validation and Constraints10 lectures · 3 quizzes · 49 min
- 15Database Structure Design Patterns5 lectures · 26 min
- 16How to Build a 'Like' System8 lectures · 2 quizzes · 35 min
- 17How to Build a 'Mention' System5 lectures · 27 min
- 18How to Build a 'Hashtag' System5 lectures · 25 min
- 19How to Design a 'Follower' System1 lecture · 6 min
- 20Implementing Database Design Patterns7 lectures · 44 min
- 21Approaching and Writing Complex Queries9 lectures · 18 min
- 22Understanding the Internals of PostgreSQL5 lectures · 1 quiz · 48 min
- 23A Look at Indexes for Performance9 lectures · 1 quiz · 1.1 hours
- 24Basic Query Tuning3 lectures · 1 quiz · 19 min
- 25Advanced Query Tuning6 lectures · 1 quiz · 41 min
- 26Simple Common Table Expressions3 lectures · 10 min
- 27Recursive Common Table Expressions5 lectures · 36 min
- 28Simplifying Queries with Views5 lectures · 21 min
- 29Optimizing Queries with Materialized Views5 lectures · 1 quiz · 27 min
- 30Handling Concurrency and Reversibility with Transactions5 lectures · 22 min
- 31Managing Database Design with Schema Migrations9 lectures · 51 min
- 32Schema vs Data Migrations13 lectures · 1.2 hours
- 33Accessing PostgreSQL From API's7 lectures · 27 min
- 34Data Access Pattern - Repositories6 lectures · 32 min
- 35Security Around PostgreSQL7 lectures · 38 min
- 36Fast Parallel Testing17 lectures · 1.5 hours
- 37Bonus!1 lecture · 1 min
Who it is for
The instructor says it suits
- Any developers looking to understand databases
- Application engineers seeking to expand their backend skillset
What you need before you start
- A Mac, PC, or Linux-based Computer
How it compares
Against the other 47 rated Udemy courses in PostgreSQL on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.7 out of 5higher than 93% of them
- Reviews13,224#3 of 48 by number of reviews
- Length22.2 hourslonger than 97% of them
- Last updatedFebruary 2026more recently than 63% of them
Course Description
Database structure design? It's here. Query tuning and optimization? You'll master it. Complex queries? Yes indeed!
This is the only course online that will teach you how to design a database, store complex data, optimize your queries, everything that is needed for operating a production, scalable database!
Every app in the world, whether it is a mobile app built with Flutter, a web app constructed with React, or a plain HTML page, needs to store information in a database. Although there are many different databases you can use, PostgreSQL has been a number-one pick for decades, offering scalable performance, rock-solid uptime, and flexible design systems. This course will teach you everything you need to know about PostgreSQL to use it on your next big project!
Don't know anything about databases at all? No problem. We begin with an overview of SQL, the language used to interact with PostgreSQL. Through an incredible number of exercises, you'll get practical, hands on experience working with realistic datasets. You will understand how to store, fetch, and update information with a series of powerful commands.
After gaining experience with elementary operations, you will move on to understanding database design patterns, offering multiple ways to structure your database for efficient data modeling. You'll see many different scenarios with different types of data, and understand the pros and cons to several approaches.
This course is packed with practice exercises and quizzes. You'll get immediate practice on all of the different topics and features that you learn! In addition, you'll understand exactly where to use each of these features in real and practical projects.
Besides getting practical hands-on experience, you'll also get a behind-the-scenes look at how PostgreSQL works internally. We'll dive into raw data files, investigating how PostgreSQL stores information on your hard drive bit by bit. This knowledge is invaluable when it comes time to start tuning your queries for performance. By having a natural instinct of how PostgreSQL works, you can plan on being able to get every last bit of performance out of your database.
Here is a partial list of some of the topics that are covered in this course:
Apply powerful SQL commands to store, update, and retrieve information
Build relationships between records using foreign keys between tables
Understand PostgreSQL's numerous data types, and when to use each
Assemble reports of business data by using aggregation pipelines
Work with millions of records to simulate real production queries
Exercise your query logic skills through the use of sets and sorting operators
Compose queries out of smaller reusable units using subqueries
Use different design patterns to efficiently model your data
See how to divide database objects into different schemas to maintain them more easily
Validate your data using simple 'check' rules
Construct perfect designs for common features such as 'like', 'follow', and 'tag' systems
Speed up your queries with indexes - you'll see exactly how they work behind the scenes!
Dive into some of the most complex queries around with recursive common table expressions
Deal with concurrency issues easily by applying transactions
I made this course to be the perfect resource for engineers just getting started with their first database. Master the database itself, and see how to apply it with real designs. Sign up today and master PostgreSQL!
Instructor Details
- 4.7 Rating
13,224 Reviews
Stephen Grider
Stephen Grider has been building complex Javascript front ends for top corporations in the San Francisco Bay Area. With an innate ability to simplify complex topics, Stephen has been mentoring engineers beginning their careers in software development for years, and has now expanded that experience onto Udemy, authoring the highest rated React course. He teaches on Udemy to share the knowledge he has gained with other software engineers. Invest in yourself by learning from Stephen's published courses.
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Reviews
By Marco Kropivsek on 9/3/2026
We use Oracle and MariaDB as our default databases and we are going to switch to PostgreSQL. I asked Claude for some nice PostgreSQL courses and this one came recommended. The beginning of this course is below my knowledge level, but I can see how this would be an excellent start for someone without any database knowledge.
By Timothy Page on 8/3/2026
The instruction and information is very good. The instructor methodically works through the material. I did have a problem with the online tool, however, I just installed postgres on my system to do the local examples.
By JMichael on 7/28/2026
Stephen Grider provides a professional SOLID foundation with insightful examples of what works, what does not and why. Any student of his will quickly learn and advance at light speed, with practical examples and potential solutions. I highly recommend Stephen Grider.
By Youssef Wagdy on 6/21/2026
very good and well put together, and covers so many topics, probably the only postgres course someone needs, but it doesn't go into depth on some of the topics, and skips a lot of the advanced ones, and I wish it would've dived more into the integration of the database and deploying, managing, and maintaining it in a realistic production environment
By Rodolfo Freitas da Silva on 4/4/2026
Ótimo instrutor! Ele explora cada detalhe do que ensina de forma criteriosa. Realmente aprendi como trabalhar com PostgreSQL e não somente escrever queries sem pensar nas implicações técnicas de cada escolha.
By Kartikeya Agnihotri on 3/7/2026
Greate course if you wanna dive deep in postgres in just 20 hours and also learn sql and understand how database in real world are handled what errors they face and how to handle those errors . In short this course will make you a postgres developer for sure
By Remi Olateru on 2/3/2026
This was a great intro to postgres. Honestly I would coin this as just a general intro to databases itself, not much postgres specific stuff but thats defintely okay. The content here is very well thoughout and touches on really all of the fundamentals to get started. Well done, highly recommended
By Zac Israel on 1/26/2026
I must give this course five stars. Stephen Grider is an elite instructor—his explanations are clear, and he provides plenty of opportunities to apply what he teaches. I highly recommend this course and will definitely be taking more courses from him in the future.
By Nitzan Nashi on 12/25/2025
The Course was well structured, going from basic SQL through PostgreSQL's unique features, including a basic implementation of a Server and API. The Course is good for new to mid-level. I wish it would go a bit deeper into a more complex / enterprise-level structure of the DB, and how to maintain it.
By Lionel Herrero Battista on 12/22/2025
This is another great course from Stephen. The explanations of SQL and PostgreSQL concepts are clear and easy to follow, with plenty of hands-on practice that really helps reinforce the material. I especially appreciated the section on building an API and testing it, which makes the course feel very practical and applicable to real-world projects. The only thing I feel is missing is a deeper dive into PostgreSQL functions, stored procedures, and error handling. Adding sections on these topics would make an already excellent course even more complete. Overall, highly recommended.
Quality Score
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Overall Score : 94 / 100












