The Best Front End Development Courses You Can Take in 2024 👨‍💻🏅
Tags: beginners, frontend, javascript, learning
Published: 2023-12-15 19:20:00

At Curricular, my team and I spend hundreds of hours every month reviewing courses and programs from around the web to recommend the very best. Our goal is to help developers cut through the marketing hype, make quick and confident buying decisions, and get the most from their time and money.

You can check out all our learning guides at [curricular.dev](https://curricular.dev?utm_source=devto&src=feguide).

Whether you're looking to launch a career as a Frontend Developer or round out your skills, here are the best self-paced front end courses and programs for every budget (even free) and learning style.

_We independently test and review every course that we recommend. If you purchase a course we recommend, we may earn a commission. Our team includes developers and learning experts who have worked at most of the major learning platforms, but we don't have active employment relationships with any._

![Scrimba's Frontend Developer Career Path](https://curricular.dev/assets/images/guides/frontend/scrimba_projects.png)

## Our Top Pick

### Scrimba's [Frontend Developer Career Path](https://scrimba.com/learn/frontend?coupon=curricular-dev/)
_$18 per month | 6-10 months at 10 hours per week_

This path is the best overall combination of topic coverage, learning experience, instructor quality, and delivery of learning outcomes for aspiring frontend developers.

#### Why It's Great

- Beginner-friendly starting point
- Project-based learning
- Frequent practice
- Getting feedback on your work

The Frontend Career Path starts with the basics - HTML and CSS - and basic JavaScript, and then increases in complexity, until you're able to build a professional-grade user interface and React components library.

If you like learning by building projects and want lots of hands-on practice, you’ll love this career path. Scrimba’s methodical approach to teaching concepts means you’re practicing something hands-on right after learning it, and then putting everything together into a project.

You'll receive peer code reviews on your project. These are particularly helpful because of Scrimba's interactive scrim screencast format, where you get audiovisual feedback on your code.

Another standout feature is the Getting Hired section, which includes helpful content about building your LinkedIn Profile as well as Frontend, JavaScript, and React practice interview questions.

#### Before You Buy

If you're not quite sold on taking the entire career path, you can try one or a few of the courses for free. The first course, Web Dev Basics, is available for free as Learn HTML and CSS, as are the Learn JavaScript course and the Learn React course.

If you already know some of the material, you can skip ahead to other sections, or straight to the challenges to check your knowledge. However, if you want the certificate, you'll need to view every screencast in the career path.

Scrimba also offers a [Frontend Bootcamp](https://scrimba.com/bootcamp?coupon=curricular-dev) that utilizes the same curriculum, but adds a bit more structure and support to help you succeed and accelerate your learning.

The bootcamp is significantly more expensive ($250 per month) but provides specialized features to help learners stay on track and meet their goals.

- Study Groups to help you stay on track
- Group project work
- Specialized bootcamp-exclusive projects
- Code Reviews by trained, vetted Reviewers
- Dedicated support staff to answer questions

#### Get it at [scrimba.com](https://scrimba.com/learn/frontend?coupon=curricular-dev/)

*For a limited time, if you use the coupon code curricular-dev (automatically applied if you follow our links), you'll get 15% off a Scrimba subscription, regardless if you choose the Career Path or the Bootcamp.*

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![Udacity's Front End Developer Career Track](https://curricular.dev/assets/images/guides/frontend/udacity_exercises.png)

## Runner Up

### Udacity's [Front End Developer Career Track](https://imp.i115008.net/Pyv7yq/)
_$249 per month | 6-10 months at 10 hours per week_

One of the best self-paced front end programs money can buy. The industry-alignment, quality of instruction, and feedback on your work make this worth its expensive price tag. The practice exercises and real-world hands-on projects are standout features.

#### Why It's Great

- Hands-on Learning
- Frequent Practice
- Graded Portfolio Projects

Udacity's Frontend Developer path takes you from the basics of programming into building sophisticated dynamic user interfaces with React.

The content consists of videos, readings, quizzes, hands-on exercises, and projects. You'll spend a lot of time practicing and developing skills, both by coding in the browser and on your own system.

The courses are authored by industry practitioners, in consultation with subject matter experts at some of Silicon Valley's top organizations.

Udacity's projects are the standout feature. Over the span of the learning path, you'll build 10-12 portfolio-ready projects. Projects are based on real world situations, test your mastery of each course's major skills, and include suggestions for areas where you can go beyond the requirements to build something creative and unique. Your projects also get graded by one of Udacity's vetted reviewers.

Another cool feature is Udacity’s classroom app has integrated ChatGPT, so you can get instant help on each course. Additionally, you can get 24/7 technical support from a network of mentors.

#### Before You Buy

Udacity recommends aspiring Front End Developers complete four Nanodegrees: Introduction to Programming, Front End Developer Nanodegree, Data Structures and Algorithms, and React. We think aspiring Frontend Developers can skip the Data Structures and Algorithms Nanodegree and supplement with an alternative, lower-cost DS&A solution.

We don't find Udacity's community particularly valuable. Udacity is investing in more community-building activities, but in our opinion, you'll get more mileage by finding an alternative community.

Udacity's subscription model gives you the option to pay monthly, so you only pay for what you need, and can pause to take breaks if you need to.

#### Get it at [udacity.com](https://imp.i115008.net/Pyv7yq/)

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![Frontend Masters's Beginner and Professional Learning Paths](https://curricular.dev/assets/images/platforms/frontendmasters.png)

## Also Great

### Frontend Masters's [Beginner and Professional Learning Paths](https://frontendmasters.com/learn/beginner/?ref=curricular/) - Another Great Option to Learn Frontend Development
_$39 per month | 4-5 months at 10 hours per week_

One of the top video-based options available for learning Frontend development. The expert authors and real world insights are the standout features.

#### Why It's Great

- Expert teachers
- Real world insights
- Code-along workshops

Frontend Masters courses are taught by some of the leading teachers and industry practitioners. The courses are jam-packed with real-world insights, so you'll learn techniques developers actually use in the real world, not merely theory.

The Beginner Learning Path is 50.5 hours of content designed to get you ready for your first job as a frontend developer. But our recommendation is to continue learning with some of the Professional Learning Path, up through the Full Stack for Frontend Engineers course, which will add 46 hours of learning. In total it will take around 100 hours of learning, plus additional time for review and practice. In total, expect to spend about 120 hours learning, along with some time practicing to sharpen your skills and build your portfolio.

#### Before You Buy

The amount of support you receive on the platform is a bit lower than our other recommended options. If you have questions, you can ask in the Discord and generally get a rapid response. But you’re not going to get feedback on your work.

The courses provide walkthroughs and occasional coding exercises, but to get really good at frontend development, you should supplement with practice projects.

Since the workshops are recorded in real time with a live audience, sometimes the instructors get led off on tangents. Not a dealbreaker, but it's a small drawback to the format that you don't encounter with other solutions.

#### Get it at [frontendmasters.com](https://frontendmasters.com/learn/beginner/?ref=curricular/)

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![Full Stack Open](https://curricular.dev/assets/images/guides/frontend/fsopen_path.png#fullwidth)

## Also Great

### [Full Stack Open](https://fullstackopen.com/en/?ref=curricular&src=feguide/)
_Free | 3-5 months at 10 hours per week_

An impressive free, text-based curriculum developed in partnership with tech companies, that offers feedback on coding exercises.

#### Why It's Great

- Built for Novice Coders
- Traditional Academic Instructional Style
- Frequent Hands-on Practice
- Graded Assignments

The curriculum guides you through the fundamentals of full stack web applications, starting with basic client interaction and increasing in complexity. There are in-depth readings, supplemental materials, and hands-on exercises.

The curriculum is structured in parts - each designed to take about a week if you put in 10-20 hours. Each section is designed to build on previous sections, and the exercises in each section add functionality to an example application.

Even if your focus is on becoming a frontend developer, you'll benefit from understanding the back end. Completing Parts 0-7 will give you sufficient background to start building professional-grade frontend projects.

You can also submit exercises for grading and feedback, which is incredibly valuable for learning, and required if you want to receive a certificate of completion.

The authors also include some spaced repetition to reiterate key concepts, and hammer home best practices like logging everything to the console as you’re building.

#### Before You Buy

Overall, one of the drawbacks to the course is its lack of real-world projects. You'll want to supplement the curriculum by building a frontend application on your own, to synthesize what you've learned and apply it in a new scenario, and to build a portfolio.

If you like learning through videos, you probably want a different solution. The text-first format is excellent, but not for every learner.

The community has a high noise to signal ratio, so it's not very valuable apart from getting your questions answered.

#### Get it at [fullstackopen.com](https://fullstackopen.com/en/?ref=curricular&src=feguide/)

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![The Odin Project](https://curricular.dev/assets/images/platforms/odin_project.png)

## Another Great Free Option

### [The Odin Project](https://www.theodinproject.com/?ref=curricular&src=frontend)
_Free | 10 months at 10 hours per week_

Another stellar free, self-paced bootcamp curriculum. While not quite as in-depth or comprehensive as our other recommended resources, it's still a great option to learn frontend development foundations.

#### Why It's Great

- Learning Through Curated Materials
- Microlearning
- Real-world Projects

Odin Project begins with a foundations curriculum and then splits into two tracks: a full stack JavaScript curriculum, and a Ruby & JavaScript curriculum. For aspiring Frontend developers, we recommend the JavaScript Full Stack curriculum.

Most of the curriculum focuses on the frontend: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React. The final module in the track is the only backend-specific material, so you might consider this optional, although some exposure to backend development is helpful.

Each lesson primarily consists of curated tutorials from around the web, with a range of readings, videos, and documentation. It’s all relevant and well curated, but you may be a bit disappointed that you’re being passed to different resources and official documents, vs. other resources we recommend that have authored all the material. As a professional developer, you’re going to spend a lot of time reading documentation and piecing together knowledge from a variety of resources. So the structure of the Odin Project is actually great for teaching you how to understand and digest technical documents and how to learn from introductory overviews.

We really like the structure of the hands-on projects, where you receive base requirements along with some suggested extra credit features that you can add to your project to go above and beyond.

We also like that students can post their solution to a project and like other’s submissions. This is great for learning, as you can see how others solved the same problems you've tackled.

The Odin Project's maintainers also participate in the Discord community, which makes it fairly easy to get answers to your questions.

#### Before You Buy

The Odin Project emphasizes recall and project application more than practicing techniques. So with Odin Project, you won’t get nearly as much built-in practice as you’ll get in other platforms.

#### Get it at [odinproject.com](https://www.theodinproject.com/?ref=curricular&src=frontend)

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## Key Skills to Learn

Each of our recommended resources teaches the essentials skills you should focus on learning in order to start working professionally as a frontend developer:

1. Deep understanding of the latest versions of HTML and CSS
2. An intermediate knowledge of JavaScript
3. Responsive Design
4. CSS preprocessors
5. Version Control with Git and GitHub
6. Testing and debugging
7. Knowledge of CSS frameworks and libraries
8. Experience with JavaScript frameworks (ability to use React, Vue.js, or Angular in a professional-grade project)
9. Soft skills (communication, teamwork, problem-solving)

But this list doesn't spell out the domains of responsibility you'll have as a Frontend Developer. Check out our other post, [Which Skills Are Essential for Junior Front End Developers?](https://dev.to/brian_curricular/which-skills-are-essential-for-juniors-front-end-developers-4lhm) for that full list of skills you'll need right away, and those you can learn on the job.

### Happy Learning!

Be sure to check out our learning guides at [curricular.dev](https://curricular.dev?utm_source=devto&src=feguide), with guides to learning specific skills like JavaScript and React.