Where Can I Learn Python Online for Free?
Python is one of today’s most sought-after coding skills, and you can learn Python online for free through flexible and self-paced courses taught by leading institutions.
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At a glance: The best free online Python courses
| COURSE PROVIDER | DESCRIPTION | BEST FOR | |
| Coursera | Programming for Everybody | Absolute beginners, an all-round introduction to coding in Python | LEARN MORE |
| Coursera | Crash Course on Python | Absolute beginners, automating simple tasks with Python | LEARN MORE |
| Udacity | Introduction to Python Programming | Some coding experience, new to Python | LEARN MORE |
| EdX | Python Basics for Data Science | Some coding experience, using Python for Data Science | LEARN MORE |
| GoSkills | Introduction to Python | Absolute beginners, a bite-sized learning introduction to Python | LEARN MORE |
There’s no denying the popularity of Python—its versatility and ease of use have led to wide adoption in web technology, analytics and data science. Python is also used extensively in a range of artificial intelligence applications, including machine learning and natural language processing.
If you’re involved in any of these fields, chances are you’ll need to know (at least some) Python.
This is why Python has become one of the most sought-after coding skills today and is great to showcase on your resume.
Fortunately, there are plenty of good resources for learning Python online.
In this article, we list a few of the best—practical, thorough and highly-rated courses delivered by the world’s best institutions.
Best of all, there are options for doing all of them absolutely free!
The best free online Python courses
These courses assume little or no familiarity with coding and are designed to get you started with writing your first Python programs quickly. They also give you a solid understanding of the concepts that you need for coding well.
Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python)
Offered by Coursera.
This is one of the most popular and highly-rated introductory courses available for Python and is taught by the University of Michigan.
It covers all of the basics that you need to start programming with simple instructions in Python. There are no prerequisites, and only the simplest of math is used.
There is an accompanying textbook, which is optional, but is also an excellent resource if you want some good additional learning materials.
Highlights:
- Taught by the University of Michigan
- Free (optional fee for graded assignments and certificate)
- What you’ll learn
- Understand the basics of the Python programming language
- Install Python and write your first program
- Use variables for storing, retrieving and calculating data
- Utilize core programming techniques such as functions and loops
- Self-paced, approximately 19 hours to complete
- Optional resource: Python for Everybody: Exploring Data in Python 3
“Very good introduction to basic programming and very easy for beginners in Python who have some programming background, but still extremely useful to quickly and efficiently learn Python.“
Review by AG
Crash Course on Python
Offered by Coursera.
This is another highly-rated introductory course on Python and is taught by Google. You don’t need to have any previous programming experience, and you’ll be taken through the building blocks of Python programming step-by-step.
Highlights:
- Taught by Google
- Free (optional fee for graded assignments and certificate)
- What you’ll learn
- Understand what Python is and why it’s relevant for automation
- Understand the basics of structures, strings, lists and dictionaries
- Write short Python scripts for simple automation
- Create Python objects
- Self-paced, approximately 32 hours to complete
“An excellent course for those who want to boost their programming abilities in Python. It tackles diverse and challenging problems, for you to practice and round out every concept. Highly recommended!”
Review by DA
Introduction to Python Programming
Offered by Udacity.
This is a hands-on course that provides a practical introduction to Python and coding best practices. Some familiarity with programming is helpful.
Highlights:
- Taught by industry professionals
- Free
- What you’ll learn
- Fundamentals of Python programming including best practices
- How to use Python data types and variables, conditionals and loops
- Data structures including lists, sets, dictionaries and tuples
- Build custom functions
- Use and deploy standard and third-party Python libraries
- Self-paced over approximately 5 weeks
Python Basics for Data Science
Offered by EdX.
This is a beginner-friendly course that introduces Python with a focus on Data Science applications. This is particularly useful for anyone looking to move towards a Data Science career or to get a grounding in Python skills for Data Science. The course is taught by experienced professionals from IBM.
Highlights:
- Taught by IBM
- Free
- What you’ll learn
- What Python is and why it’s useful
- How to apply Python to Data Science
- Sets, conditional statements and functions in Python
- File operations in Python
- Using Python libraries (Pandas)
- Self-paced over approximately 2-5 hours per week for 5 weeks
Introduction to Python
Offered by GoSkills.
Designed for absolute beginners, this course requires no previous coding experience. It provides a solid foundation in object-oriented coding in Python.
An interesting feature of GoSkills is their focus on short, bite-sized lessons to make learning easier—this has been shown to be a very effective learning approach.
GoSkills has a subscription-based model, so there are no free courses. But you can sign up for a 7-day free trial with unlimited access to learning content during the trial.
Highlights:
- Taught by experienced instructors
- 7-day free trial available
- What you’ll learn
- The benefits of Python and how to install it
- Understand data types, operators, modules, control statements, functions and more
- How to manage files in Python
- Learn the fundamentals of object-oriented programming in Python, including classes, attributes and inheritance
- Self-paced over approximately 20 hours
“Very detailed and interesting, would highly recommend”
Review by Jessen Nullathemby
Conclusion
So, there you have it!
Five awesome courses for getting started (or improving) on Python from top course providers.
They’re online, flexible, interactive and self-paced.
And you can do them for free!
Python is a valuable skill to have in today’s digital economy—it underpins a range of modern tech applications and it’s highly sought-after by employers.
If you work in or around tech, or aspire to, then you need a basic grounding in Python—at the very least.
So, what are you waiting for?
Start learning, or improving, your Python today with one of these excellent, free online courses—it’ll be worth it!
