Best Udemy JavaScript Courses (2026): 3 Worth Buying
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Jonas Schmedtmann's The Complete JavaScript Course is the best JavaScript course on Udemy in 2026: 4.7 stars and four real builds, Pig Game, Bankist, Mapty and Forkify. Maximilian Schwarzmüller's course goes deeper on language internals; Brad Traversy's finishes faster. Scrimba's free Learn JavaScript course is the pick if you want to type the code instead of watching it.
Udemy carries roughly 10,000 JavaScript listings, and most of them sit untouched since the instructor uploaded them. Three courses still get maintained, still teach modern syntax, and still ship real projects. Here they are, ranked.
Best Udemy JavaScript courses in 2026, ranked
| Course | Instructor | Best for | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Complete JavaScript Course: From Zero to Expert (opens in a new tab) | Jonas Schmedtmann | First-time programmers who want one course, start to finish | Deepest project arc on Udemy; buy this one first |
| JavaScript: The Complete Guide (Beginner + Advanced) (opens in a new tab) | Maximilian Schwarzmüller | Developers who already code and want the language explained properly | Best on closures, prototypes and this, the parts other courses skip |
| Modern JavaScript From The Beginning 2.0 (opens in a new tab) | Brad Traversy | People who learn by building, not by sitting through theory | Ten small projects, done in a fraction of Jonas's runtime |
What we checked before shortlisting a course
- Still maintained: the Udemy landing page shows recent updates, not a course frozen since 2018
- Modern syllabus: ES modules,
async/await,fetch, no jQuery as the primary teaching crutch - Real projects a learner can put in a portfolio, not just slide decks
- Instructor still answering questions in the course Q&A
Three courses cleared all four.
Scrimba's Learn JavaScript course (opens in a new tab) is free, no card required, and you code inside the lesson instead of watching someone else type. It runs about 9.4 hours across eight modules and 140+ challenges, and it builds a passenger counter, a blackjack game, a Chrome extension and a mobile app, all reviewed on our Learn JavaScript page. The rest of this list assumes you have already decided on Udemy's video format.
1. The Complete JavaScript Course: From Zero to Expert by Jonas Schmedtmann
- Rating: 4.7 stars on Udemy
- Projects: four full builds confirmed in the course's own GitHub repo: Pig Game (DOM manipulation), Bankist (a fake banking dashboard with arrays, dates and timers), Mapty (a workout tracker using the Geolocation API and OOP), and Forkify (a recipe app built with
async/awaitand the Parcel bundler) - Best for: absolute beginners who want one canonical course from "what is a variable" to a working frontend app
- Link: The Complete JavaScript Course on Udemy (opens in a new tab)
Jonas spends real time on how the engine works, the call stack, scope, the event loop, before he lets you touch a framework. Forkify, the final project, teaches more about structuring a real app than most short bootcamps manage in their whole runtime. It is also the longest course of the three, so budget weeks, not a weekend.
2. JavaScript: The Complete Guide (Beginner + Advanced) by Maximilian Schwarzmüller
- Rating: 4.5 stars on Udemy, from 33,530 ratings (course page (opens in a new tab), checked September 2026)
- Structure: 36 sections, 616 lectures, about 52.5 hours of video
- Projects: smaller, focused builds (a dynamic to-do app, a project-planning tool, a numbers game): concept by concept, with a working example each time, rather than one continuous app
- Best for: learners who already know another language and want a full tour of JavaScript-the-language: prototypes, closures, meta-programming, the async model, then a handoff into TypeScript
- Link: JavaScript: The Complete Guide on Udemy (opens in a new tab)
Max explains the weird parts, this, hoisting, generators, in more depth than Jonas does. If you have already finished a beginner course somewhere else and you want to actually understand the language rather than pattern-match your way through it, this is the better fit.
3. Modern JavaScript From The Beginning 2.0 by Brad Traversy
- Rating: 4.7 stars on Udemy
- Projects: ten small builds confirmed in the course's own GitHub repo: a task list, a loan calculator, a number guesser, a book list built with OOP, an HTTP/fetch demo, a GitHub-profile finder, a weather app, a generator-based profile scroller, a Tracalorie tracker built with the module pattern, and a Webpack-bundled microposts app
- Best for: people who learn faster from "build something every couple of hours" than from long theory blocks
- Link: Modern JavaScript From The Beginning on Udemy (opens in a new tab)
Brad skips the long lectures on call stacks and goes straight to building. Pair it with the MDN docs for the theory Jonas covers on video, and you have a hands-on path that respects your time.
What to watch for before you buy
Udemy's star rating rarely tells you when a course was last touched. Click "last updated" yourself; a course can carry a strong rating from years of reviews and still teach patterns nobody writes anymore. Udemy also runs near-constant discounts, so check the current price on the course page before you check out; the number on the card is rarely what you pay. And a long video course only pays off if you finish it. If you have already bought and abandoned one Udemy course, the fix is usually the format, not another course. Framework releases move fast too; see what React's 19.3 update actually changes for learners before you assume a course is out of date.
Or stay in Scrimba's curated path
If the problem is that video courses do not stick, the fix is not a fourth Udemy purchase. Scrimba's Learn JavaScript forces you to type the code because the recording pauses and waits for you, and the Frontend Developer Path sequences that same interactive format across 81.6 hours, 13 modules and roughly 1,493 scrims: HTML, CSS, JavaScript and React, in order, ending in a portfolio instead of a certificate.
Sources
- The Complete JavaScript Course, Udemy course page (opens in a new tab) (checked September 2026)
- Jonas Schmedtmann's course GitHub repository, listing Pig Game, Bankist, Mapty and Forkify as course projects (checked September 2026)
- JavaScript: The Complete Guide, Udemy course page (opens in a new tab) (checked September 2026)
- Modern JavaScript From The Beginning, Udemy course page (opens in a new tab) (checked September 2026)
- Brad Traversy's course project repository, listing the ten course projects (checked September 2026)
- Scrimba vs Udemy comparison
No. A course gives you the syntax and a few patterns. Recruiters hire on shipped projects, a clear README, and the ability to debug live in an interview. Finish the course, then build two original projects and write them up.
Jonas if it is your first programming language. Maximilian if you already program in something else and want depth on the language itself. Both maintain their courses; both are safe bets.
They prove completion, not competence. Employers look at your GitHub, your projects, and how you talk through trade-offs in an interview. Treat the certificate as a souvenir, not a credential.
Scrimba is our default recommendation; this page is for people who specifically want Udemy's video format. If you have not tried the interactive format yet, the free Learn JavaScript course will tell you in 30 minutes which one you prefer.
Want interactive JavaScript first?
Try Scrimba's free interactive JavaScript course before committing to a long Udemy video.