Learn Python
Scrimba replaced its free Python course in early August 2026. The old five-and-a-half-hour course by Olof Paulson is still online, but the one you land on now is a different course by a different teacher: 4.1 hours from Treasure Porth, built around three projects.
Quick answer
Learn Python is Scrimba's free beginner Python course, rebuilt in August 2026. It runs 4.1 hours across three modules, taught by Treasure Porth, and you build three small apps as you go. It assumes no prior programming. The rebuild is tighter and more project-driven than the course it replaced, but it also stops earlier: dictionaries, classes, and file handling are no longer covered.
Learn Python
FreeTaught by Treasure Porth (opens in a new tab)
A free, project-based beginner Python course: three modules, three apps, no prior coding required.
Start free on Scrimba (opens in a new tab)What changed in the August 2026 rebuild
Until late July the URL now serving this course held Olof Paulson's Python tutorial, a flat list of roughly 75 lessons totalling 5.6 hours. Scrimba has swapped it for a new course and moved the old one to a separate page (opens in a new tab), where it is still free.
The two are worth telling apart, because the newer course is not simply the older one improved:
| New course (2026) | Previous course | |
|---|---|---|
| Teacher | Treasure Porth | Olof Paulson |
| Runtime | 4.1 hrs | 5.6 hrs |
| Lessons | 133 | 75 |
| Structure | Three modules | One flat lesson list |
| Projects | Three named builds | Exercises and challenges |
| Ends at | Functions, error handling | Classes and objects |
The lesson counts are Scrimba's own figures and are worth reading carefully: the new course has more lessons in less time because the material is cut into shorter steps, many of them a single move on the project you are building. Fewer hours here does not mean fewer things to do.
What it does mean is less ground. Dictionaries, sets, file handling, classes, and modules were all in the old course and are not in this one.
Curriculum
Course curriculum
3 modules · 49 lessons
- Python Fundamentals
- Python Logic and Loops
- Python Functions and Error Handling
Each module is wrapped around a build. Module one covers variables, strings, f-strings, user input, arithmetic, and type conversion while you assemble PayUp, an app that splits a shared expense and prints who owes what. Module two introduces lists, tuples, the random module, comparison operators, conditionals, string methods, and while loops through a word-scramble game with hints and a score. Module three covers functions, parameters, return values, for loops, logical operators, guard clauses, and try/except, applied to a karaoke queue manager that has to survive bad input.
Teaching a concept and then immediately spending it on a working feature is the useful part here. You are not writing throwaway snippets, and by the end you have three programs that do something.
What it does not cover
Worth knowing before you start, because the course title suggests more ground than it covers. There is no dictionaries chapter, no sets, no file reading or writing, no classes or object-oriented programming, no modules or imports beyond random, and no comprehensions or lambdas.
That is a real gap. Dictionaries in particular are hard to avoid in everyday Python, and any tutorial you read next will assume you know them. Two ways to close it: work through the Python section of Scrimba's free documentation site (opens in a new tab), which does cover dictionaries, classes, and modules in text, or run the previous course (opens in a new tab) afterwards for the chapters this one skips.
Is it worth your time?
For a complete beginner, yes. It is free, it assumes nothing, and 4.1 hours is a realistic weekend rather than a commitment you abandon in week three. The project spine is what makes it work: three finished apps beat five hours of syntax you never applied.
The honest caveat is still platform fit. Scrimba is a JavaScript and web-development platform, and Python remains a single course at the edge of the catalog rather than a track. The free docs, with a Beginner/Intermediate/Deep Dive switcher and build-along projects, make the free tier more self-contained than it was a year ago. Even so, anyone heading for data science, Django, or automation at scale will move to a Python-first resource, and the shorter rebuild makes that hand-off come sooner.
The companion docs
Alongside the course, Scrimba publishes free documentation (opens in a new tab) whose Python section reads as the textbook to the course's hands-on lessons. The same site also covers HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and how AI works. Two things make the Python section useful, and both matter more now that the course is shorter:
- A Level switcher (Beginner, Intermediate, Deep Dive) that changes how deep each explanation goes. You can revisit a chapter at greater depth as you improve instead of outgrowing it. The Classes chapter runs through inheritance, method resolution order,
super(), and@property, which is well past anything in the video course. - Build-along projects across three difficulty tiers, from a Mad Libs warm-up up to an Inventory Manager, built in the browser. There is also a "Bughouse" debugging section and a Python playground.
The docs are localized into six languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, and Korean) and flagged as growing, so treat this as an offering still on the way up.
Who it's for, and who should skip it
It fits complete beginners who want a gentle, project-led introduction to programming, and people on the beginners track working out whether coding suits them. Free and no prerequisites makes it cheap to try.
Skip it if you already program in another language, because the pacing is deliberately slow and you will hit the ceiling fast. Skip it too if you need dictionaries, file handling, or OOP specifically, in which case start with the older course instead. And skip it if your goal is deep Python specialization, since Scrimba's catalog depth is in JavaScript and web development.
Prerequisites
None. Built for complete beginners, no prior programming assumed. A browser is enough, and there is nothing to install because the code runs in the lesson.
Where it fits
This course is not part of a named career path, since Scrimba's paths center on web development. It works as a standalone first taste of programming, or as a companion to the Best Python Courses for Beginners guide if you are still deciding where to start.
Free or Pro
The lessons are free start to finish, and so is the older course. You do need a free Scrimba account: two preview scrims play without one, and the rest ask you to sign in. Scrimba Pro is a separate decision covering the structured career paths (JavaScript and web focused), unlimited challenges, and the private Discord.
The certificate is the one piece worth checking yourself. The curriculum ends with a "Certificate of Completion" entry, and Scrimba's pricing page lists "Course certificates" under what Pro includes, with its FAQ saying certificates pause if you downgrade to Free. Whether that covers certificates earned on free courses is not spelled out anywhere public, so treat the certificate as unconfirmed and the lessons as definitely free. See current plans (opens in a new tab) if you later want the structure around the web courses.
Related courses and comparisons
- Best Python Courses for Beginners, a curated guide to where to start
- For beginners, if you are new to coding entirely
- Scrimba vs freeCodeCamp, if you are choosing a platform
Yes. The full course is free with no Pro subscription required, and the older Python course it replaced is also still free. You need a free account to get past the two preview lessons. Pro covers the web-focused career paths, unlimited challenges, and Discord.
The curriculum ends with a Certificate of Completion entry, but Scrimba's pricing page lists course certificates under Pro and says they pause if you downgrade to Free. Scrimba does not publicly spell out whether certificates earned on free courses are included, so check before counting on one. The lessons themselves are free either way.
Treasure Porth, as of the August 2026 rebuild. She also teaches CSS Challenges and JavaScript Interview Challenges and has contributed to the Frontend and Fullstack paths. The previous version was taught by Olof Paulson and is still available on a separate page.
It is still online and still free, just moved to its own page at scrimba.com/learn-python-c0lpy. It runs 5.6 hours and covers dictionaries, file handling, and classes, none of which are in the new course.
Three projects: PayUp, an expense-splitting app; a word-scramble game with hints and score tracking; and a karaoke queue manager with input validation and error handling.
No. It ends at functions and error handling. Classes, dictionaries, sets, file handling, and modules are not covered. For those, use the free Scrimba docs or the older Python course.
Yes. It is rated Beginner, assumes no prior programming, and the three projects give you something finished at the end. Python is also one of the friendlier first languages.
It is a good free starting point, not a specialization. Scrimba is a JavaScript and web platform first, and its Python catalog is one course plus a docs section. For deep Python work you will move to a specialized resource.