20 Most Popular Free and Paid Udemy Tech & Software Courses

Udemy is the leading global marketplace for online learning. With over 40 million students worldwide, it provides a variety of courses aimed at professionals and beginners from all backgrounds. Its 155,000+ courses are designed to help you learn or enhance a particular skill in an easy, interactive manner, and every student who completes a course receives a certification of completion.

All of its courses are entirely on-demand. You can begin the course whenever you like and there are no deadlines to complete it. Do it at your own pace.

It’s important to note that while each completed Udemy course includes a certificate, this documentation can’t be used to seek formal accreditation. In other words, Udemy is not an accredited institution.

You can try Udemy Pro free for 7 days to determine if it’s a good match for your learning needs. After this 7 days trial, your account will automatically convert to a recurring $19.99 per month subscription (with applicable transaction taxes). Plus, all eligible courses purchased on Udemy can be refunded within 30 days.

Ready to dive into the most popular tech courses in Udemy to date?

Let’s get right to it!

1. Introduction to Databases and SQL Querying

The most popular free Udemy course is a step-by-step introduction to databases and SQL querying. Here you’ll learn things from setting up your environment to creating your first table and writing your first query. At the end of this course, you should be comfortable writing simple queries including ones related to Dates, String manipulation, Aggregation, etc.

2. Hadoop Starter Kit

Here you’ll walk through all the core components in Hadoop in an easy and fun manner. Learn about what big data is with examples and how to know whether a problem is related to big data or not.

You’ll also understand the challenges with existing technologies when it comes to big data computation.

3. HTML5 and CSS3 Fundamentals

Time to build a website like the pros. If you learn HTML5 along with CSS3 (the next level of web design used on all modern websites), you’ll be at an advantage over your competitors.

In this free course, you’ll find out how to create a website from scratch with HMTL5 and CSS3, as well as how to control your website’s appearance, functionality, and navigability.

4. Advanced Databases and SQL Querying

If you're looking for a job working with databases, or if you’d like to improve your existing database knowledge, this is the course for you.

This course is an advanced, complex TSQL querying course, so it’s best if you’re already aware of basic database concepts and are comfortable writing basic TSQL queries, such as SELECT, JOINS, etc.

This course covers advanced concepts like Views, Triggers, Dynamic Queries, and more.

5. Introduction to Virtualization – One Hour Crash Course

Are you new to virtualization? Have you found that many of the training resources out there use complex technical jargon that make it difficult to understand the basic concepts behind virtualization?

If you need to learn VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware Workstation, or any other virtualization technology in a quick and easy way, this course is the ideal starting point.

Here, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of general virtualization concepts. You’ll also learn how to convert a physical server to a VM and see how the hypervisor provides access to CPU, memory, and storage resources.

6. A step-by-step Arduino how-to guide

Arduino has become one of the pillars of the maker movement thanks to its amazing design and ease of use. With that said, learning to code and work with electronics can be a little intimidating. That’s why this course will walk you through each step of the process.

By the end, you’ll be empowered to know how to code and prototype with electronics.

7. Introduction to SAN and NAS Storage

Today’s data centers and cloud environments have converged infrastructures and management tools. With the advent of virtualization technologies like VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V, external SAN, and NAS, storage is becoming a standard.

This course will give you the knowledge you need to understand SAN and NAS storage. You’ll learn how to configure the storage system and connect with the client with hands-on lab demonstrations.

8. Ansible Essentials: Simplicity in Automation

Ansible is an automation and configuration management technology used to provision, deploy, and manage to compute infrastructure across cloud, virtual, and physical environments.

Here you’ll learn the basics of Ansible and the creation of a simple Ansible playbook from start to finish.

9. The Complete IP Subnetting Course: Beginner to Advanced

A deep dive into IP addressing and IP subnetting — Perfect for CCNA/CCNP, MCSE, and CompTIA students.

This course divides the material up into bite-sized bits to understand the procedures, with multiple examples, practice questions, and video explanations. You will never get stuck on IPv4 subnetting again.

10. Introduction to Windows Server 2012 & Linux for Beginners

Many people would like to get into the computer field because of the lure of high-paying jobs but they don't know where to start – this course will get you on the right path!

Enroll in this course and learn the basics of managing Windows Server 2012r2 and Ubuntu Server right from your living room. The goal of this course is to get your feet wet with both of these operating systems and help you understand the contrasts between them.

1. Learn Ethical Hacking From Scratch

With an impressive number of enrolled students (439,8111 to be precise) and 95,876 ratings, this is considered the most popular premium tech course available on Udemy.

Ever wanted to learn more about (ethical) hacking? Here, you’ll know how to hack computer systems like black hat hackers and secure them like security experts.

This course is highly practical but it won’t neglect the theory. You’ll learn everything by example by analyzing and exploiting different systems such as networks, servers, clients, websites, etc.

By the end of the course, you’ll have a strong foundation in most hacking or penetration testing fields, while also learning how to detect, prevent and secure systems and yourself from the discussed attacks.

The course is divided into four main sections:

• Network Hacking
• Gaining Access
• Post Exploitation
• Website / Web Application Hacking

2. Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate 2021

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification is one of the most challenging exams. It’s great at assessing how well you understand AWS, while also making sure you are making the best architectural decisions based on situations. That's what makes this certification an incredible resource if you wish to ace your exam.

The course creator states he only made one mistake on his exam, scoring an impressive 982 out of 1000.

3. CompTIA A+ Certification (220-1001)

Another course to help you ace your eTech exams.

Pass the CompTIA A+ Certification Core 1 (220-1001) exam with ease. The course creator has taught over 2 million people how to take and pass these CompTIA IT industry certification exams.

With an easy-going, approachable, and funny teaching style, he has helped both newbies and experienced techs alike learn valuable IT skills.

4. The Complete Cyber Security Course: Hackers Exposed!

Become a Cyber Security Specialist. Go from beginner to expert in this easy-to-follow course by learning practical skills for defeating online threats, including: advanced hackers, trackers, malware, zero-days, exploit kits, cybercriminals, and more.

Here you’ll understand the threat and vulnerability landscape through threat modeling and risk assessments and the foundations of operating system security and privacy functionality.

What’s more, you’ll explore the dark web and mindset of the cybercriminal—covering malware, exploit kits, phishing, zero-day vulnerabilities, and much more.

5. Cisco CCNA 200-301 – The Complete Guide to Getting Certified

If you want to jumpstart your career in IT and networking by acing the Cisco Certified Network Associate CCNA exam, this is the course for you.

You’ll get a full understanding of all the concepts and topics for the exam, with 300 pages of lab exercises included (and detailed answers to check your level of understanding every step of the way). This means you’ll get the hands-on practical skills needed to work on real-world networks.

This course offers an easy-to-understand, structured approach to shortcut your path to mastering Cisco networking to the CCNA level and beyond.

6. Microsoft Azure – Beginner’s Guide + AZ-900

This course is designed to help students get themselves familiar with Microsoft’s Cloud platform: Microsoft Azure.

Cloud computing is the next big thing. Really, just look around at how the digital world is evolving. Big players such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google all work towards the goal of allowing customers to embrace cloud computing.

In fact, Microsoft has made big strides in this domain — it’s no surprise as to why they are one of the leaders when it comes to Cloud computing.

Here you’ll learn how to work with virtual machines and Azure Storage (BLOB, Table, Queues, Files, etc).

7. TOTAL: CompTIA Security+ Certification (SY0-601)

Everything you need to pass the CompTIA Security+ SY0-601 Exam, taught directly by Mike Meyers, CompTIA expert and bestselling author.

The first goal of this course is to make you a good IT security technician and ensure you are ready to pass the CompTIA Security+ exam.

8. The Complete Networking Fundamentals Course. Your CCNA start

In this course, you will learn about topics such as IP addressing, IP subnetting, Routing, Switches, VLANs, Spanning Tree, Network Address Translation, Wireless, and a whole lot more.

You will also learn more about the latest networking trends including OpenFlow and Software Defined Networking.

9. Learn Linux in 5 Days and Level Up Your Career

Discover exactly what you need to know about the Linux operating system. You’ll learn the most important concepts and commands, while being walked through several practical and real-world examples.

By the end of the course, you’ll know how to install a web server, how to install a database server, how to create database users, and how to configure WordPress.

10. Blockchain and Bitcoin Fundamentals

We could not end our selection of IT courses without having at least one option to understanding more about Bitcoin.

This effective, best-selling guide will help you understand blockchain and Bitcoin, including more advanced topics such as smart contracts and digital tokens, and will set you well on your way to blockchain and Bitcoin mastery.

Following our post with the best free and premium courses available on SkillShare, we wanted to share a similar article on Udemy’s most popular tech courses!

Just as last time, the courses selected in this post are the ones with the best user-feedback, all rated 4.5 stars and above, starting from the most popular in each category (free and premium).