9 Best SQL Courses in 2026 (Free and Paid, Verified Prices)

Every "best SQL courses" list I could find in 2026 is written by a company that sells a SQL course and ranks it first. This one is too, of course, but I wrote it, which makes it better. What I can offer instead of neutrality is the real price, the real hour count, and a con for every course, including ours.

Prices and lengths were verified September 2026, links included.

How I judged these

The same three questions as our DSA course roundup:

1. Do you write queries, or do you watch someone else write queries? SQL is a skill, and the courses that make you type SELECT a few hundred times are better than the ones that don't.
2. What does it cost, really? Half of these hide the number behind a login or a (fake urgency) "sale ends Thursday" banner.
3. Who is it best for? A backend developer, a data analyst, and someone who needs a certificate to present to HR next month don't all need the same course.

I also noted which database each course runs on. It matters less than beginners fear (the JOIN you learn in SQLite is the same JOIN you'll use in Postgres), but if your job is going to be PostgreSQL, learning whilst using PostgreSQL saves you a bit of "why doesn't this function exist."

Boot.dev: Learn SQL

Learn SQL is 30 hours across 95 lessons in 11 chapters, and 66 of those lessons have you writing SQL in the browser against a real database and passing tests before you move on. It starts with tables and constraints, goes through CRUD, filtering, aggregations, subqueries, and normalization, then joins, and finishes with indexes and performance. It's rated 4.8 from 2,179 reviews with 55,015 students as of September 2026. It's also our course, so apply the appropriate discount to everything I say about it.

Chapter nine, normalization, is the section I'd point at. Most SQL courses teach you how to query a database somebody else designed. This one makes you design the tables, then punishes you with the queries your bad design forces you to write, then has you fix it. That's the part of SQL that separates "can write a SELECT" from "can be trusted with a schema."

It sits in the middle of the backend development path, so the next thing you build after this course is a Go web server that talks to a real Postgres database. Boot.dev's Trustpilot rating is 4.8 from 232 reviews.

The cons:

• It's mostly paid. The first chapters are fully interactive for free, and every lesson is free to read. But after that, writing code in the lessons needs a membership at $59/month or $399/year (with a 30-day refund policy of course).
• It runs on SQLite. That's the right call for a browser course (no server, instant results), but SQLite stores booleans as integers and lacks some Postgres functions. The course flags every place SQLite differs, and the backend path moves you to Postgres right after, but you're not writing Postgres in that course specifically.
• The certificate is a completion certificate. A public verification URL, no exam, not accredited. Same as everything else on this list except the Stanford one, and even that's a course certificate, not a credential. If you need a credential, read our SQL certifications guide instead.

Mode SQL Tutorial: the free option, now living at ThoughtSpot

Mode's SQL Tutorial has been the world's default free SQL course for a decade, and ThoughtSpot (which bought Mode) kept it alive.

It's 52 lessons in four tiers: Basic SQL (15), Intermediate SQL (20), SQL Analytics Training (8), and Advanced SQL (9). Every lesson has an editor in the page with real datasets loaded, so you write the query and see the result right there. Class Central says Mode's older Udacity edition is about 30 to 40 hours, which feels pretty good for all four tiers here.

The cons:

• It's built for analysts, and it says so. The tutorial's own intro states it doesn't cover setting up databases or using them in applications and "is not a comprehensive resource for aspiring software developers." If you want to build a backend, you'll finish this able to answer questions about data and unable to design a table.
• No certificate, no grading. You know you're done when you decide you're done.
• It's now a lead magnet for a BI product. That's not a huge deal, but expect the surrounding page to want you to book a demo.

PostgreSQL for Everybody: free, and Postgres

PostgreSQL for Everybody is Charles Severance's follow-up to Python for Everybody, and like everything Dr. Chuck makes, the materials are free and openly licensed. It's four courses that run from database design and basic SQL through intermediate SQL, JSON, and database architecture, and the Coursera version is rated 4.7 from 1,450 reviews with 46,562 enrolled.

This is the only entry on the list that teaches you PostgreSQL as PostgreSQL: psql, indexes, regular expressions, JSON columns, full-text search, and the parts of the database you'll use on a real backend job. The autograders on pg4e.com are free. The Coursera certificate requires a subscription ($59/month list or $399/year for Coursera Plus, with a free audit option, and a $35/month promo was running when I checked).

The cons:

• You install a client. The course assumes a PostgreSQL client like psql, either on your machine or through a free PythonAnywhere account. No in-browser editor.
• It does use Python. The Coursera version lists the first two Python for Everybody courses as prerequisites, and some of the assignments need you to have a basic understanding of it. Reviewers who came for SQL and not Python complain about that.
• It's intermediate. If you've never written a SELECT statement ever, start somewhere else and come back later.

Stanford's Databases: Relational Databases and SQL

Jennifer Widom's Stanford database course is the academic option: relational algebra, the theory behind why tables look the way they do, then SQL. It's free to audit on edX, $69 for the verified certificate, rated 4.5 from 47 edX reviews with 152,517 enrolled. edX lists it as taking about 2 weeks with 8 to 10 hours of work each week.

The course page says:

"This course is archived. Future dates to be announced."

You can still open the materials, and the SQL exercises are auto-checked, but this is a 2011-era MOOC that's been chopped into pieces and left up. The material still works, but nobody is actively maintaining it afaik.

The cons:

• Archived, with all that implies for support and freshness of content.
• Only four SQL exercises, per Class Central's count.
• "Some computer science background is expected." Again, not necessarily baby's most gentle introduction to SQL databases.

Zero To Mastery: Complete SQL + Databases Bootcamp

Zero To Mastery's SQL bootcamp is the longest course on this list: 26 hours, 293 lessons, 14 sections, last updated September 2026. It's PostgreSQL first, with detours into MySQL, SQL Server, and SQLite. Mo Binni and Andrei Neagoie teach it, and it holds a 4.9 on Trustpilot.

You can buy it alone for $199 (lifetime access) or get it with everything else on ZTM for $25/month billed annually, which is $299 a year. There's a $1,299 lifetime membership if you're that sure.

The cons:

• Twelve setup lectures. You install PostgreSQL locally and work through the course on your own machine. Pretty nice to be so hands-on, but it's a lot of friction and also the point where a lot of beginners likely quit (based on our experience).
• No free tier. Preview lectures only.
• It's a video course. Well made, but nothing makes you do the exercises, and 26 hours is a long time to watch at 2x speed.

DataCamp: Introduction to SQL

DataCamp's Introduction to SQL takes just about two hours, it's free, the exercises run in the browser, and 1.6 million people have taken it (rated 4.8 from 61,317 reviews). If you want to know by tonight whether SQL is something you can do, this might be your quickest path.

The cons:

• It's only two hours. More of an introduction, not a full course. The real DataCamp SQL content is behind Premium, which is $14/month billed annually.
• It's generic SQL, aimed at data work. The page names PostgreSQL and SQL Server as "popular flavors" and doesn't commit to one.
• The certificate is a "Statement of Accomplishment", and only on paid plans.

Codecademy: Learn SQL

Codecademy's Learn SQL is five hours across four lessons (manipulation, queries, aggregate functions, multiple tables), five projects, and four quizzes, all in the browser. 1.2 million learners, 4.57 from 27,383 ratings. The course itself is free on the Basic plan.

The cons:

• The certificate costs a subscription. Plus is $29.99/month, or $14.99/month if you pay for a year. Pro is $39.99 or $19.99.
• You'll finish able to join two tables and not much else. The deeper SQL stuff sits in Codecademy's paid data paths.
• It runs on SQLite, and the course page doesn't say so. Third-party writeups confirm it as far as my research can tell. Same tradeoff as Boot.dev, essentially.

If you're weighing the platforms rather than the SQL courses, we wrote a whole Boot.dev vs Codecademy comparison.

Jose Portilla's The Complete SQL Bootcamp on Udemy

The Complete SQL Bootcamp is the Udemy bestseller: 1,047,098 students, 4.7 from 257,863 ratings, 8 hours 51 minutes across 83 lectures, PostgreSQL with pgAdmin. Portilla is a good teacher and the course is tight. When I checked, it was $22.99 against a $159.99 list price (classic Udemy discount), and Udemy's banner was advertising "from $11.99" through September 11... on Udemy, never pay list.

The cons:

• Last updated December 2022. Postgres has shipped three major versions since. The SQL you'll learn is still correct, but it seems nothing here has been touched in almost four years.
• You install PostgreSQL and pgAdmin before lecture one. Two setup lectures before you really get going.
• Same video-course caveat as ZTM. Nothing in the course checks that you actually wrote the queries or that they worked.

Kaggle: Intro to SQL

Kaggle's Intro to SQL is three hours, six lessons, free, and comes with a free certificate, which makes it the cheapest certificate on this list. Rachael Tatman and Alexis Cook teach it, and the exercises run in Kaggle notebooks.

The cons:

• It's Google BigQuery SQL, from Python. You write queries as strings inside Python notebooks against BigQuery's public datasets. BigQuery's dialect differs from MySQL and SQL Server in places, and reviewers who didn't know Python found it rough.
• Three hours covers the basics, and the follow-up Advanced SQL course is pretty short by the standards of other courses on this list too.

Also worth knowing about

• Khan Academy's Intro to SQL is free, runs SQLite in the browser, and is narrated by Pamela Fox, who is excellent. It's also from 2015, it's a unit inside a JavaScript course, and there's no certificate. Great for a younger audience.
• UC Davis's SQL for Data Science on Coursera has 726,487 enrolled and 4.6 from 17,216 reviews, is free to audit, and is aimed squarely at data scientists (reportedly SQLite, roughly 15 hours). Reviewers call it slide-heavy though.
• Brian Holt's Complete Intro to SQL & PostgreSQL on Master.dev (Frontend Masters rebranded in June 2026) is 7 hours 20 minutes of Postgres in Docker containers, aimed at web developers. $39/month or $390/year. Published October 2022. Lecture style.

If what you want is drills rather than a course, SQLBolt and SQLZoo are free and good, and I cover them in our roundup of the best sites to practice SQL.

How to pick a SQL course

• If you're becoming a backend developer, learn SQL somewhere that makes you actually design tables, not just query them, and then get onto PostgreSQL as fast as you can.
• If you're becoming a data analyst, Mode's tutorial is free and was built by analysts for analysts. Boot.dev, DataCamp, or UC Davis if you want a certificate to go with it.
• If you need an "official" credential, probably none of these are for you. That's a different list.