900+ Free Developer and IT Certifications

SAMI

December 15, 2024 11 mins to read

In 2024, free IT Certifications have become harder to find. However, for those who know where to look, there’s still a treasure trove of free certifications available online for mastering software development.

In this article, we’ve curated a comprehensive list of all the free certificates and badges scattered across the internet. Collectively, the platforms featured below offer over 900 free certificate courses designed to help you excel in software development.

This shift motivated us to create a Massive List of Free Certificates and Badges. To our surprise, we found that thousands of free certifications were still accessible online. That article has since garnered over 10 million views.

Please note that DeFi Central is not directly involved in managing these courses or issuing certificates. This field evolves rapidly, and you may find that some courses are no longer available or no longer offer free certificates. We recommend double-checking the availability and terms before enrolling in any course.

Table of Contents

Cisco Free Badges

Cisco, the IT and networking giant, offers a series of self-paced online courses through its Networking Academy platform; some include free badges for skills learned. Here’s a selection:

Introduction to Cybersecurity from Cisco ★★★★★(8)
Networking Essentials from Cisco ★★★★☆(4)
Cybersecurity Essentials from Cisco ★★★★★(4)
Introduction to IoT from Cisco ★★★★★(2)
PCAP: Programming Essentials in Python from Cisco ★★★★★(2)

CodeSignal Free Certificates

CodeSignal offers 600+ courses and learning paths with free certificates in coding, AI & ML, data science, interview prep, and more. Here’s a selection:

You can find more CodeSignal courses with free certificates here.

freeCodeCamp Free Certifications

freeCodeCamp platform offers thousands of hours of learning content, broken down into certifications on subjects such as web development and data science.

Here are the certifications currently offered:

Responsive Web Design ★★★★★(103)
JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures ★★★★★(48)
JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures (Beta)
Data Analysis with Python ★★★★★(18)
Front End Development Libraries ★★★★★(11)
Machine Learning with Python ★★★★★(9)
Quality Assurance ★★★★★(7)
Information Security ★★★★☆(7)
Relational Database (Beta) ★★★★★(4)
Scientific Computing with Python ★★★★★(3)
Back End Development and APIs ★★★★★(3)
Data Visualization ★★★★★(1)
Foundational C# with Microsoft ★★★★★(1)
College Algebra with Python

FutureLearn Free Certificates

FutureLearn, the European counterpart to Coursera and edX, offers some courses that include a free “digital upgrade” — which, among others, entails a free certificate of completion. Again, you can find more details in our dedicated article.

Here’s a list of some of FutureLearn’s free offerings:

Digital Skills: Digital Skills for Work and Life from Accenture ★★★★★(3)
Digital Skills: Digital Marketing from Accenture ★★★★☆(14)
Digital Skills: Social Media ★★★★☆(10)
Digital Skills: Artificial Intelligence ★★★★☆(5)
Digital Skills: User Experience ★★★★☆(2)
Introduction to Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality from Lancaster University and Institute of Coding ★★★★★(1)
Introduction to Physical Computing from Lancaster University and Institute of Coding ★★★★★(1)
Digital Skills: Reimagine Your Career from Accenture
Transforming Assessment and Recognition of Complex Learning Competencies from University of Melbourne
Digital Skills: Mobile from Accenture
Digital Skills: Web Analytics from Accenture
Reinforcement Learning from Dublin City University
Bioinformatics for Biologists: Analysing and Interpreting Genomics Datasets from Wellcome Genome Campus

Google Free Certificates and Badges

Google has launched several initiatives to teach people skills such as coding, digital marketing, and data analytics. You can find a complete list of courses offering certificates or badges in our dedicated article.

Here is a selection of Google’s offerings:

Introduction to Generative AI ★★★★★(25)
Introduction to Responsible AI ★★★★☆(11)
Introduction to Image Generation ★★★★★(1)
Planetary Scale Earth Observation with Google Earth Engine from Google ★★★★★(1)
Introduction to Large Language Models ★★★★☆(1)
Google Analytics Certification from Google
Build your first web app with Firebase from Google
Build apps with Flutter from Google
Introduction to SQL from Google
Get data from the internet from Google
Adapt for different screen sizes from Google
Kotlin fundamentals from Google
Develop locally with Firebase from Google
Make your Android app more accessible from Google
Build cross-platform apps with Angular from Google
Jetpack Compose basics from Google
Site Reliability Engineering: Measuring and Managing Reliability from Google
Attention Mechanism from Google
Transformer Models and BERT Model from Google
Create Image Captioning Models from Google
Encoder-Decoder Architecture from Google
Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Foundations with Anthos from Google
Preparing for the Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer Exam from Google
Understanding Google Cloud Security and Operations from Google
Innovating with Data and Google Cloud from Google
Infrastructure and Application Modernization with Google Cloud from Google
Developing a Google SRE Culture from Google
Managing Change when Moving to Google Cloud from Google
Deploying SAP on Google Cloud from Google
The Modern Data Platform and LookML from Google
Digital Transformation with Google Cloud from Google
Managing and Securing the Apigee Hybrid API Platform from Google
Upgrading and Monitoring the Apigee Hybrid API Platform from Google
Preparing for Your Professional Cloud Security Engineer Journey from Google
Preparing for Your Associate Cloud Engineer Journey from Google
Preparing for your Professional Cloud Architect Journey from Google
Innovating with Data and Google Cloud from Google
Preparing for Your Professional Cloud Network Engineer Journey from Google
Infrastructure and Application Modernization with Google Cloud from Google
Design Foundations for Streaming with Google Cloud from Google
Introduction to Cloud Identity from Google

Great Learning Free Certificates

Great Learning offers over 700 free certificate courses in a wide variety of subjects, such as AI, data science, programming, cloud computing, and digital marketing. Here’s a selection:

HackerRank Free Certificates

HackerRank, a platform for learning algorithms and data structures and preparing for coding interviews, provides skills certifications tests in topics such as problem solving, Python, and JavaScript.

Here are some of the 24 tests you may complete to earn a certificate:

Harvard Free Certificates

Harvard offers a series of academic online courses exploring various facets of computer science, including programming fundamentals and AI. You can find all the details and how to receive your free certificate in our dedicated article.

Here are Harvard’s current free certificate offerings. Remember that while you need an account with edX to submit the assignments, the free certificate comes directly from CS50.

Introduction to Computer Science ★★★★★(181)
Computer Science for Business Professionals ★★★★★(14)
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python ★★★★★(11)
Web Programming with Python and JavaScript ★★★★★(22)
Computer Science for Lawyers ★★★★★(5)
Introduction to Programming with Python ★★★★★(2)
Introduction to Programming with Scratch ★★★★★(2)
Introduction to Cybersecurity
Introduction to Databases with SQL
Introduction to Programming with R

Hasso Plattner Institute Free Certificates

The Hasso Plattner Institute offers a range of self-paced courses with free certificates of participation and achievement. Most courses are in German, but some are in English.

Here’s a selection of courses in English:

IBM Free Certificates and Badges

IBM’s platform CognitiveClass.ai offers 100+ courses and 10 learning paths in data science, AI, big data, cloud computing, and blockchain. A few courses offer a completion badge or certificate. Check on the Cognitive Class.AI course page for details.

The platform also provides a virtual lab environment allowing users to practice what they’ve learned in the courses.

Here’s a selection:

Kaggle Free Certificates

Kaggle is an online community for data scientists and aspiring data scientists alike. It offers over 50K public datasets, allowing you to build your own data science projects through Jupyter notebooks, and participate in competitions.

In addition, the platform offers a series of courses to learn the fundamentals of data science. Each leads to a certificate of completion.

Python ★★★★★(10)
Intro to SQL ★★★★☆(6)
Advanced SQL ★★★★☆(2)
Intro to Deep Learning ★★★★★(2)
Data Cleaning ★★★★★(2)
Time Series ★★★★★(1)
Computer Vision ★★★★☆(1)
Intro to Machine Learning ★★★★★(1)
Pandas ★★★★☆(1)
Data Visualization
Intro to AI Ethics
Machine Learning Explainability
Feature Engineering
Intermediate Machine Learning
Intro to Game AI and Reinforcement Learning

LinkedIn Learning Courses with Free Certification

LinkedIn Learning, the online learning platform integrated with the LinkedIn professional social network, offers more than a hundred online courses and learning paths that include a free certificate. Here too, we have a dedicated article with a full list.

Here’s a selection of LinkedIn Learning free certificate courses:

MATLAB Free Certificates

MathWorks, the company behind the MATLAB programming language and software, offers 23 free online courses with certificates through their MATLAB Academy platform.

The courses introduce learners to the MATLAB language and tools — with a focus on machine learning — and MathWorks’ specialized software, such as Simulink. You can find all the details and how to receive your free certificate in our dedicated article.

Here’s a selection:

MATLAB Onramp from MathWorks ★★★★★(9)
Machine Learning Onramp from MathWorks ★★★★★(2)
Reinforcement Learning Onramp from MathWorks ★★★★★(1)
Signal Processing Onramp from MathWorks ★★★★★(1)
Stateflow Onramp from MathWorks ★★★★☆(1)
Circuit Simulation Onramp from MathWorks
Deep Learning Onramp from MathWorks
Wireless Communications Onramp from MathWorks
Simscape Onramp from MathWorks
Optimization Onramp from MathWorks
App Building Onramp from MathWorks
Object-Oriented Programming Onramp from MathWorks
Computer Vision Onramp from MathWorks
Simulink Onramp from MathWorks ★★★★★(1)
Control Design Onramp with Simulink from MathWorks
System Composer Onramp from MathWorks
Power Systems Simulation Onramp from MathWorks

Semrush Academy Free Certificates

Although Semrush is primarily a business and marketing specialist, some of their free certificate courses are relevant for developers and IT professionals:

University of Helsinki Free Certificates

The University of Helsinki offers academic online courses through its independent course platform, MOOC.fi, including the following courses which include a free certificate of completion:

Elements of AI ★★★★★(801)
Full Stack open ★★★★★(24)
Java Programming ★★★★★(12)
Cyber Security Base 2022 ★★★★★(3)
DevOps with Kubernetes ★★★★★(3)
Ethics of AI ★★★★★(12)
DevOps with Docker ★★★★★(13)
Python Programming MOOC 2023 ★★★★★(1)

upGrad Free Certificates

upGrad is an online learning platform that offers free programs and courses on subjects such as data science, business analytics, and technology.

Once you complete all the modules of a program, you’ll receive a certificate of completion.

Here are some of the free programs offered on upGrad:

Wolfram U Free Certificates

The Wolfram Language is a powerful programming tool employed in science, engineering, data science, and finance. It combines math, data analysis, and general programming, and forms the core of Wolfram’s popular software, Mathematica. You can find all the details in our dedicated article.

Here is a selection of Wolfram U’s 40+ free certificate courses:

More Free Certificates

If you don’t find what you need here, browse Class Central’s catalog of over 200K courses or visit our thematic collections: