13 Best Software Engineering Courses for Beginners
We compared 13 Software Engineering courses currently listed on Coursera, Udemy and edX, priced from $19.99 to $219.00. 12 of them teach the subject directly and 1 are built around a certification exam. 3 come from a named university or institution, including University of Colorado System, University of California San Diego and Harvard University. They are ordered by our CourseAsk score, which is built from how thoroughly each course describes what it teaches, whether it comes from a named institution, and how it compares on price — not from star ratings, which our course data does not include.
- Courses compared
- 13
- Price range
- $19.99 – $219.00
- Providers
- Coursera, Udemy, edX
- Last updated
- 30 Aug 2026
How these 13 courses were chosen
Every course below is a real, currently listed course from Coursera, Udemy, edX, matched to "software engineering" by our catalog and ordered by our CourseAsk score. Courses whose own title names the topic rank above those only tagged with it.
The grade on each entry scores how much the provider publishes about the course before you pay — the length and detail of the description, whether it lists learning outcomes and objectives — and whether a named university or institution stands behind it. A is fully documented and institution-backed; E is little more than a title and a price. Courses with almost nothing published are left ungraded rather than marked down, because an unknown course and a poor one are not the same thing.
There are no star ratings on this page — the course feeds we license do not include them, and we would rather leave a column out than fill it with a number we cannot stand behind. What we do have is price: these range from $19.99 to $219.00, as listed by the provider when we last updated the page.
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1
Introduction to C++ Programming and Unreal
Offered by University of Colorado System
This course is all about starting to learn how to develop video games using the C++ programming language and the Unreal Engine on Windows or Mac. This course assumes you have previous programming experience in some other...
$49.00listed price -
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2
Introduction to Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science
Offered by University of California San Diego
Discrete Mathematics is the language of Computer Science. One needs to be fluent in it to work in many fields including data science, machine learning, and software engineering (it is not a coincidence that math puzzles...
$79.00listed price -
3
Udemy CertificateLearn Python for beginners with Projects
Python is a general-purpose interpreted, interactive, object-oriented, and high-level programming language. It was created by Guido van Rossum during 1985- 1990. Like Perl, Python source code is also available under the...
$199.99listed price -
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4
Udemy CertificateJAVA Programming for Beginners - The Complete Course
JAVA is one of the most popular and preferred programming language currently. Java Programmers are in great demand worldwide. Learning Java will open door to new opportunities in this ever growing software industry. This...
$199.99listed price -
5
![30 Days to Code Confidence: Easy Challenges For Beginner[EN]](https://i.udemycdn.com/course/480x270/6268191_2ee1_4.jpg)
30 Days to Code Confidence: Easy Challenges For Beginner[EN]
Unlock Your Dream Career with Our Comprehensive Kotlin Beginner Masterclass!This is the ultimate simple resource to prepare you for coding interviews especially Round 1 and Round 2 of an technical interviews except...
$19.99listed price -
6
Udemy CertificateReact JS Best Practices - Beginner To Advanced
Hi, welcome to another course from Codelicks Academy!As the title of the course suggests, this course is all about React best practices for anyone who want to write React components the React way and also tech interview...
$39.99listed price -
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7
Udemy CertificateBeginners Guide to Test Driven Development
Master testing in an easy and simple way with this awesome Test Driven Development Basic Guide! Anytime a developer pushes through a new piece of code, he is often vary of breaking or creating bugs in his previous code....
$39.99listed price -
8
Udemy CertificateAWS Cloud for beginner (Vietnamese)
Chào mừng đến với khoá học AWS Cloud for beginner - Tiếng Việt!GIỚI THIỆU GIẢNG VIÊNHiện đang là AWS Cloud Solution Architect, Engineering Consultant chuyên phụ trách các dự án liên quan tới Cloud & AWS.Làm việc...
$109.99listed price -
9
Udemy CertificateLearn Docker For Absolute Beginners
Are you just starting out with Docker? Awesome. This course starts out assuming you're new to containers and have no prior experience with Docker.This course is aimed at absolute beginners who would like to learn how to...
$19.99listed price -
10
Udemy CertificateIntroduction to Sequelize ORM (w/ Express.js + Postgres)
Hi and welcome to this course! Here, you will learn A LOT about how to build a simple backend with production-level code. We are going to learn how to set up a local database with Docker, how to use Express.js with Seque...
$19.99listed price -
11
Coursera MOOC / Non-creditIntroduction to AutoSAR
Offered by EDUCBA
This course covers every aspect of automotive software development, including the principles of AutoSAR, more complex AutoSAR ideas, non-AutoSAR use cases, and in-depth ECU abstraction development. You will examine the f...
$49.00listed price -
12
Coursera CertificateIntroduction to Application Development
Offered by LearnQuest
This Specialization is intended for anyone seeking to become an application programmer with no existing experience. Through four courses, you'll learn about the fundamental concepts of programming, object-orientation, an...
$49.00listed price -
13
CS50's Introduction to Computer Science
Offered by Harvard University
An introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming.
$219.00listed price
Best Software Engineering Courses for Beginners compared
Prices shown are the provider's listed price when we last updated this page. Confirm on their site before enrolling.
What the prices here tell you
The 13 priced courses on this page run from $19.99 to $219.00, with the middle of the range around $49.00 — a spread of $199.01. That is a wide gap for one subject. A higher price on this page usually reflects who is behind the course rather than how much material it contains, so it is worth opening two or three at different price points and comparing their syllabus before deciding.
Who is behind these courses
These courses come from Coursera, Udemy and edX. The platforms differ in how they sell: some charge once per course, others expect a subscription, and the listed price is not always what you pay at checkout after a promotion. 3 of these are produced by a named university or institution, including University of Colorado System, University of California San Diego and Harvard University — which usually means a fixed syllabus and a recognised certificate, rather than an individual instructor’s own course.
Courses versus exam preparation
1 of the entries here are built around a certification exam rather than teaching Software Engineering from scratch. They are the right choice only if you already know the material and want to pass a specific exam; if you are starting out, pick one of the taught courses first and come back to exam preparation afterwards.
Before you enrol
Open the provider’s own page and check three things this comparison cannot tell you: when the course was last updated, what the syllabus actually covers in its later sections, and what recent learners say. Prices shown here are the provider’s listed price when we last rebuilt this page on 30 August 2026 — they change often, and a promotion can move them substantially. We earn a commission if you enrol through our links, which costs you nothing and never affects the order courses appear in.