Publish Date - November 16th, 2023
|Last Modified - November 16th, 2023
Whether you are a seasoned programmer in a coding language like Java or Python or just starting on your coding journey learning something easier like SQL or web development, Udemy is an excellent resource for learning new skills and honing your craft. With over 150,000 online courses, Udemy has something for everyone, including a wide selection of web development courses that will teach you everything you need to know to build a successful career in the field. In this article, we will explore the top Udemy courses for Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), a popular server-side programming language that is commonly used in web development. Strap in and prepare to see the best PHP courses on Udemy.
Best Udemy PHP courses by categories
| Category | Reviews | Highlights |
| Best PHP web developer course by Rob Percival The Complete Web Developer Course 3.0 | 4.5 / 5 stars – ~72k+ reviews | HTML, CSS, JS, JQuery, APIs in PHP, SEO and Webhosting |
| Best WordPress PHP course by Brad Schiff Become a WordPress Developer: Unlocking Power With Code | 4.7 / 5 stars – ~23k+ reviews | WordPress PHP (Post types, AJAX, Authentication, Plugin development, Block development, WordPress REST API), Build a WordPress theme from scratch |
| Best overall PHP course on Udemy by Luis Ramirez Jr. Complete Modern PHP Developer Course in 2023 | 4.7 / 5 stars – 250+ reviews | OOP, Frameworks, MySQL, Routing, Authentication, CRUD, File Uploads, Deployment, GitHub, Form validation |
| Best PHP Laravel course by Brad Schiff Let’s Learn Laravel: A Guided Path For Beginners | 4.8 / 5 stars – ~650+ reviews | Laravel introduction, DB + Authentication basics, Blog posts, Web components, Email, Cache, Sanctum, GitHub and SSH keys |
| Best OOP PHP course on Udemy by Edwin Diaz PHP OOP: Object Oriented Programming for beginners + Project | 4.4 / 5 stars – ~4k reviews | PHP fundamentals, website project in PHP and CRUD |
| Best PHP Unit testing courses by Dave Hollingworth PHP Unit Testing with PHPUnit | 4.7 / 5 stars – ~2.1k reviews | PHPunit, Mocks and Stubs, TDD |
| Best eCommerce PHP course by Edwin Diaz PHP for Beginners: How to Build an eCommerce Store | 4.7 / 5 stars – ~2k stars | Build a PHP eCommerce store from scratch! |
1. Best PHP web developer course by Rob Percival
This course by Rob Percival is one of the most popular courses on Udemy, with over 150,000 learners. The course covers a wide range of web development topics, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and of course, PHP. It starts with basic fundamentals and goes on to cover more advanced topics such as databases and APIs. The course is updated regularly and features real-world examples that help learners apply what they’ve learned in practical situations.
Pros:
- Good mix of mobile and desktop applications
- Perfect for a junior programmer
- Great bootcamps for HTML / CSS and JavaScript
- Covers APIs, Python and even SEO
Cons:
- Only 1 hour for WordPress? WordPress happens to be the most important PHP platform to date. Seems to be a weak course when it comes to any content management systems (CMS) (Drupal or Joomla) as well.
- Not a lot of exposure to authentication (log in and log out state) or AJAX
Instructor:
Rob percevial is a great mixture of a “self-taught web developer”, but also having intimate knowledge in teaching. Spending many years being a math teacher, he’s created a high caliber set of PHP tutorials, Python, Ruby on Rails and a variety of other scripting languages.
What the students say:
I like how Rob Percival teaches each subject in the course. He doesn’t try to over explain things. He shows you how something is done and then tells you the traps to avoid with the given matter. This makes it easier for me to try out the new code I learn on my own website. I also like that he gives you free webhosting for a year. He just saved you $100. I can try my new code on his servers. This is a good entry level course to programming.
George B. – 5 / 5 stars – August 2023
Its great.
Rajul C. – 5 / 5 stars – November 2023
Verdict:
If you’re looking for a fullstack web development course with a bunch of PHP and MySQL, this is the perfect course for you. However, I wouldn’t say that this is a full php code bootcamp because it’s a little light on the CMS practice and is light on interacting with MySQL database management.
2. Best WordPress PHP course by Brad Schiff
If you are interested in becoming a WordPress developer, this course by Brad Schiff is a great place to start. The course covers everything you need to know to build custom WordPress themes and plugins, using languages such as PHP and JavaScript. With over 35,000 learners, the course includes step-by-step instructions and coding problems that will help you master WordPress development.
Pros:
- Likely one of the most in-depth WordPress courses on Udemy (from small PHP bootcamp all the way up to Gutenberg block creation).
- Insane amount of time spent on Post type development (different types of web pages)
- A ton of plugin development and Gutenberg blocks (React)
- A very large tutorial at the end focusing on full site editing, front-end and back-end deployment and development.
Cons:
- There could likely be more on general web development, bootstrap and object-oriented programming (OOP).
- This is not really a PHP programming course, more a WordPress development bootcamp, so purchase accordingly.
- Zero ramp-up for anyone that’s a junior web developer.
Instructor:
Brad Schiff is a high performing web developer who has courses on Laravel, Web design, JavaScript (Vanilla) and React. While his experience doesn’t scream “Enterprise Web Developer” he has plenty of coding experience and highly rated courses.
What the students say:
It helped me get past a lot of the confusion I have around WordPress development. I now have a much better appreciation for the differences between classic themes and block themes/FSE. Custom post types and blocks are also no longer as much of a mystery. I feel the course has given me enough of a footing that I can now start diving deeper into theme/plugin development with the use of the official docs.
Charlie H. – 5 / 5 stars – November 2023
This course was truly one of the best investments I have made in web development! Starting from the ABC’s of Web Development (even if you don’t know how to code), Brad Schiff teaches you everything you need to know to become an expert in WordPress. Not only does he teach you how to work with it, but he also shows you how to avoid all kinds of pitfalls. But the very best part of all, it’s very practical, less note taking and more action, that’s what I enjoy best of this course, it covered a lot of gaps I had in web development, not only in WordPress (which i had a really hard time understanding) but also web development in general. Thank you very much for this really well organized and practical course Brad!
Mathys T. – 5 / 5 stars – November 2023
Verdict:
Overall, fantastic course that is likely one of the best WordPress PHP courses on Udemy. This course is not meant to teach you data types or arrays in PHP, but how to do WordPress development. Therefore, purchase this course if you want to learn how to build a WordPress theme from scratch, not if you want a complete php course.
Learn WordPress PHP with Brad Schiff
3. Best Overall PHP course on Udemy by Luis Ramirez Jr.
This course will cover everything you need to know about modern PHP development. From basic syntax to more advanced concepts like Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), we will guide you through the process of building dynamic websites. You will learn how to connect to databases, handle user input and create login systems using PHP. Additionally, we will also cover popular frameworks like Laravel and CodeIgniter that can help you build complex web applications more efficiently.
Pros:
- Full PHP courses for absolute beginners, one of the only course I saw that was 0 – 100.
- Tons of coding exercises
- All of the generic PHP developer requirements, especially how model-viewer-controller (MVC) works.
Cons:
- No talk of any CMS’, API work or network deployment to the cloud (GCP, AWS or Azure)
- While this course covers PHP 8, I wouldn’t say that it’s necessarily a “complete course”. Most web developers won’t just use PHP but specific frameworks like CMS’ or something like Laravel or Magento.
Instructor:
A new instructor, Luis has a number of advanced web developer courses on udemy which includes Angular, WordPress plugins and themes, D3.js visualization and Vue.js. Luis has a fairly high rating across most of his courses, so it’s a safe bet that the course is quality.
I learned a lot during this course. It might have seemed like it moved a little quick sometimes, but when you go back and actually look close you learn a lot and in learning a lot it just seems quick, but the time is needed to understand. As you go through, things you thought were like “What??” becomes like “Ohhhh, now I see why”. So if you just trust the process he goes through you come to understand things you never thought you would.
Roy A – 5 / 5 stars – November 2023
After i failed a job interview and was informed of what i lacked, i went out to look for a course. Unironically this course covered everything i didn’t know. The mvc part was really hard despite me looking into it before and some parts were hard for me to understand and required rewatching, i got a really good idea what and how it works!
Verdict:
A solid PHP course if you’re looking to learn PHP from scratch. You’ll learn the basics of PHP from conditional logic all the way to authentication and CRUD commands. With some advanced coding quizzes, this is one of those courses that is meant to teach you the php fundamentals that you need.
4. Best PHP Laravel course on Udemy for beginners by Brad Schiff
Laravel is one of the most popular PHP frameworks for web development, and this course by Victor Gonzalez is an excellent introduction to the technology. The course covers all of the basics of Laravel, including its architecture, routing, controllers, and views. This course is perfect for learners looking for php mvc specializing in web apps and web programming.
Pros:
- Not too long of a course with a high level of concentration on all things Laravel
- Logical sequence of learning for a PHP beginner, starts with basics -> basics of laravel -> DB and authentication basics -> individual post types and templates and then general web functionalities like Chat, search, email and cache.
Cons:
- Not truly a beginner course, because you’ll focus on setting up composer and then jumping right into Laravel (without any PHP ramp up)
- Laravel is a pretty powerfully framework and this course only scratches the surface. The course is meant to be more a means to enhance your knowledge of php Laravel, not master it.
Instructor:
Brad Schiff is a high performing web developer who has courses on Laravel, Web design, JavaScript (Vanilla) and React. While his experience doesn’t scream “Enterprise Web Developer” he has plenty of coding experience and highly rated courses.
What the students say:
Extremely clear presentation with great verbal description as I am a blind software engineer that wanted a broad introduction to Laravel as I continue to evaluate potential languages and frameworks for new projects.
Jeffrey F. – 5 / 5 stars – November 2023
This course is pretty straightforward, with steps that are easy to follow. The author did a good job preparing it so that the learning curve through it is very smooth.
Adriano da Silva C. – 5 / 5 stars – October 2023
Verdict:
Fantastic course if you’re looking to start your Laravel learning. If you’re looking for advanced or intermediate laravel, you can consider Edwin Diaz’s Laravel course but it’s quite out of date (mid 2021).
Learn PHP Laravel with Brad Schiff
5. Best Udemy object-oriented programming with PHP by Edwin Diaz and Coding Faculty Solutions
Welcome to the world of object-oriented PHP! This course, titled “PHP OOP: Object Oriented Programming for beginners + Project”, is designed to provide learners with a solid foundation in OOP concepts using the popular server-side scripting language, PHP.
If you are new to programming or have some experience but are looking to expand your skills, this course is perfect for you. With the help of this course, learners can expect to gain a comprehensive understanding of OOP principles and how they can be applied in PHP.
Pros:
- Full fundamentals of PHP and doing CRUD with PHP
- Two projects and milestones which is nice
- Good PHP & MySQL training.
- Lot of extra features like jQuery, AJAX w/ PHP and deployment of your application/
Cons:
- There’s a lack of consistency between sections, which can make it easier for new learners to follow along.
- There’s a gap in the skills you need to be good PHP developer, which Edwin doesn’t provide any support in (so therefore you will need to buy other courses).
- I found Edwin’s voice a little annoying and hard to work with (as a native english speaker)
Instructor:
Edwin has A LOT of courses on Udemy focusing on a number of coding languages, web development, REGEX, Security and eCommerce. With almost a million students, you’re in good hands if you’re buying one of his courses.
Each lecture is short and easy to follow and before you know it you will be at the end of the course!
Leo E. – 5 / 5 stars – August 2023
The way he teaches is good. Whatever I have done in my programming, now I understand better, why i did that or why those principles were required.
Jwala Prasad D. – 5 / 5 stars – August 2023
Verdict:
This is a great course if you want a hands-on course that has a specialization in OOP from an instructor who has strong web development background. While this course won’t let you be a PHP master, it will help you become a stronger PHP developer. As an aside, if you’d like to learn more about procedural PHP, consider this MVC PHP course!
6. Best PHP Unit Testing Course on Udemy by Michael Romerio
Unit testing is a critical skill for software developers, and this course by Michael Romerio is a great way to learn how to do it in PHP. The course covers all of the basics of unit testing, including creating and running test suites, using data providers, and using assertions. This interactive course provides a comprehensive understanding of unit testing in PHP and includes real-world examples to practice your skills.
Pros:
- Good course for PHP developers that already have skills
- Very short course, only 2.5 hours (3 hours with assignment and troubleshooting), so this is something you could likely do in a day.
- Dave is well-spoken and extremely easy to understand
Cons:
- Short course and a little light on content. You could likely find a lot of the information for this course on YouTube.
- The last time this course was updated was 2019, a lot of stuff seems to be outdated an there’s a lack of exercises.
- This is not for PHP beginners, and is definitely meant for seasoned developers
Instructor:
Dave Hollingworth has a number of courses on PHP on Udemy, all which are highly rated (many are 4.8 out of thousands of students). He specializes in training IT folks on how to become successful engineers.
What the students say:
I think this is an amazing course , It is clear and easy to understand, maybe a little slow but this will be good for fresh people
Good Luck
Jalal K. – 4.5 / 5 stars – November 2023
It was a good course! I really learned to use this tool, cannot wait to start using it in my daily activities at work! Thanks so much!
Gabriel A. – 5 / 5 stars – August 2023
Verdict:
Great course for a PHP developer to brush up on their unit testing skills, especially if you’re looking to use PHPUnit. The use case above is the only reason you should take this course :).
Learn PHP Unit testing with Dave Hollingworth
7. Best PHP eCommerce course on Udemy by Edwin
This course, ‘PHP for Beginners: How to Build an Ecommerce Store’, is a comprehensive guide for anyone looking to learn PHP from scratch. It is designed for beginners with little or no prior coding experience and aims to provide a solid foundation in PHP development.
Over the course of 12 hours, students will learn the fundamentals of PHP programming, including variables, arrays, loops, functions, and more. They will also learn how to use PHP alongside HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build a fully functional ecommerce store.
But this course doesn’t just focus on theory – it also includes practical exercises and projects that allow students to apply what they have learned in real-world scenarios.
Pros:
- You’ll learn to build a variety of different functionalities like the Cart, work with PayPal API for payments and Backend systems.
- You’ll learn to deploy your eCommerce store to production
- There’s a GitBash tutorial (most courses don’t have this)
Cons:
- I am personally not a fan of Edwin’s courses (I find it difficult to follow along), but this course despite being old has fairly good ratings and was quite instructional.
- You need to have an in-depth knowledge of PHP, MySQL POST and GET requests, which means this isn’t for novices.
- There is no mention of Magento or any other eCommerce PHP framework.
What do his students say?
Really good course. Quite old now as I write this in 2023! But you can learn solid PHP and build a functioning ecommerce site without any frameworks like Laravel. So it’s beautifully simple.The course forces you to understand what’s going on (in a good way). Unlike other Udemy courses I’ve taken, where the instructor just tells you what to do, in this one, Edwin makes you think about it and figure out the big picture. Edwin is a character and will bring a smile to your face!
Nick P. – 5 / 5 stars – October 2023
This is half a course. If Edwin just taught rather than trying to sell his other course it would be fine. Example, add a password, oh, if you want to know how to encrypt the password you need to take my other course. All the talking about the other course could be spent actually teaching!
Steve D. – 2.5 / 5 stars – November 2023
Verdict:
Take this course if you want to learn how to build an eCommerce store from scratch in PHP. ELSE, look for a Magento or another PHP framework (WooCommerce (WP) or PrestaShop). As stated, I’m not a fan of Edwin’s course due to the incoherence of his lessons and difficult understanding him.
Learn to build a PHP eCommerce store from scratch
Conclusion:
In conclusion, Udemy is an excellent resource for learning PHP and web development, with a wide range of courses that cater to learners of all levels. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced programmer, these seven courses will provide you with the fundamentals and advanced skills you need to build robust and scalable web applications. With lifetime access to the courses and the ability to learn at your own pace, Udemy is an ideal platform for anyone looking to upskill in PHP and programming. So, go ahead and choose your preferred course, and start learning today!
The best course on Coursera for PHP is likely Charles Severance’s “Building Web applications in PHP”. I’ve taken courses by Charles before and they are absolutely fantastic. He is a professor at University of Michigan, so you know he’s accredited and highly motivated to teach.