The days are long gone when only students who enrolled in college with a serious in computing, mastered the art of programming. Those were the times when aside from a university degree, kids wanted to have a personal tutor for mastering the techniques and had another advantage over their peers, apart from self-gratification.

For those who might be thinking people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were very successful dropouts, the fact is that they had a very strong background in computers and programming from their very young age. Mark even had a personal tutor since age 7 and he mastered COBOL and BASIC at a relatively very young age when others couldn’t manage to assemble a puzzle. Bill Gates was building games at an age when others were finding a tough time playing them.

The beauty of programming is that you can build whatever you can think of, with a toolset that would guide you through the process. A Computer is essentially nothing without a group of instructions – Or briefly – a program. A program feeds during a set of instructions that tells the pc what to try when a particular action is executed. If you’re finding all this a touch daunting and therefore the learning curve too high to climb, don’t worry, we are here to guide you and not scare the living hell out of you. Now that everything goes online, why not education too be online? That’s where this text would be your guide to learning to code online, from the comfort of your browser – and everyone that for Free! Yes, Free.

For your information, this content arises from a set of self-experimentation for the past few years. Myself being an Electronics major, I even have always had a knack for computers and have had my share of programming from languages varying from Markup/Declarative languages like HTML/CSS to Php, Java, Javascript, Python and recently getting my hands on Ruby and Ruby on rails, I even have tried and completed many programming courses online, from books and with some hands-on development. Why wait? Set on a journey of building new things. So, buckle up and set your mind to find out a language or two from your browser!

Below is the list of best 6 websites that help you to learn to code online for free.

Codecademy
Udacity
Coursera
TreeHouse
Khan Acadamy
NOTE: The sites listed below are those with a gorgeous presentation of conceptual lessons, but alone wouldn’t be immediately applicable to real-world problems. You would need a tad little bit of practice daily and complement this with books and hands-on development.

Best Websites & Apps to learn to code:
Well, having two videos in a blog post is too much, but as an Engineer myself; I do understand how important it is to have great motivation before you learn a new programming language.
Most of us want to learn a new language, but we are afraid to start. The interesting fact is, it takes only 20 hours to acquire new skills. Check out this Ted talk video, which can motivate you to accumulate new skills:

Codeacademy
Codeacademy was where I started my online programming journey. I started experimenting with what Codecademy has to offer since I came to know about it back in 2012. As I came with already hands-on experience with HTML/CSS and Javascript, I found its ‘Web fundamentals’ much easier and completed it with no hassles, as I knew almost everything of it.
Codeacademy is the place to travel if you aren’t quite sure where to start out. With everything working from your browser, you won’t have to download any unwanted software and ssh shells. Codeacademy offers a good range of languages from HTML, CSS, Javascript to Php, Ruby, and Python. Codeacademy works on a gift system and it rewards you with badges for your achievements.
Codeacademy presents concepts in a fashionable and effective way. I have personally learned a couple of concepts that were alien to me although I assumed I knew everything about HTML/CSS.

Udacity
Udacity is the next best on the internet to find out to code. Udacity believes today’s higher education system is broken. Udacity believes that education is no longer something that happens once in a lifetime, but rather is a lifelong experience. It is true in every sense then it’s ported a lot of computing, math, and physics courses online.
Udacity is the perfect tutor for lazy people like me. I hate watching extremely long and time-consuming video tutorials, and that’s where exactly Udacity saves my day. Udacity offers video tutorials inserted with quizzes at each interval. The video tutorials offered at Udacity are weakened into minutes of 2-3 that simply do what they were meant to.
I personally started out on the CS101 Computer science course at Udacity and I’m halfway through it. Udacity also offers a final test on your course and provides you with a downloadable certificate as shown below, for your achievement.

In Short Review
Languages – Web Development, HTML5, Python, Java, computing, Algorithm, AI
Difficulty – Intermediate – Professional

Coursera
Although I haven’t had any personal experience with programming courses at Coursera, I have had my peers rating it very high in terms of its format. Coursera isn’t your regular online course and it’s very strict and highly structured in its format. This is the simplest choice if you would like tight schedules and assignments, a really college-like atmosphere.
Coursera offers a good range of courses in computing alone, and you can’t begin instantly. Although it is free, the classes are conducted once every few months and you have to enroll in advance to the class or add it in your wishlist for the next class.

I have enrolled during a Songwriting course (personal interest) at Coursera by Pat Pattinson of Berklee College of Music, which is in no way associated with programming! But its computing courses are highly celebrated among its students. There is also a ‘Signature Track’ courses that let you get a certified diploma from the college posted to you for a fee starting from $30 range to $90, depending on the course you enroll.
In Short Review
Languages – Computer architecture, Programming languages, C++ for C programming, Algorithms, AI, Cryptography,.. (The list is just too big, and you ought to immediately head on to the web site .)
Difficulty – Basic – Professional

Team Treehouse
Team Treehouse is more of a Freemium online programming service, but worth being listed on the highest even with its services offered for free of charge. Courses offered by Treehouse are more with a project-orientation instead of being language-oriented.
Treehouse is a must visit the site for novice programmers with a sense of purpose – like building a website or an app, as it just helps you with that. Treehouse has a plethora of foundation courses with a video-then-quiz approach, similar to what audacity has to offer in these terms.
Every course on Treehouse is split into different modules and beyond every first stage the learner is going to be invited to pay a monthly subscription fee of $25 to access all courses with 650+ videos, and an exclusive Treehouse Members Forum as a bonus. You could also subscribe to the $49/mo decision to obtain in-depth interviews with leading industry pros and cutting-edge workshops if you’re that serious about your programming journey.
In short review
Languages – HTML, CSS, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, iOS, Android, UX, Database.
Difficulty – Easy – Hard
Price – Free, $25-$49 /mo (For premium services).

Khan Academy
Khan Academy is one of the foremost popular and leads the fast-growing online education revolution. The courses offered by Khan Academy aren’t as structured as previously mentioned services, yet it is an open playground for everybody curious about learning user interaction with code. It doesn’t offer a group of programming languages, but it deals with programming basics and approach to coding that would be applied to a huge array of languages.
What I personally did was I first joined the ‘Programming Basics’ course to seem out for and master the essential concepts. You could also explore the given code after the video tutorial to travel through it again. Here’s a little game that some guy built after learning from Khan Academy’s JavaScript videos: Mercury Subspace. Pretty cool, right?

Whatever you are doing, pick one at a time otherwise you could get overwhelmed with a myriad of options on the web leaving you hating programming. Compliment whatever you learn with books and building things. You learn more by building along with learning. You could never master programming even after completing all online courses if you don’t build things. Start small, and scale fast. Every day may be a new day to find out and claim your day!