5 Free SQL Books For Beginners and Experienced in 2025 - Download PDF or Read Online

There is no doubt that SQL is one of the most essential skills for Programmers, IT professionals, Software Engineers, Quality Analysts, Project Manager, Data scientists, Database admins, and Business Analysts. I had even mentioned this as one of the top skills in my post about 10 things every programmer should know, if you haven't read that yet, you can read it here, it's completely worth your time. Since many Enterprise applications use the relational database at their backend, like Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, it's crucial to learn SQL to work with those applications and use the data stored on those databases.

The SQL is pronounced as Sequel or S.Q.L has been around for many years, and it will be around for many more coming years. It is also one of the matured technology; hence, there are a lot of free resources, like books, articles, tutorials, and courses are available online.

I have been also sharing a lot of free eBooks, websites, and courses on different technologies, like Java, Python, and Database, and today, I'll share some of the free SQL books online and offline reading.

Some of the SQL books are available in PDF, .epub, and .mobi format as well. Some of the books are available for free to read online others you can download in PDF format. Unlike many other books available online, these are not pirated or illegal copies.

In fact, these are the books that are made available for free from publishers and authors for the benefit of the community.

So, you can safely download and read at your convenience. Btw, if you can spend few bucks (like $10) then I suggest you check out The Complete SQL Bootcamp course on Udemy.

It's one of the best, most comprehensive courses to learn SQL, and would you believe it, I bought in just $10 on the last Udemy sale. Considering the quality of the course, it's definitely a $500 course and I bought it in just $10, which is almost FREE.

5 Best Free SQL Books for Beginners in 2025

Here is my list of some of the best books to learn SQL, which is absolutely free. You can either download their PDF version for offline reading, or you can read them online.

1. SQL Indexing and Tuning Book: Use the Index, Luke!

Author: Markus Winand
Download: http://use-the-index-luke.com/
Description: “Use the Index, Luke!: A guide to database performance” is a free online SQL indexing and tuning book by Markus Winand. This book is for developers; it avoids unnecessary details about database internals.

You can read it online for free at http://use-the-index-luke.com/, but if you want to read it as a paperback or need a book then you can always buy his book SQL Performance Explained as seen below.

It's definitely one of the must read book for all kind of developers and DBAs who have to work with database. I have a copy of it and its also an easy to read book. Marcus have done a great job explaining complex concepts in very simple way like how SQL index works?

You can also combine this book with SQL For Beginners course from Udemy which is better suited for beginners and it's completely FREE. All you need is to create an Udemy account to access this course and it will be free for a lifetime.

Once you understand key concepts like how SQL query gets executed, and how indexes are used to make your query faster, you can read this book to dig deeper.

2. SQL Notes for Professionals book

Author: StackOverflow Answers

Download: https://goalkicker.com/SQLBook/

Description: This is another great free book and resource to learn SQL in depth. This book is created out of StackOverflow answers hence you can consider as expert advice on many topics. It's also very comprehensive and cover most of the SQL topic you need to know as developer and DBAs.

Here is full list of topics covered in this free SQL book:

Getting started with SQL
Identifier
Data Types
NULL
Example Databases and Tables
SELECT
GROUP BY
ORDER BY
AND & OR Operators
CASE
LIKE operator
IN clause
Filter results using WHERE and HAVING
SKIP TAKE (Pagination)
EXCEPT
EXPLAIN and DESCRIBE
EXISTS CLAUSE
JOIN
UPDATE
CREATE Database
CREATE TABLE
CREATE FUNCTION
TRY/CATCH
UNION / UNION ALL
ALTER TABLE
INSERT
MERGE
cross apply, outer apply
DELETE
TRUNCATE
DROP Table
DROP or DELETE Database
Cascading Delete
GRANT and REVOKE
XML
Primary Keys
Indexes
Row number
SQL Group By vs Distinct
Finding Duplicates on a Column Subset with Detail
String Functions
Functions (Aggregate)
Functions (Scalar/Single Row)
Functions (Analytic)
Window Functions
Common Table Expressions
Views
Materialized Views
Comments
Foreign Keys
Sequence
Subqueries
Execution blocks
Stored Procedures
Triggers
Transactions
Table Design
Synonyms
Information Schema
Order of Execution
Clean Code in SQL
SQL Injection

You can download this book as PDF or read online. Btw, if you are interested in learning Oracle SQL then you can also check out The Oracle SQL - A Complete Introduction, another free Udemy course to learn SQL.

3. Developing Time-Oriented Database Applications in SQL

Author: Ron Plew and Ryan Stephens.

Download: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/~rts/publications.html#books

Description: “Developing Time-Oriented Database Applications in SQL” by Richard T. Snodgrass is available for free in pdf format from the author.

It offers incisive advice on recording temporal data using SQL data types, defining appropriate integrity constraints, updating temporal tables, and querying temporal tables with interactive and embedded SQL.

Also, it provides case studies detailing real-world problems and solutions in areas such as event data, state-based data, partitioned data, and audit logs.

4. Structured Query Language (SQL): a Practical Introduction

Author: Philip Greenspun
Download: http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/
Description: This is an excellent introductory text for learning SQL. There is no more straightforward text for learning the syntax and structure of SQL. Download it for free. I

t’s a slim book that gets right down to business and shows you how to use the language with crystal-clear explanations and examples.

And, if you like online courses, check out the Introduction to Databases and SQL Querying one of my favorite free Udemy courses to learn SQL. This site provides a step by step introduction to the concept of Databases and Introduction to SQL Querying and its also completely free. Almost half a million students have already joined this free course.

5. SQL for Web Nerds

Author: Philip Greenspun

Download: http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/

Description: This is a free online SQL book by Philip Greenspun. First and foremost, we keep our readers in the world of Web services.

Most often, they are working within the data model for online communities chronicled in Philip and Alex’s Guide to Web Publishing.

Sometimes we drag readers into the dreary world of commerce, but at least, it is the flashier-than-average corner of e-commerce. You can read it for FREE online and if you need a free SQL course to go along, the SQL Foundations is a great course to start with. It's completely free and available on Udemy.

That's all in this list of Free SQL books for beginners and experienced developers in 2025. You can download these books as free PDF or read them online as well. Even if you know SQL and have been using it for few years, you will be amazed to learn many new things in some of these books, especially the first two books are great for experienced SQL programmers, I just loved them when I found first and has since read them many times already.

More free Books and PDF

Thanks for reading this article so far, if you like these best free SQL and Database books, eBooks, and PDFs, then please share them with your friends and colleagues as well. If you have any questions or you know a good SQL book that is available for free and wants to add to this list, then please feel free to drop a note.

P. S. - If you are looking for some free online courses to learn SQL from scratch, there here is a list of 10+ free SQL courses to learn Programming. It's a good idea to combine some courses from that list with these books to learn Python quickly and better.

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