Top 6 Free Courses to learn PHP and MySQL in 2025 [Updated] - Best of lot

If you want to build web applications quickly like overnight or over the weekend, then PHP and MySQL are the right choices and because of this power, they are also the best language for freelancing and startups where a quick turnaround time is required. PHP and MySQL are incredibly powerful open source technologies that allow programmers and web developers to create functional websites and apps that go way beyond basic HTML. PHP is specially designed to generate interactive and dynamic websites and is also known as the server-side scripting language, while MySQL is one of the leading relational databases along with Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.

While it may seem intimidating to create a website using PHP and MySQL, especially for someone who has no experience in coding, it's not that difficult. With the right guidance and resources, e.g. books and courses, you can put together a PHP MySQL website in a week or so.

I have been sharing a lot of free resources in the past starting from Java, Spring, Eclipse, Maven, Linux, and several other vital technologies important for programmers and web developers, so when a request comes to me for suggesting some free courses and books learn PHP and MySQL, I thought of this article.

I started my search with Udemy because that's my go-to place for learning nowadays. I was a nerd before, I loved learning from books, but ever since I have started learning from online courses, I have never looked back.

I still read books, but most of the new stuff I am learning related to programming, marketing, or film-making is all via online sources only.

I have bought more than 50 courses from Udemy on their flash sales (where they sell courses for $10.99) on different topics, and now I am learning based on my priority and interest.

In this article, I am going to share some of the best but free online courses you can join to learn PHP and MySQL by yourself.

Btw, if you prefer paid courses and just looking for the best course to start learning PHP for Web Development, then I suggest you check out PHP for Beginners - Become a PHP Master course on Udemy. You can buy that for just $10 or $11 in Udemy's current flash sale.

6 Best Free PHP and MySQL Courses For Beginners in 2025

As I told you guys before, I found learning from Online courses much better than books, even though books still have a place to learn a topic in-depth, to a quick start, and get going, nothing beats online training courses.

But, if you are someone who loves learning from free resources, you have come to the right place. Though most of the Udemy courses are really cheap, like you can get them for $9.99 on their flash sales, they also have many free classes that you can use to start learning new technology.

Most of these free courses are from respected authors and training institutes, which made them free for promotional purposes, but they have excellent and structured content. 

You can use them to learn PHP and MySQL by yourself in the comfort of your office and home and free of cost.

1 . Practical PHP: Master the Basics and Code Dynamic Websites [Free]

This is one of the best and excellent free course to learn PHP and MySQL from Udemy. While the other free courses on this list is excellent in terms of educating you with PHP and MySQL and showing some of the essential stuff, you really need to do a project by yourself to apply whatever you have learned.  This is critical for your learning, and this is what this course teaches you.

This 6 hour 20 minutes long free PHP course on Udemy is created by Brad Hussey, one of the best selling Udemy instructor. In this course, you will built a dynamic website for a restaurant website in PHP & MySQL from scratch .

The course is full of dynamic PHP examples and will teach you step by step how to do create the project, and the knowledge you have learned in the previous class will help you to grasp the material and complete the task at your hand.

his course is actually better than many paid PHP course on Udemy. I recommend you create the project at your end along with the course to make the most of it.  If you are a beginner who has never created a megaproject in PHP, then this course will help you a lot. It can also help you in creating your final year project for your university or college.

2. Beginner PHP and MySQL Tutorial [Free Udemy Course]

This is seriously one of the best courses to learn PHP and MySQL tutorials. It's a free course but much better than several other PHP and MySQL paid courses you will find on Udemy.

The course is very well structured and teaches you all the essential PHP and MySQL concepts, tools, and resources you need to build your web application.

Unlike many online courses that focus on theory, this one is very hands-on, and infrastructure will not just tell you but show you how to stuff. That's the one thing I look at online courses before I buy.

I don't like passive courses where the instructor just taught but never shows something in action. It's like someone reading a book for you.

If I am buying a course, I want to see something in action because that's the best way to learn new technology. Unless you see things happening, your interest level will not grow.

The author Robert Tucker, a long-time trainer, lecturer, and consultant has done a fantastic job in explaining how to create a functional PHP / MySQL interface from beginning to end, explaining where needed the important technical points without relying on excessive jargon.

In short, one of the best free PHP and MySQL courses to learn how to develop a fully functioning web application on your own.

3. Real-Time Chat System Using PHP MySQL PDO and AJAX [Free Course]

This is another hands-on course that will teach you PHP and MySQL by building a project, a real-time chat system.

This was actually my project on final year college submission, and many of you might have done it before in different programming languages. We were inspired by Yahoo Chat messenger at that time as there was no Facebook, but I like this project because you can easily relate to it, which makes learning easier.

In this course, you will build a real-time online chat application using PHP, AJAX, and MySQL databases. The course will teach you everything from front to back, like creating the front end in HTML and styling using CSS to make it more attractive and beautiful.

If you already know the basics of PHP and JavaScript or jQuery, then you will quickly understand it. However, this course is created while keeping all levels in mind, so if you are a beginner, later still, you can quickly learn this course with a straightforward approach.

4. PHP & MySQL course for absolute beginners | Become a PHP pro [Free]

This is another comprehensive free PHP course from Udemy for beginners which you can online. Created by Dary Nazar this 7 hour 38 minutes long free PHP course is better than 90% paid PHP course on Udemy. It's up-to-date,  got great reviews and comprehensive enough to learn PHP in depth. 

In this course, you will learn how to upload files to the MySQL database and how to delete files from the MySQL database using the Ajax technique. In this course, you will learn plus PDO (PHP data object), which is the advanced query language.

You will also learn about essential web development task like File upload is an essential task for developing web applications, like most of the applications, like Facebook or Twitter, allow their users to upload images and files, but how do you upload a file while building a website using PHP and MySQL? Well, this free course will teach you.

Here is what I liked about this course:

1. well thought out curriculum
2. covers both PHP and MySQL 
3. There are exercises at the end of chapter which is great
4. Great resource for beginner
5. well set out and each step is thoroughly explained.  

After completing this course, you are entirely able to upload files to the MySQL database. In short, you can use this course along with the first one to learn PHP and MySQL better and quicker.  This is an Udemy course I would recommend for anyone learning PHP and/or SQL.

5. Build CRUD Application - PHP & MySQL [Free Tutorial on Udemy]

This is another awesome, hands-on PHP and MySQL course which will teach you PHP by doing things rather than just teaching staff.

In his course, you will learn how to create a CRUD application, which is what most web applications are. CRUD is a short form of Create, Read, Update, and Delete, four essential tasks websites allow their user to do.

Learning this concept will help you to better understand how to create a registration system in PHP, and also it will help you to let your users interact with data if you build users based websites like Facebook, where users have the ability to update their messages or upload their images.

In this course, you'll build a simple TODO list app that will help you to understand how CRUD actions are implemented and how pagination works.

You'll build a database, interact with it, and use the Bootstrap framework from Twitter to style your website. In short, a great hands-on course for junior web developers and web designers or anyone interested in web development using PHP and MySQL.

6. Building Web Applications in PHP [Free Coursera Course]

If you are looking for a free Coursera course to learn PHP then Building Web Application in PHP course by University of Michigan is a great course to start with. In this PHP course, you'll learn the  basic structure of a web application, and how a web browser interacts with a web server. 

You will also learn about request/response cycle, including GET/POST/Redirect, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), as well as the basic syntax and data structures of the PHP language, variables, logic, iteration, arrays, error handling, and super global variables, among other elements. 

You will also learn about Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) will allow you to style markup for webpages. Lastly, you'll gain the skills and knowledge to install and use an integrated PHP/MySQL environment like XAMPP or MAMP.

This course is taught by Charles Russell Severance and actually part of Web Application for Everybody specialization on Coursera and there is one more PHP course you can take for FREE, Building database application on PHP.

If you don't know, you can take most of Coursera course for free as they are free to audit, which means you can learn and watch online but you won't get access to assessment and you will not receive any certification. For that you need to either buy the specialization or take a membership like Coursera Plus which provide access to more than 7000+ of their courses and projects. 

That's all about some of the free online training courses to learn PHP and MySQL from scratch. These courses are really great resources, and some of the course, notably "Beginner PHP and MySQL tutorial" is better than many paid online training courses, and 182,255 enrolled students just prove that. I have also included the best free PHP Courses from Udemy and Coursera and a couple of them are better than many paid PHP courses, especially the second and fourth course on this list which are 6 and 7 hours long. 

I don't mind paying money for such kind of course because they are worth it. Anyway, you can get that for free and many other practical courses to kick start your PHP and MySQL journey.


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Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like these best free PHP and MySQL courses, then please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback, then please drop a note.

P. S. - If you are learning PHP and MySQL to become a Web Developer then I also suggest you first take a look at these free web development courses. It contains the best free course for web developers and you will learn a lot about Web Development not just one backend framework.