Free online IT courses with certificate: which listed courses give one
Of the 25 courses on this page, the credential follows one of three patterns: a free badge or certificate from the vendor, a paid certificate after a free audit, or none at all. The pattern follows the provider.
Free badges and certificates from AWS, IBM and Harvard
AWS Skill Builder's free tier is the largest source. AWS Cloud Quest: Cloud Practitioner and AWS Cloud Quest: Generative AI Practitioner award an official AWS badge through Credly when you finish every assignment in the role. The Knowledge Badge Readiness Paths for Cloud Essentials, Compute, Amazon EKS, Amazon ECS and Amazon Q Developer end in an assessment; pass with at least 80 percent and you claim the badge through Credly, free to earn and share according to AWS.
On IBM's Cognitive Class, Docker Essentials, Introduction to Cloud, Fundamentals of Encryption & Quantum-Safe Techniques and z/OS Networking Security Foundations each state that a certificate is offered on completion at no cost. Cybersecurity Fundamentals on IBM SkillsBuild issues a Credly badge after an assessment passed at 80 percent or higher. From Harvard, CS50's Introduction to Cybersecurity gives a free CS50 Certificate at a unique URL for scoring at least 70 percent on every problem and the final project.
Paid certificate after a free course: edX audits and Alison
The Linux Foundation courses on edX are free to audit for the estimated course length, without graded work or a certificate; the verified track costs $209 for Introduction to Linux, $189 for Introduction to Kubernetes and $209 for Introduction to DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering. Diploma in Cyber Security and Basics of Touch Typing on Alison are free to study; the Alison Diploma or Certificate is a paid digital or printed product, with a free Learner Record as the alternative.
No certificate: Microsoft Learn paths, the AWS digital courses and Udemy
Microsoft issues no certificate for a learning path, only a profile trophy, so Describe cloud concepts, Introduction to security, compliance, and identity concepts, Explore the fundamentals of Microsoft Power Platform and Azure Data core data concepts are listed without a credential. So are AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials and AWS Technical Essentials, whose pages mention no badge, and Cyber Security 101, a free Udemy course with no certificate of completion.
There are no free online IT courses with printable certificates on this page: every free credential above is digital, a Credly badge or a certificate at a public URL, and the only printed certificate in the data is Alison's paid one.
Free IT training for beginners: where to start
The listed courses cluster into cloud, Linux and containers, and security, each with its own entry point.
Cloud fundamentals
The shortest orientation is Microsoft's Describe cloud concepts path, 54 minutes of text modules on what cloud computing is, its benefits and the service types. IBM's Introduction to Cloud takes about 6 hours and covers IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, virtualisation, storage types and cloud-native trends, with no cloud knowledge assumed. For AWS, Cloud Practitioner Essentials runs 12.8 hours as the business-level map and Technical Essentials, at 4 hours, is the counterpart for people with IT experience. If you learn by doing, Cloud Quest: Cloud Practitioner gives about 12 hours of assignments in a live AWS environment, with no prior experience needed.
Linux, containers and DevOps
Introduction to Linux is the standard first course: fourteen weeks at 5 to 7 hours a week, across the major distribution families, for people with no Linux experience. Docker Essentials is a lab course of 3 hours in which you run containers, build an image for a small Python app and deploy a Docker Swarm; you need to be comfortable with command-line tools and able to install Docker. Introduction to Kubernetes expects basic Linux and container knowledge, and the AWS EKS and ECS paths are rated intermediate. Introduction to DevOps and SRE lists intermediate Linux, networking, scripting and systems administration experience as prerequisites.
Security basics
CS50's Introduction to Cybersecurity is written for non-technical learners as much as technical ones and takes five weeks at 2 to 6 hours a week, with a lecture and assignment each week and a final project. IBM's Cybersecurity Fundamentals badge is estimated at 7.5 hours and covers threat groups, social engineering, risk management and cryptography. Alison's Diploma in Cyber Security surveys operating-system hardening, firewalls and VPNs, cloud, IoT, cryptography and secure coding at a conceptual level. Microsoft's security, compliance and identity path is 1 hour 36 minutes on the shared responsibility model, Zero Trust and identity. Udemy's Cyber Security 101 is 54 minutes on attack types and job roles.
Free IT training for veterans and job seekers
None of the listed courses restricts access by background; each is open to anyone with a free account, and Microsoft Learn paths can be read without one. This site does tag courses by audience: CS50's Introduction to Cybersecurity, both free Cloud Quest roles and the AWS Knowledge Badge paths are tagged for veterans, and the free certifications for veterans page collects every course on the site with that tag. The certifications for jobs page does the same for credentials meant for a CV.
Where to go next from the IT hub
The free IT certifications page narrows this list to courses with a free credential, and the AWS certifications page groups the Skill Builder badges. Security has its own cyber security hub, the theory side sits under computer science, and anyone who wants to script what they administer should look at programming.