Top 6 YouTube Channels for Web Developers in 2019

Starting to learn a new skill like web development can be a daunting task; there are a lot of beginner unfriendly articles and half-baked information loitering the entire web space making it almost impossible to find a decent source of information if you don’t know where to look, or if you can’t look hard enough.

Creating a video tutorial in such way that both beginners and experienced developers alike understand you almost completely is something not too many people can do; I’ve seen videos that are either too hard for beginners to follow along or too easy for experienced developers, most of the videos on YouTube are in fact are this way. Finding a creative teacher that knows how to balance the information to fit the right way to every audience is rare. The six channels am going to list below does just that – shows you the very best channels with the very best teachers (in my opinion of course), now am not saying these channels does not have videos that fit only one type of users like beginners or experienced developers, nobody is perfect and some videos are meant for only one kind of audience sometimes, by the way.

Below am going a list the six top YouTube channels that will definitely help your web development career. Some channels here focus only on web design, some focus on marketing your skills while some focuses on core web development; this channels will teach you everything to know in web development from beginner to advanced level depending on the technologies you intend to use.

So enough talking already, let’s see the damned channels man … I know that’s just how you feel, so let’s just start with the business.

6 – Caler Edwards

Remember when I said some channels only focus on web design? Well, I was talking about this channel … mostly. Most of the videos you’ll see on this channel will mostly be a website mock-up. In case you didn’t know already, any professional website was mocked-up first, a visual representation of the intended website done with programs like Sketch, Adobe XD, Figma and so on.

Caler Edwards will teach you how to design creative and intuitive design mock-ups with Adobe XD not only for websites but also for mobile apps.

The problem with this channel, however, is that sometimes he is too fast for beginners to follow along, all in all, very good channel, you will learn basic design fundamentals here.

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5 – FreeCodeCamp

Really, who doesn’t know freeCodeCamp.org? The website is very popular among web developers for the large number of tutorials, exams, job connections and certification it offers all for free. How can the YouTube channel be different, right? Well, guess what? It isn’t! ...literally, as you cannot take an exam or obtain a certificate from YouTube.

We all know there are some tutorials too complex to be an article, which can only be fitted into videos, welcome to the freeCodeCamp channel, there are more than a thousand videos on this channel with more than a hundred different creators, enough videos to teach you just about anything concerning web development.

Videos on this channel can get very long, I think I’ve seen an 8hour video course on the channel. This channel does not only cover topics on web development, there are tutorials and courses on other areas like machine learning, mobile development, game development, Artificial intelligence, etc but more videos are focused on web development technologies like React, Vue, Angular, PHP, Django, Ruby on Rails and so on.

I don’t think anything is wrong with the channel except that since there are too many content creators, the quality and style of teaching may vary drastically from one author to another, this probably isn’t an issue but I thought I’d mention it.

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4 – The Futur

What use is your skill if you aren’t making any money with it? Of course, you could apply for a job in a good company, you could create great stuff and make money from it, or you could sell your sword – I meant skill.

Whichever way you choose to go, there is still much emphasis placed on branding and marketing; The Futur will show you just how to do just that.

N.B – More emphasis is placed on Freelancing on the channel, however, the fundamentals of marketing are the same across every field.

When I subscribed first to this channel I had thought I was subscribing to where I would learn how to build a website, for many weeks however as I poured through videos looking for the tutorials, expecting to see someone design a website somewhere, I realized I was more like to learn how to sell a website from here than how to build one. I’d find some videos on website design to be sure, but they were all still focused on marketing – website re-branding mostly.

This channel involves interviewing top freelancers from most design niches about their success … or so they make it look. The freelancers would explain what helped them most in their career, how they branded, marketed, communicated, etc.

From here you will more about brand identity, branding, time management, billing clients, managing clients, communicating with clients and other awesome topics that will help your career if you are – or is intending to be a freelancer.

The videos are awesome and easy to follow along with tips, recommendations and so on.

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3 – The Net Ninja

Hahaha, look at that funny ninja cartoon, that image never truly fail to amuse me each time I see it, lol.

This here is one of my favourite YouTube channels mostly for JavaScript web development tutorials.

The Net Ninja publishes amazing, usually short video series, explaining concepts in simple, easy sentences. Remember when I talked about creating tutorials in such a way that it’s easy for both beginners and experienced developers to follow along? You’re just about to see the magic.

One thing you might immediately notice about this channel is that it doesn’t try to cram many concepts into one video. The videos are divided into tiny little bits, each covering a very specific part of a whole.

There are many tutorials on different technologies including, PHP and MySQL, Javascript, Firebase, React, Angular, Vue, Python, Django, Flask, CSS and so on.

This channel is definitely a must for anyone who is serious about web development.

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2 – DesignCourse

Do you handle any part of the user interface on a website? I mean, do you touch any code at all that visually affects any part of any website like HTML, CSS or JavaScript? And you haven’t subscribed to this channel yet? Wait, wait, wait, leave whatever you’re doing and do that now, I mean subscribe to the damn channel now.

Man! This channel is like an information gold mine for web designers. Here you will learn everything you need to know to be an absolute UI designer, I mean absolutely anything; the fundamentals of design and how to apply them effectively in your design, UI mock-up, CSS layout system, transitions and animations, SVG morphing, illustrator designs, logo designs and tons of other tutorials and projects.

Perhaps one of the most important (if not the most important) thing that brings this channel on the top of my list is the design review live stream, recently renamed “The Negative Space”; here the channel users post links to their completed design projects (mostly websites, logos and mock-ups), the channel owner Gary Simon goes over this projects and critique them while providing helpful tips and advice on where and how to improve your design. These critiques have helped me wonderfully in understanding basic design fundamentals – colours, typography, white space, sizing, consistency and so on and how to apply them properly. Definitely a must-have channel, definitely.

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1 – Traversy Media

If you had not expected this channel to take the top spot then I don’t know what to say to you.

This is definitely the best YouTube channel for web developers and the exponential growth of subscribers proves me right.

Where can I possibly start writing about this channel? I fear this is the point I tell you to check things out yourself.

Brad Traversy, the owner of this channel is one of the most detailed teachers I’ve ever seen … technically, I have only seen him from watching his videos to be sure. Nevertheless, I always feel like am sitting right next to him whenever I watch his video; that feeling of calm, like you're teaching someone that pays you sh*t ton of money, I just don’t know how to explain this.

Here people, Brad Traversy is focused on the more technical side of things – site functionality. he publishes tutorials on using different web technologies if the tutorial requires a UI interface, he is more likely to copy and paste the interface and focus on the more technical JavaScript side. What I like the most is how he explains concepts and inner workings of technologies very efficiently letting you understand absolutely what is going on in the program even if you have not seen it before.

There are hundreds of tutorials spanning different frameworks, libraries, technologies and languages. Then there are those motivational talks, urging you never to give up, urging you never to belittle yourself while using himself as a case study, absolutely amazing, this man.

Personally, I use DesignCourse to practice the design side of things while I use Traversy Media for the more technical side, a very awesome combination.

If you have not subscribed to this channel yet, please make you do.

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Honourable Mentions

CodingTech – Talks and videos on programming conferences.

Corey Schafer – For Python programmers, has videos on Django and Flask web frameworks.

Derek Banas – Very straight to the point videos. Has videos on PHP, Django.

And there they are, the top 6 YouTube channels for web developers in 2019.

What do you think about the channels? Let’s hear your comments below, if you enjoyed the article please press the like button, don’t forget to share the post too.