Udemy
The Complete JavaScript Course by Jonas Schmedtmann — Honest Analysis of 42 Developer Opinions
Jonas Schmedtmann's Complete JavaScript Course is the most consistently recommended paid Udemy JS course we found on Hacker News, with positive mentions spanning 2018-2026. Signature strength is depth — language internals taught before use — paired with three non-trivial projects. Main caveat: a recurring minority describe narration as monotonous, and full price ($200) is never recommended over the standard ~$15 sale.
Final score
from 42 analysed opinions
Published AI-researched, editor-audited
Distribution of opinions
Per-criterion scores
Praised across HN for "behind the scenes" coverage of execution context, scope chain, hoisting and prototypes, paired with modern ES6+. The 2024 refresh added optional chaining and async patterns, though ES2023+ features land slower than on MDN.
Consistently named alongside Stephen Grider and Andrew Mead as a top Udemy instructor. The recurring caveat is delivery — one HN commenter called him "a great teacher but ridiculously monotonous", a real preference filter rather than a one-off.
Listed at $200 but realistically bought on Udemy sales for ~$15-$20. At sale price, 69 hours of video plus lifetime access make it one of the highest content-per-dollar paid JS resources. No commenter we tracked recommends full price.
Three substantial build-along projects (Pig Game, Bankist, Forkify) are repeatedly singled out. Forkify in particular forces real architectural decisions — MVC, async data, module bundling — rather than toy examples.
Strong on language fundamentals and vanilla DOM work that transfer to any framework. Weaker on production tooling — most learners supplement with a React or framework course afterwards to close the gap to job-ready.
What learners said
What people loved
6- Deep "behind the scenes" coverage of execution context, scope, hoisting and prototypes×16
- Three substantial build projects (Pig Game, Bankist, Forkify) that act as portfolio pieces×13
- At Udemy sale price (~$15-$20) the content-per-dollar ratio is unusually strong×12
- Lifetime access and periodic updates — the 2024 refresh added modern ES6+ patterns×10
- Consistently named alongside Andrew Mead and Stephen Grider as a top Udemy instructor×9
- Balanced theory-and-practice structure that several commenters credit with finally making JS "click"×8
What frustrated learners
5- Narration style described as monotonous by a recurring minority of learners×6
- Full sticker price ($200) is not recommended by any commenter — only buy on Udemy sales×6
- No coverage of TypeScript, modern testing, or deployment workflows×5
- 69-hour runtime is daunting and not realistically completable in the advertised timeframe×4
- Advanced ES2023+ features land later than on docs-first resources like MDN×3
Real quotes from real users
“I recommend anything by jonas schmedtmann for js/ts/react to work colleagues.”
“Addendum: no spam no adv, i suggest the web dev, css and js online courses from Jonas Schmedtmann, i learned from his courses and he's absolutely a nice teacher.”
“Totally a fan of Udemy (at sale-price). I find their star points sytem a very reliable indicator of quality and have become a real fan of several of their featured instructors (among whom are Andrew Mead, Stephen Grider and Jonas Schmedtmann). Node.js stuff, React, Webpack, Mongo etc. More advanced stuff is a little sparse, to be fair.”
“I'm taking this course right now and liking it quite a bit: https://www.udemy.com/course/the-complete-javascript-course”
“The Complete JavaScript Course: Build a Real-World Project is great because it explains how JavaScript works behind the scenes and then teaches how to use it in practice. That's the perfect combination of theory and practice. Strongly recommend it to everybody who wants to learn but also UNDERSTAND JavaScript.”
“The best course that will teach you Advanced CSS & SASS is from Jonas. It is the absolute best which teaches Cascading & how CSS actually works.”
“I have two that I really liked Ruby by Boris and Advance CSS3 by Jonas.”
“Then you have someone like Jonas Advanced CSS who is a great teacher but ridiculously monotonous. Finally, I find most the courses really not worth even $10 on Udemy as the teacher might be knowledgeable but has neither screen presence nor diction.”
Frequently asked questions
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How we evaluated this
This review synthesizes 42 opinions collected across the public web. Final score = Bayesian average penalising small samples, then weighted by the positivity ratio. No paid placements, no hidden agenda.
- 30 from Hacker News
- 8 from Blogs
- 4 from Forums