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Back End Development and APIs Certification

4.7(7,200) on freeCodeCamp·1.1M enrolled
Intermediate 300 hours English Course CertificateFREE
SkillsNode.jsExpressMongoDBREST APIsBack-end developmentAuthentication

Is this course right for you?

Our take
Yes, if you know JavaScript and want to learn the server side. It is free, the certificate is free, and you build real APIs.

Good for: learners who know JavaScript and want to learn back-end development.

Skip if: you are new to JavaScript, or you only want front-end.

It teaches the Node, Express and MongoDB stack through five projects — a URL shortener, an exercise tracker, a file-metadata service — that mirror junior back-end work. Paired with the Front End Libraries certification it forms freeCodeCamp's full-stack JavaScript path, a free equivalent to the MERN modules paid bootcamps charge for.

It assumes you already know JavaScript, so do the earlier certifications first, and it teaches one stack rather than the wider back-end world — no SQL databases, no other languages, no deployment depth. The curriculum is free and kept current (as of 2026).

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About this course

This certification teaches the server side of full-stack development through Node.js and Express: building REST APIs, managing data with MongoDB and Mongoose, implementing authentication with Passport.js, and using npm to manage packages. Five certification projects — including a URL shortener, exercise tracker, and file metadata service — mirror the kind of backend work junior full-stack developers do in real roles.

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Instructor

FT
freeCodeCamp Team
freeCodeCamp instructor
1.1M+ learners12 courses4.7 instructor rating

Produced by freeCodeCamp, a nonprofit providing free, project-based coding certifications used by millions worldwide.

Frequently asked questions

Node.js with the Express framework for the server, and MongoDB (through Mongoose) for the database — the JavaScript back-end stack, and part of what's often called MERN. If you're aiming at Python and Django, Java and Spring, or PHP instead, this teaches the concepts but in a different language than you'll write day to day.

Yes. It's back-end JavaScript, so you should already be comfortable with the language — functions, objects, and asynchronous code in particular. If JavaScript is new, do freeCodeCamp's JavaScript certification first, otherwise you'll be fighting the language and the back-end ideas at the same time.

It gives you genuine, job-relevant fundamentals — building APIs, connecting a database, handling requests — but one certificate isn't a full back-end skill set. Employers also look for authentication, testing, deployment and, most of all, projects of your own. Treat it as a strong base to build real applications on.
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