FRfreeCodeCamp · on freeCodeCamp
Git & GitHub for Beginners — Crash Course
Beginner 2 hours EnglishFREE
SkillsGitGitHubVersion controlBranchingMergingCommits
Is this course right for you?
Our take
A free freeCodeCamp crash course on YouTube covering the version control every developer touches daily — commits, branches, merges and pushing to GitHub.
In about an hour it gives you the essentials with no account, no paywall and no certificate, which makes it close to a no-risk first look: if Git has been a gap, this closes the basic version of it in an evening. It won't take you into advanced workflows or hand you a credential, but as a fast, free starting point it's hard to beat, and what it teaches is as true now as ever (as of 2026).
Comparison · LBS
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About this course
Git & GitHub for Beginners is a free crash course from freeCodeCamp on YouTube. There's free to watch, with nothing to sign up for and certificates skipped — just a focused hour on the version-control basics every developer uses daily.
Instructor
F
freeCodeCamp
freeCodeCamp instructor
freeCodeCamp is a non-profit whose free programming tutorials reach millions of learners. Its crash courses are concise, practical and made for self-taught developers.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, completely. It is a freeCodeCamp resource published free on YouTube, with no paywall, sign-up, or trial — freeCodeCamp is a donation-funded non-profit. Git itself is also free and open-source, so between the course and the tool there is nothing to pay. You can learn the whole thing without spending anything, which is part of why it is so widely recommended to beginners.
No. Git is a version-control system for tracking changes to files, and while it is used most by programmers, the basics — saving snapshots, undoing changes, working with branches — need no coding knowledge to learn. Beginners often pick up Git alongside their first programming steps, and this course is pitched exactly at that point, assuming no prior experience with code or version control.
Typically yes, at a basic level. Git and GitHub are related but distinct — Git is the tool on your computer, GitHub is the online service for hosting and sharing Git repositories — and beginner Git courses usually cover pushing to and pulling from GitHub as part of the workflow. So you should come away able to both track changes locally and share your work on GitHub, which is what most people actually need.
Enough to learn the essentials, not to master it. A short course teaches the core commands and workflow — commit, branch, merge, push, pull — which covers most day-to-day use. But Git's trickier situations (resolving messy merge conflicts, rebasing, undoing mistakes safely) only sink in with real practice on actual projects. Treat the hour as a solid foundation, then learn the rest by using Git regularly.
The YouTube video itself does not issue one — watching a video cannot be certified. freeCodeCamp offers free, project-based certifications on its own website, though Git is usually taught as a skill within those rather than as a standalone certificate. If you want a credential, look at freeCodeCamp's platform courses; this video is best treated as clear, free teaching to build the skill itself.