11 Best Free Software Testing Online Courses for Beginners [2025]

Testing plays a crucial role in delivering a superior user experience by identifying and eliminating weaknesses in software development. To build high-quality, scalable software, adopting a tester’s mindset is essential.

The following free software testing courses for beginners will equip you with foundational knowledge in testing methodologies. As a software tester, staying updated with the latest tools is vital to managing increasing complexities, detecting bugs, and ensuring software reliability.

These courses are ideal for career changers seeking entry-level roles in software testing and for software developers looking to enhance their testing skills.

Free Software Testing Online Courses

Exploring free software testing courses is a great way to build your skills without financial barriers:

LambdaTest Certifications

LambdaTest is an AI-native test execution platform that lets you run manual and automated tests at scale with over 5000+ real devices , browsers and OS combinations. As part of its commitment to education, LambdaTest offers certifications that offer a free and valuable way to validate your software testing expertise.

Whether you’re skilled in Selenium, Appium, or automation testing, these LambdaTest Certifications help showcase your proficiency to employers and peers. Unlike traditional courses, they provide industry-recognized credentials that highlight your hands-on experience and knowledge.

In addition, LambdaTest also provides a wealth of learning resources designed to software testing courses:

• LambdaTest Blog: A rich source of information covering real-world testing and development problems, with practical use cases and solutions.
• LambdaTest Learning Hub: Offers tutorials covering all aspects of web and mobile development, including in-depth guides for automation testing using Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, Appium, and more.
• LambdaTest YouTube Channel: Features a variety of video tutorials and use-case scenarios for automation testing, designed to help developers and testers accelerate their testing processes.

Software Testing – Amazon Web Services

Platform: Udacity

Timeline: 1 Month

Skill Level: Intermediate

Instructors: John Regehr and Sean Bennett

This course will enable you to think like a software tester. It’ll help you to discover different software testing methods, catch bugs and build a better software. The course shall will only provides you with rich content but you’ll also enjoy the perks of self-paced learning, along with constant assessments and interactive quizzes.

Software Testing Fundamentals – University of Maryland

Platform : edX

Timeline: 8 weeks (8-10 hours a week)

Skill Level: Introductory

Instructors: Dr Michael Scott Brown and Dr Renata Rand McFadden

This course will be your guide to learning how to catch defects and bugs in the software using various latest methods that are prevalent in the market. The professors teach in Java and JUnit for examples and assignments, and you can take up this course if you are planning to learn from scratch. The course allows you to learn at your own pace!

Software Testing Management – University of Maryland

Platform: edX

Timeline: 8 weeks (8-10 hours a week)

Skill Level: Introductory

Instructors: Dr Michael Scott Brown and Dr Renata Rand McFadden and Dr Mir Mohammed Assadullah

There is much more to software testing than just finding defects! successful software and quality assurance engineers also need to administer the testing of software

In this course, you will learn about the management aspects of software testing. You will learn how to successfully plan, schedule, estimate and document a software testing plan. The lessons will also teach you how to analyze metrics to improve software quality and software tests. This course also discusses software quality initiatives developed by industry experts.

No previous programming knowledge is needed for this course!

Software Engineering Essentials – Technische Universität München

Platform: edX

Timeline: 8 weeks (5 to 7 hours a week)

Skill Level: Intermediate

Instructors: Bernd Bruegge, Stephan Krusche and Andreas Seitz

This course will introduce you to the basic concepts of object-oriented software engineering. You will learn and apply UML modelling, patterns and project management methodologies that are used during the development of complex software systems.

This is an interactive course where you can watch videos which explain the critical theory. You can also participate in online exercises to practice your knowledge via quizzes, programming exercises and UML modelling with peer reviews with immediate feedback.

Testing with Agile – University of Virginia

Platform: Coursera

Timeline: 3 weeks (2-4 hours a week)

Instructor: Alex Cowan

Learning Test Driven Development in Java

Platform: Udemy

Timeline: 3 hours

Skill Level: Introductory

Created by: Fluent Software Solutions

This course offers a test-driven approach through video lessons and exercises to successfully design and deliver Java applications with testability in mind. In this course, you will learn how the rapid feedback loop of a test-driven cycle can give real productivity and quality benefits.

This course shall be of great interest to any programmer who wants to learn about advanced testing programs for testing software programs they have coded. Through the application of test-driven development to your existing code, you’ll familiarize yourself with applying TDD immediately!

Selenium WebDriver Training with Java Basics

Platform: Udemy

Timeline: 27.5 hours

Skill Level: Introductory

Created by: Rahul Arora

This is a simple course to get started with Selenium automation, developing your java programming basics and learn basics of other integrated APIs. The lectures will provide you with a full hands-on session to implement various frameworks such as Hybrid, Data-driven, Page Object model etc.

To learn more about Selenium, refer to this detailed guide on Selenium 4 to understand the newly implemented features and deprecated functions.

Introduction to Software Testing

Platform: Alison

Timeline: 2-3 Hours

Skill Level: Introductory

Created by: NPTEL

The course introduces you to the basics of testing software and why you should test software before implementation. You will get to know about the systematic process involved in testing and when to initiate testing in the development life cycle. This course will help you understand the validation and verification stages of testing, and you will learn about the various testing levels.

This course also emphasizes on the pesticide paradox when testing software. You will learn about the development life cycle V-model. You will also learn about the fault model and how it outlines the types of faults in a program. This course contains test cases to help you understand the design, planning and strategies. You will learn about unit testing and what parts of the program it tests

Software Testing – Testing Levels and Object-Oriented Program Testing

Platform: Alison

Timeline: 2-3 Hours

Skill Level: Introductory

Created by: NPTEL

The course software resting – Testing Levels and Object-Oriented Program testing focuses on testing levels above unit testing, to system testing and its categories and types, and to testing Object-Oriented programs. You will also be able to understand how it is different from testing procedural programs. The course discusses various methods for integration testing and their working.

Software Testing – Black-box Strategies and White-Box Testing

Platform: Alison

Timeline: 2-3 Hours

Skill Level: Introductory

Created by: NPTEL

This course focuses on strategies for black-box testing, about equivalence class testing and special value testing.

You will learn about three of the strategies for combinatorial testing and using white-box testing .You will also realise the types of errors and faults it tests for.

Software Testing – Condition Coverage and Mutation Testing Strategies

Platform: Alison

Timeline: 2-3 Hours

Skill Level: Introductory

Created by: NPTEL

In this course, you will learn about various advanced methodologies for software testing. You will be taught how to create control flow graphs for path testing, coverage based techniques such as multiple condition coverage (MCC) and about data flow testing.

The course initiates with coverage based testing and distinct types of coverage based testing. You will then study about the decision coverage testing (MC/DC testing) and modified condition. Next, you will learn about instigating faults into your program for mutation testing, its drawbacks and terminology.

Finally, you will be introduced to the basics of integration testing and various strategies to integration testing.

Prerequisites: Learner should have completed ‘Introduction to Software Testing’ followed by ‘Software Testing – Black-Box Strategies and White-Box testing’.

Conclusion

Software testing will remain an essential aspect of software development, and the demand for skilled software testers will keep increasing daily to ensure that the software performs as intended and meets the end user’s expectations. Hence, software testers must acquire new skills, software testing certification and get insights on the latest trends through software testing YouTube channels as well.

Saniya Gazala

Saniya Gazala is a Computer Science graduate from Reva University. She began as a manual tester, honing her skills in defect identification and problem-solving. Transitioning to technical writing, she simplified complex tech concepts for users. Her journey is marked by continuous learning and growth in the tech industry.

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