11 Best Free Software Testing Online Courses for Beginners [2024]

Introduction

Softwares have become an inseparable part of our daily lives. The world demands intuitive, authentic and dependable technology, and in a rapidly growing market-place, even small negligence might result insomething disastrous. Software needs to be tested for bugs and to ensure the product meets the requirements and produces the desired results. Testing ensures premier user experience by eliminating weaknesses in software development. To be able to build high-quality scalable software, one has to think like a software tester.

In the following courses on software testing, you will attain free software testing course for beginners. As a software tester, you must learn about the latest tools to handle the continuously increasing complexities in the field, catch bugs and construct impeccable software. It will provide career-changers with the skills to get an entry-level job in software testing and help advance Software Developers skills in unit testing.

LambdaTest

LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that lets you run manual and automated tests at scale with over 3000+ real devices , browsers and OS combinations. As part of its commitment to education, LambdaTest 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.

Job Outlook

• According to a recent article by Forbes, Software Quality Assurance Engineer is ranked as one of the best paying jobs in America.
• O*Net Online, there are 233,000 Software Quality Assurance Engineers and there will be 37,000 job opening for the same.
• Starting salaries for graduate-level software testing positions are in the region of £18,000 to £24,000 (depending on company size and location) Source.

Courses

Opting for any of these courses makes you eligible for a job as a software developer and tester, quality assurance engineer.

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!

You can get more details by following the link here

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!

You can get more details by following the link here

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.

You can get more details by following the link here.

Testing with Agile

University of Virginia

Platform : Coursera

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

Instructor : Alex Cowan

To deliver agile outcomes, you have to not only implement an agile process but also focus on creating a culture of experimentation. It’s this commitment to experimenting that’s at the heart of a high-functioning practice of agile. This course will teach you how to integrate the practice of experimentation across usability testing, concept/feature testing, and testing the software itself.

You can get more details by following the link here.

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. You will learn some common testing pitfalls which you should avoid when preparing test cases.

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!

You can get more details by following the link here.

Selenium WebDriver Training with Java Basics

Platform : Udemy

Timeline : 27.5 hours

Skill Level : Introductory

Created by : Rahul Arora

Selenium is a Web-based automation tool which automates everything visible to the user on a web page.

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.

You’ll also have access to online training webinar sessions and a Selenium experts group where you can discuss your queries. Apart from Selenium, various other APIs are integrated as well, such as JUnit, Cucumber BDD and TestNG which will help you in building powerful frameworks.

To learn more about Selenium, refer to this detailed guide on Selenium 4 to understand the newly implemented features and deprecated functions. To apply your learning, watch this detailed video tutorial for valuable insights.

Subscribe to the LambdaTest YouTube channel for details guidance on various automation testing process like Selenium testing, Cypress testing, Playwright testing, and more.
You can get more details by following the link here.

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

To learn more about software development life cycle models, follow this guide on the top 5 SDLC models. This will provide valuable insights and help you get started on your software testing journey.

You can get more details by following the link here.

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. You will learn about system testing and about the different types of performance testing.

You will learn about performance tests, and about regression testing and when it is used. You will learn how OO programming was assumed to make testing simpler, and why some testing methods for procedural programs will not work with OO programs. The course discusses features of OO programming such as inheritance, polymorphism, and why you need to verify your program differently using them. You will also get to know about different integration testing strategies for testing your OO programs.

You can get more details by following the link here.

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.

You will understand the working of equivalence class testing and how equivalence classes are created for both invalid and valid data. This course also talks about special value testing and its types: general risk and special risk. You will also learn about boundary value testing and how it works.

The course will then discuss decision table-based testing, cause-effect graphing and its role in generating decision tables. You will learn about all-pairs or pair-wise testing and their functioning. At last, you will be taught about techniques applied in white-box testing and how white-box testing strategies can be broken into distinct categories.

You can get more details by following the link here.

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’.

You can get more details by following the link here.

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.