So you’ve decided to become a WordPress developer. Whether you want to make some tweaks to your own site, contribute to the platform, or are turning it into a career for providing managed WordPress Care Plans, you may not know where to begin. There’s so many resources for WordPress that trying to narrow down what you’re looking for is overwhelming.
Coming with experience or starting from scratch, this list of WordPress development resources will be a big help. Videos, ebooks, full-fledged courses — we’ll let you know who each one is suitable for, so you don’t waste any more time searching for the perfect tutorial.
WordPress Developer Resources
If you want to learn WordPress, there’s no better place to start than the official site. The developer handbook, previously known as the WordPress codex, contains a plethora of invaluable resources.
There’s extensive documentation for WordPress’ features, including the API, themes and plugins, as well as a code reference to help you learn the functions. This should be the first site you bookmark.
If you’re completely new to WordPress, the Support page (also containing articles ported from the old codex) can help you get your bearings. It will walk you through the basics.
Envato Tuts+
This massive series of video tutorials is designed for total beginners. There are dozens of videos here covering a wide range of topics, from coding basics to plugin development to Bootstrap and PHP.
This one is mostly focused on web and theme development, so it touches on topics like Gutenberg, in-depth customization, and adding ecommerce support. There’s even a section on how to sell your WordPress theme once you’re finished.
Up and Running
The big problem with online tutorials is that you’re never getting everything. Some only teach you the basics and stop there, while others assume you have some knowledge and launch too quickly into advanced topics.
Up and Running was created as a comprehensive, all-in-one source to learn WordPress development, beginning to end. This illustrated ebook comes with hours of video footage, and it even updates as WordPress releases new content.
Udemy
Udemy is a huge learning platform with over 20 million students enrolled. WordPress is just one in a variety of categories, and it has over 700 free and paid video courses available. Each course comes with video lectures and can also include articles or downloadable resources.
These tutorials cover hundreds of topics, so use the search feature to find courses on development, SEO, business, or beginner lessons. Whatever you need, it’s here.
WordPress StackExchange
While not strictly a guide, the WordPress StackExchange is an online community of developers asking and answering questions about WordPress and its development. If you get stuck, you can search for past threads from people who shared your problem, or ask yourself on the forum.
Browsing the threads is a great way to pick up on new skills by reading questions and answers from more experienced developers.
The Academy
Free for WPMU DEV members or for a monthly fee, the Academy is a set of courses covering various aspects of WordPress development. It has a big focus on interactivity, so you can even ask questions from the experts themselves or hold discussions with other students. This is great if you learn best in a class.
LinkedIn Learning
Making a career out of WordPress development? LinkedIn Learning comes with 1400+ premium courses centering on basically any topic you can think of. They range from broad to specific, a few minutes to several hours long, for beginners or experts. There’s full courses, videos, and even interactive learning paths.
W3Schools
Online courses can get you pretty far, but eventually, you may want to branch out and learn some coding. WordPress is built on HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript. Getting used to the platform is just one step — you’ll also need to learn some or all of these languages if you want to make websites, themes, or plugins.
If you’re in a do-it-yourself mood, sites like W3Schools and Codecademy can help you learn these languages with simple and easy-to-follow tutorials. And they’re both totally free.
Web developers will also want to learn how to set up XAMPP, a program that allows you to locally host websites on your computer (no domain or web host required).
Learn WordPress Development
All sorts of people decide to get into WordPress, from seasoned developers to new creators who’ve never even tried HTML. Anyone can learn WordPress, no matter their skill level. It’s a platform simple enough for beginners to learn and extendible enough that veteran devs will love it. You just have to be willing to do some work.
We’ve already collected some of the best online resources for you, so pick one that seems most suited to your learning style and start studying.