15 Best Big Data Courses Online Ultimate Guide!

Presently, big data analytics has become a necessary instrument for all organizations working in different disciplines. With the power of big data, organizations can get better insight into their customer’s preferences, business processes, and the surrounding competitive world. All of it was never easy without big data as well as learning how to code.

The popularity of big data is at its peak nowadays and organizations cannot think of their survival without it. For instance, Peer research has highlighted that 77% of organizations perceive big data as their top priority. Similarly, Forbes has highlighted that the market of Hadoop will reach $99 billion in 2023.

Considering these trends, learning big data has become very essential. In this article, I will introduce you to the 15 best big data courses online. Every course has been discussed in detail to guide you on which one is the best for you under your specific conditions. 

Best Overall

Udacity

Udacity is a renowned platform offering solid and useful data courses. Data Engineer, Nano Degree Program is one of their most popular programs. The program allows you to build production-ready data infrastructure. 

Best for Beginners

Coursera

This course gives you a brief yet comprehensive overview of the big data landscape and acquaints you with ‘Hadoop’ the most common framework that makes the task simpler and easier for you as a successful data analyst.  

Best for Certification

Simplilearn

Data engineering is one of the fast-growing disciplines with a large number of job opportunities. All of you interested in fast-tracking your career in data engineering must be looking for professional certification. 

Best for Hadoop

Pluralsight

Hadoop is an open-source software framework. It allows the storage of huge amounts of data with enormous processing speed. Learning this framework is an important constituent for working in the field of big data. 

What is Big Data/Data Science & Why It is Important?

Big data is defined as a mixture of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data gathered by organizations. This data is then mined to extract information for predictive modeling, machine learning projects, and other advanced analytics applications. 

The systems that gather and store big data have become a common constituent of data management architecture within organizations. Big data often consists of three Vs which include

  • A large volume of data in different environments
  • The wide variety of data types that are usually stored within big data systems
  • The velocity at which the majority of data is generated, gathered and processed

You must be wondering why big data is becoming increasingly important and what benefits it gives to organizations. Let’s see how big data helps different organizations. 

Companies generally use big data to enhance their operations, improve customer services, generate personalized marketing campaigns, and take other actions that can maximize revenues and profits. 

The purpose and uses of big data may vary depending upon the nature of organizations. For instance, in the case of oil and gas companies, big data can help to identify potential drilling sites and monitor pipeline operations. Whereas, financial organizations may use it for risk management. 

Thus, organizations that utilize big data effectively usually have a competitive edge over others and are capable of making fast and reliable decisions. Some major benefits of using big data are

  • Improved customer insights
  • Enhanced operations
  • Insightful market intelligence
  • Quick supply chain management
  • Data-driven innovation
  • Smart recommendations
  • Fast and reliable business decisions

All of you interested to learn big data must keep reading to learn this skill via online courses. Let’s have a look at the best big data courses online. 

15 Best Big Data Courses Online – Detailed Guide!

Here are the 15 best big data courses online. All of the courses have been discussed in detail ranging from who can apply for the course and its features to reviews and pros and cons. 

1. Big Data Specialization – The Best Program To Learn Basic Big Data Methods

Big Data Specialization by Coursera is one of the best online programs to unlock the potential and value of massive datasets. The programs allow you to learn all fundamental methods of big data through six online courses. 

With this program, you will be better equipped to make well-informed business decisions driven by useful insights provided by big data. You can even apply these insights to solve a real-world problem and improve your organization’s competitiveness. 

Who Is This Course For?

It is a beginner-level course, therefore, no programming experience or technical background is required in this case.

Anyone of you interested in learning the basic big data methods can apply for this program. 

What Are The Features & Course Content?

This is a specialized program with a series of courses that are meant to teach you all fundamental methods of big data. You can either choose to take any one course from this program or complete all courses to become a big data specialist. 

A quick overview of courses within this program is as below

  • Introduction to big data
  • Big data modeling and management system
  • Big data integration and processing
  • Machine learning with big data

With these courses, you will be able to learn the following skills

  • Learn basic use of Hadoop with MapReduce, Spark, Pig, and Hive
  • Data modeling and data management
  • Learn different machine-learning concepts

What Are Its Duration And Price?

It will take 8 months to complete. Once your 7-day free trial ends, you will have to pay $49/month to continue your learning.

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • No prior experience or knowledge is required to enroll in this course
  • Anyone can apply for this course
  • Flexible schedule
  • Offered in multiple languages
  • Hand-on projects improve your skills

Cons

  • The final projects are difficult for those who do not have a programming background

What Are People Saying – Reviews

All students of this course are completely satisfied with the content of the course and its usefulness within their respective workplaces. 

Nearly all users have highlighted that the course has enabled them to process, analyze, and interpret data through contemporary big data methods. This has not only enabled them to provide useful insights to their organization but also improve their competitiveness. 

2. Introduction To Big Data – The Best Course for Beginners

This course is specially designed for those who are new to big data and data science and interested to know the purpose of the big data era. 

Therefore, any of you interested to become conversant with the core concepts and terminology of big data applications and systems or want to know the usefulness of big data in your career can apply for this course. 

The course gives you a brief yet comprehensive overview of the big data landscape and acquaints you with ‘Hadoop’ the most common framework that makes the task simpler and easier for you as a data analyst.  

Who Is This Course For?

The course does not require any prior programming experience, however, the ability to install different applications and utilize machine learning is necessary to complete different assignments. 

The course also has some hardware and software requirements which you must ensure before enrolling in this course.

What Are The Features & Course Content?

The course is a part of Big Data Specialization and will allow you to learn the following things

  • Describe the big data landscape with real-world problems
  • Understand the Vs of big data and their impacts on data collection, analysis, monitoring, storage, and reporting
  • Get the value from big data to structure your analysis with the help of a five-step process
  • Identify and understand the big data problems and recast them as data science projects
  • Understand the programming models for big data analysts
  • Summarize the features of core Hadoop including YARN resources, job management system, MapReduce programming model, and HDFS file system
  • Install and run the program via Hadoop

Understanding these things will make you skillful and adept in big data, Cloudera, MapReduce, and Apache Hadoop

What Are Its Duration And Price?

It will take approximately 17 hours to complete. And as it is a part of the Big data specialization program, therefore, once your 7-day trial ends, you will have to pay $49/month to avail of the services. 

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • Flexible deadlines
  • Only takes 17 hours to complete
  • Gives comprehensive background on big data
  • Offered in multiple languages

Cons

  • The final assignments may become difficult if do not have programming experience and are unable to utilize machine learning

What Are People Saying – Reviews

Most of the students are satisfied with the course content and teaching methods of this course. 

The reviewers have proclaimed that the course has played an important role to introduce them to the world of big data and understand big data problems. 

3. Big Data Fundamentals with PySpark – The Best Course to Learn Big Data Fundamentals

With the increasing popularity of big data, it has become mainstream for many companies. On one hand, some companies are using it for making informed financial decisions and designing targeted marketing campaigns. While on the other hand, medical companies are using it to provide improved patient outcomes. 

Therefore, knowing the fundamentals of big data has become essential for the survival of every company type. Datacamp has come up with the most interesting course for all beginners. The course aims at teaching you the fundamentals of big data with PySpark in an easily understandable manner. 

Who Is This Course For?

The course is perfect for beginners who want to learn about big data fundamentals. However, you must either have background knowledge about python or take the online course Introduction to Python by Datacamp. 

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

The course allows you to learn big data fundamentals through PySpark. Spark refers to a lightning-fast cluster computing framework for big data. It is a general data processing engine that allows you to run programs 100 times faster in memory and 10 times faster on disk as compared to Hadoop. 

You will learn all fundamental concepts of big data by using PySpark and its higher-level libraries including MLlib and SparkSQL. The course consists of four chapters and you learn these concepts

  • What is big data?
  • What are the different concepts and frameworks to process big data?
  • Why Apache Spark is the best framework for big data?
  • How to do programming in PySpark RDD?
  • What is meant by PySpark SQL and data frames?
  • What is machine learning and how you can learn it with MLlib?

Learning these concepts will enable you to have a comprehensive understanding of PySpark and its use for big data analysis.

What Are Its Duration And Price?

This course will be completed in only four hours. To take this course, Datacamp offers different pricing plans for different types of users. 

The basic plan is for those who are only interested to take the first chapter of this course that deals with introducing big data. 

However, if you as an individual are interested to take the whole course, then you will have to pay $12/month. 

Whereas in the case of teams, it is $25/month. In case, you want this course for your enterprise, then you will have to contact the salesperson.

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • The course takes only 4 hours to introduce you to the world of big data
  • Make you adept in PySpark
  • Datacamp is one of the top resources for learning big data and data science

Cons

  • All exercises and quizzes are too simple for individuals with background knowledge
  • No advanced content is present and you will have to take more courses to become skillful

What People Are Saying – Reviews

This course is considered one of the best courses to learn the fundamentals of big data. The course specifically plays an important role in acquainting you with PySpark and how to use this framework for big data analysis. 

All users are highly satisfied with its course content and teaching style and recommend it to all beginners. 

4. Big Data Hadoop Certification Training Course – The Best Course To Learn Hadoop

No matter whether you belong to aviation, retail, tourism, social media, or finance domain, big data is equally relevant to your field. And you must integrate big data tools and resources to collect, process, manage, and store the relevant data. 

Edureka has come up with an exciting certification training course that is equally suitable for both freshers and professionals. The course emphasizes the use of Hadoop tools to solve and manage different big data problems and promises to make you adept at it. 

Considering the challenges associated with traditional methods to manage big data problems, the use of the Hadoop ecosystem is becoming widely popular. Therefore, an increasing number of organizations are demanding Hadoop professionals. 

Who Is This Course For?

The course is equally suitable for both freshers and professionals. However, you can only apply for this course if you have prior knowledge of SQL and Java. 

Any of you who do not have this knowledge must not worry as Edureka offers a self-paced complimentary course on Java essentials for Hadoop whenever you enroll for this course. 

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

The course is designed by industry experts having more than 10 years of experience in big data. Its content has been designed keeping in view the needs of both freshers and experienced professionals. 

With instructor-led sessions, real-life case studies, assessments, forums, 24/7 support, and certification, the course aims at teaching you basic tools of the Hadoop ecosystem. 

The basic concepts covered in this course are

  • What is big data?
  • What are big data challenges?
  • What are the solutions and limitations of a big data architecture?
  • What are the limitations of traditional methods to solve big data problems?
  • What is the Hadoop ecosystem? 
  • What are the features of the Hadoop ecosystem?
  • Explain concepts like Hadoop 2. X core components, Hadoop processing(MapReduce framework), storage(HDFS), and distribution. 

At the end of the course, it is expected that you will become adept in handling Hadoop to solve and manage big data problems effectively.

What Are Its Duration and Price?

The course will take 30 hours to complete and cost $499. 

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • Offers comprehensive information on using Hadoop tools
  • Allows you to apply learned skills in real-life case studies
  • Provides you with 24/7 support to solve technical queries
  • Has a community forum to further facilitate the learning process
  • Every class is followed by a quiz to assess your learning
  • Offers access to Edureka cloud lab

Cons

  • You can only apply for this course if you have background knowledge of Java and SQL 

What Are People Saying – Reviews

The course has received positive reviews from all students. The students applaud both course content and support from instructors. 

Moreover, the majority of students have proclaimed that the course has played an effective role in helping them to analyze big data at their workplaces.  

5. The Ultimate Hands-On Hadoop – The Best Course To Learn Hadoop & Other Distribution Sytems

The world of big data and Hadoop can be intimidating for the survival of companies refraining to integrate them within their business processes. No matter within which domain your company operates, big data has become necessary for making informed and reliable decisions. 

To fulfill this need, Udemy is offering a short yet comprehensive course that will allow you to learn about all systems relevant to gathering, managing, processing, and storing big data. 

Who Is This Course For?

Any of you interested in taking this course must fulfill the following prerequisites. 

  • Firstly, you must have prior experience in programming preferably Python or scala
  • Secondly, basic familiarity with the Linux command line will also be necessary 
  • Moreover, there are also some system requirements. As your PC must have 64-bit windows, macOS, or Linux with fast-speed internet. Furthermore, you must have 8GB of free RAM if you wish to participate in hands-on projects. However, you can even complete the course without participating in these projects. 

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

The course aims at mastering the most famous data engineering techniques. And these techniques will be taught by the former manager and engineer of IMDb and Amazon. 

The course will not only make you skillful to use Hadoop but also dive deeper and allow you to learn all distribution systems. You can expect to learn the following concepts through this course

  • Install and work with actual Hadoop installation across your desktop with Hortonworks
  • Manage big data on clusters with MapReduce and HDFS
  • Learn to analyze data on Hadoop with Spark and Pig
  • Store and query the data with Hive, Sqoop, MySQL, Cassandra, HBase, Drill, Phoenix, MongoDB, and Presto
  • Generate real-world systems via the Hadoop ecosystem
  • Learn to manage clusters on Mesos, YARN, Zookeeper, Zeppelin, Oozie, and Hue
  • Learn to streamline data in real-time with Flume, Spark Streaming, Kafka, Storm, and Flink

Once you are done with this course, you will become adept in Hadoop and other distribution systems

What Are Its Duration And Price?

The course will take 14.5 hours and as far as the pricing is concerned, Udemy is currently offering this course at only $16.99(43% off).

However, only five days are lefts to avail of this offer. Any of you applying for this course after five days will have to pay $29.99 for this course.

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • Comprehensive course content and interactive teaching style
  • Allows you to learn both Hadoop and other distribution systems
  • Enables you to design real-world systems through Hadoop

Cons

  • You can only apply for this course if you fulfill the defined prerequisites
  • You cannot participate in hands-on projects if your PC does not fulfill the requirements

What Are People Saying – Reviews

The course is widely appreciated for its content and teaching style. The course will provide you with everything if you are a beginner in big data and equips you well to pursue your career in this field. 

6. Apache Spark Essential Training – The Best Course To Learn Data Engineering!

Data engineering is the basic building block for data analytics and data science applications in the world of big data. Therefore, learning data engineering is a necessary prerequisite to understanding the dynamics of big data landscapes. 

Data engineering is actually integrating different big data technologies to generate data networks and pipelines to stream, process, and store data. Learning these concepts is not as difficult as it seems from their names. 

Linkedin has introduced a short yet inclusive course for all those who are interested to learn data engineering without disturbing their work schedule. This 1-2 hours course allows you to learn the significance of integrating Apache Spark with other big data tools to solve various business problems. 

Interested to take this course? Keep reading for more information.

Who Is This Course For?

It is an advanced-level course and any of you interested to take this course must have at least some prior background or experience in programming. 

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

The course aims at finding solutions to business problems by integrating Apache Spark with other big data tools. The course will teach you the following concepts to make this happen

  • Significance of integrating Apache Spark with other big data tools
  • Learn important data engineering concepts including a brief background on data engineering, data engineering functions, batch vs real-time processing, data engineering with Spark, and data engineering vs data science and data analytics. 
  • Learn about Spark capabilities for ETL. It will include studying Spark architecture review, parallel processing in Spark, Spark execution plan, and Spark analytics.
  • Learn and differentiate between batch processing pipelines and real-time processing pipelines. 
  • Discuss best practices involving the integration of data engineering with Spark

At the end of the course, it is expected that you will learn all about data engineering by integrating Apache with big data tools.

What Are Its Duration and Price?

The course will be completed in 1 hour and 2 minutes. You can take this course for free if you subscribe to their one-month free trial. In case of subscribing, you will get unlimited library access, a certificate of completion, and access to Linkedin premium.

There is also an option of buying the course and you can do this by paying Rs 4,019. 

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending

Pros

  • Provides you with comprehensive information on Apache Spark and other big data technologies
  • Take this course for free in case of a one-month trial
  • You will also get a certificate of completion even if you are taking this course via a one-month free trial
  • You will be given the chance to practice your skills via an exercise file and your knowledge will be assessed through 3 quizzes. 

Cons

  • It is difficult to learn such complex concepts in only 1-2 hours

What Are People Saying – Reviews

The course has received 5 stars from the majority of users as most of them are satisfied with its course content. It helps you to learn Apache Spark and how it works with other big data technologies to solve real-world business problems in only 1-2 hours. 

Thus, the majority of students consider this course worth spending and recommend others to take it if they want to learn Apache Spark and other big data technologies. 

7. IBM Data Science Professional Certificate – The Best Course To Pursue a Career in Data Science

There is good news for those who want to start their career in data science and machine learning. Since IBM has come up with a professional certification consisting of only 11 hours. The course will equip you with all the relevant knowledge and skills that will make you job-ready and increase your competitiveness. 

Data science is one of the most emerging fields of contemporary times and the majority of enterprises need scientists, data architects, data engineers, and business intelligence analysts. If all of these job titles instill you to take this field seriously as your career, then this course is for you. 

The course will build a profound foundation of data science which will help you to learn different skills vital to this field. 

To become a professional data scientist, go through further details of this course

Who Is This Course For?

It is a beginner-level course and does not require any prior experience or knowledge. Therefore, anyone of you interested to pursue a career in big data or data science can apply for this course. 

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

The course aims at eradicating the myth that all data scientists need to have a Ph.D. degree. The course will inculcate all the necessary concepts to learn data science in only 11 months. The program consists of 9 courses and one project. You can expect to learn the following concepts through these courses. 

  • What is data science?
  • What tools are essential to learning data science?
  • What is meant by data science methodology?
  • What is python for data science, AI, and development?
  • What is a python project for data science?
  • What are SQL and databases for data science with python?
  • How to do data analysis with python?
  • What is data visualization with python?
  • What is machine learning with Python?
  • How to practice the learned skills on the capstone project?

Upon completing this course, you will have enough knowledge about data science, machine learning, big data, data mining, and data analysis. 

What Are Its Duration And Price?

This course will be finished in 11 hours. In case of pricing, you can either go for a 7-day free trial while when the trial ends, you will have to pay $35/month. 

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • Allows you to become job-ready
  • Offered in multiple languages
  • Completing this course will enable you to earn credits toward your degree
  • The hands-on project makes you skillful

Cons

  • The capstone project can be difficult for those who do not have a programming background

What Are People Saying – Reviews

All students applauded the course for its capability to equip you with job-ready skills and allow you to pursue your career in data science without doing an extensive Ph.D. 

Moreover, the students have also appreciated the course because of earned career credentials and credits to their degree. 

8. Big Data Course – The Best Course To Learn Big Data Concepts

Big data is becoming very necessary for organizations of all types. Organizations can use big data analytics software and systems to make more informed decisions that will improve the organizational output significantly. 

PLURALSIGHT is offering the most interesting course on big data that will introduce you to big data concepts and technologies in an easily understandable manner. To further facilitate you and your organization to integrate big data within business processes, the course will also tell you about dominant vendors and strategic approaches to adopting big data in your organization. 

Who Is This Course For?

This is an intermediate-level course and no prerequisites have been defined for this course. Therefore, any of you interested to integrate big data within your organization can apply for this course. 

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

The purpose of this course is to address the pervasiveness of big data within every organization by providing a framework to adopt it in your organization. The course will teach you these concepts for this purpose. 

  • Explore key terms, terminologies, and roles in big data
  • Key vendors within the big data arena
  • A strategic approach to adopting big data

Upon completing this course, you will capable enough to understand the market and technology context and implement big data adoption within your business unit or organization. 

What Are Its Duration And Price?

The course will take 2 hours to complete. You can get this course for free if you start with a 10-day trial. Once your trial ends then you will have to pay $19/month. 

Pros & Cons – Is It worth Spending?

Pros

  • Any interested to know about big data adoption within enterprises can apply for this course
  • Provides you with useful information for big data adoption in only two hours
  • The course is led by an industry expert that gives you in-depth information on big data adoption

Cons

  • Some vital concepts are missing due to time constraint

What Are People Saying- Reviews

Like other big data online courses, this course has also received positive reviews from all students. The course has been especially helpful for those individuals who want to adopt big data within the organization. 

9. Google Cloud Platform(GCP) Specialization – The Best Course To Become a GCP Specialist

Google Cloud is becoming one of the most popular cloud vendors in the market. A large number of organizations use this platform to manage and store their datasets. 

The biggest benefit of using this platform is the high-level solutions related to machine learning and big data. Its serverless analytics is another feature that makes it a favorite among different companies worldwide. 

Moreover, it is both powerful and easy to use. With this cloud platform, you will find everything you want to fulfill your peculiar needs. Therefore, knowing about this platform and its solution for big data and machine learning is necessary to obtain a competitive edge. 

Who Is This Course For?

It is an intermediate-level course, therefore, to apply for this course, you must have one year of experience in the following

  • A common query language like SQL
  • Data modeling
  • Machine learning
  • Acquire, transform, and load activities
  • Programming in Python

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

It is a specialized program and consists of 5 courses. You can expect to learn these concepts from these courses

  • Google cloud big data and machine learning fundamentals to support AI life cycle
  • Modernizing data warehouses and data lakes with Google Cloud
  • Building batch data pipelines on Google Cloud
  • Developing resilient streaming analytics systems on Google Cloud
  • Smart analytics, machine learning, and AI on GCP

Once you have completed this program, you will become a Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer and become capable enough to build machine learning solutions and analyze big data with BigQuery. 

What Are Its Duration And Price?

It will take 4 months to complete. You can start the course with a 7-day free trial. Once your trial ends, you will have to pay $49/per month. 

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • Flexible learning plan
  • Earning this certificate will improve your career opportunities
  • Applied learning projects
  • Provides you with enough knowledge to start your projects

Cons

  • Lacks depth
  • Inconsistencies within the curriculum

What Are People Saying – Reviews

The course is considered to be helpful in acquainting you with GCP. It will provide you with enough knowledge and skills that after passing this course you can easily develop solutions to business problems. 

Managing, analyzing, and storing data on GCP will no longer remain a difficult task for you. However, some reviewers complain that some concepts should be explained in more detail. 

10. Professional Certificate in Data Engineering – The Best Course For Professional Exposure To Data Engineering!

Data engineering is one of the fast-growing disciplines with a large number of job opportunities. All of you interested in fast-tracking your career in data engineering must be looking for professional certification. 

Then here is one of the most effective online certifications offered by SimpliLearn. This program is specially organized for professionals who want to further enhance their skills and capabilities in data engineering. 

The interactive live sessions, master classes, applied projects, and 24/7 support promises to provide you with the learning experience you have never dreamed of. 

Interested to upscale your career? Then you must know what is inside this course and what can it do for you. 

Who Is This Course For?

It is a specialized program, therefore, you must fulfill the following requirements to apply for this course

  • A bachelor’s degree with 50% or higher marks
  • 2 years of work experience 
  • understanding of object-oriented programming

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

The program is specially designed for professionals dealing in critical themes like big data on AWS, Hadoop framework, Spark, and Azure Cloud infrastructure. Live sessions, master classes, industry projects, and IBM hackathons will guide you on these concepts

  • Significance of data engineering
  • Spark Developer and Hadoop Framework training
  • Big data on AWS
  • Azure fundamentals and data engineer
  • Capstone project on data engineering

At the end of this course, you will be able to do real-time data processing and possess all relevant data engineering skills.

What Are Its Duration And Price?

The program will be completed in 8 months. The fee for this course is $2,100 and this fee will include both applicable program charges and alumni membership fees. 

If you cannot afford to pay this amount, then a variety of financing options are also available. You can either pay the amount on monthly basis or pay it via PayPal or Credit Card

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros 

  • Hands-on applied projects
  • Access to online labs 
  • Self-paced learning
  • 24/7 learning support
  • The course is led by top industry experts
  • Improved career opportunities

Cons

  • Some of the topics were covered at a faster pace

What Are People Saying – Reviews

The majority of the reviewers appreciated the course for its comprehensive content and the way it is delivered. The industry experts give you valuable exposure that allows users to gain critical knowledge on themes like the Hadoop framework, data processing via Spark, and many more. 

11. Spark and Python For Big Data – An Introductory Course on Spark

Apache Spark is the most widely used data processing framework. The leading technology companies including Google, Amazon, Nasa, and Facebook are also using this framework to analyze and solve their big data problems. 

No one can imagine analyzing or solving big data problems without learning Spark. Therefore, all individuals dealing in big data must know how to operate Python. Thanks to the online course offered by Udemy which allows you to learn Python in only 10-11 hours. 

This introductory course on Spark allows you to learn Spark and analyze the Spark data frames with the help of the most popular programming language, Python. 

Willing to jump into the world of Python, Spark, and Big Data? Then you must apply for this course.  

Who Is This Course For?

To become eligible for this course, all interested individuals must fulfill the following requirements

  • Must possess general programming skills in any language(Python will be preferred)
  • 20GB free space on your computer 
  • Strong internet connection

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

The primary focus of the course is to make you learn Spark, one of the famous big data technologies with Python which is also a widely popular programming language. 

A quick overview of course features is given below.

  • What are Spark and Python?
  • How to set up Python with Spark?
  • What is data bricks setup?
  • Explain different setups including local Virtualbox setup, AWS EC2 PySpark, and AWS EMR Cluster setups.
  • Learn Spark through Spark DataFrame basics and DataFrame project exercises
  • Learn machine learning with MLlib

Once you complete this course, you will become skillful to use both Spark and Python to analyze big data. 

What Are Its Duration And Price?

The course will be completed in 10.5 hours and you will have to pay $84.99 to buy this course. For further details, visit Udemy.

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • Useful content
  • Easily understandable
  • Good teaching style

Cons

  • It is not updated as a large number of new features are present now in Spark 3
  • Insights about coding were inadequate and examples were also general

What Are People Saying – Reviews

The course is liked by the majority of students because of its comprehensiveness and usefulness. Moreover, the content is delivered in an understandable manner.

However, the majority of reviewers highlighted that the course is not updated according to the new features of Spark. And hyperparameter tuning is also not discussed within the course.

12. Data Engineer Nano Degree Program – The Best Course to Become a Data Engineer!

Data engineering is one of the most important skills in the big data world. And you cannot advance your data career without learning this skill. You can only become a professional data engineer if you go through solid engineering courses. 

Udacity is one of the renowned platforms offering solid and useful data courses. Data Engineer, Nano Degree Program is one of the most popular programs of Udacity. With personalized student services, technical support, and career services, the program allows you to build production-ready data infrastructure. 

Who Is This Course For?

To apply for this course and successfully complete it, you must fulfill the following criteria

  • Possess programming knowledge through introductory programming courses or programs
  • Real-world software development experience
  • Intermediate knowledge of SQL and linear algebra

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

The course strives to develop mastery in data engineering through its 5 courses. A quick overview of course content is given below

  • Learn data modeling by creating relational and NoSQL data models
  • Improve understanding of data infrastructure and polish data warehousing skills
  • Understand big data ecosystem and how to use Spark to solve data problems
  • Learn about Apache airflows
  • Practice the learned skills through a capstone project

With this course, designing data models, building data warehouses, automating data pipelines, and working with huge data sets will be no longer a difficult tasks. 

What Are Its Duration And Price?

The course will be completed in 5 months. In the case of pricing, Udacity offers two pricing plans. You can either pay $399/month or pay an upfront amount of $1695 and save 15%. Moreover, you can also apply for personalized discounts.

For details, visit Udacity.

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • One of the best data engineering courses online
  • The opportunity of learning from top data engineers
  • Easy-to-understand curriculum
  • Real-world projects from industry experts
  • Career services
  • Continuous technical mentor support

Cons

  • It is expensive compared to other online data engineering courses

What Are People Saying – Reviews

All students taking this course are completely satisfied with the content of the course as it covered all vital aspects relevant to data engineering.

However, the format of the capstone project was different from the exercises, therefore, some of the learners got confused about how to do coding. Rest it was excellent and all learners found it very helpful and useful. 

13. Google Cloud Big Data And Machine Learning Fundamentals – The Best Course To Learn GCP Fundamental

Another engaging course offered by Coursera regarding managing big data on Google Cloud is Google Cloud big data and machine learning fundamentals.

It is a beginner-level course and its purpose is to introduce the Google Cloud Platform in an easily understandable and engaging manner. No matter whether you possess any programming experience or not, you are equally eligible for this course and can also benefit from it. 

The course is also good for those who want to learn to manage big data and build machine learning models on Google Cloud without disturbing their work schedule. With self-paced learning, the course will only take 10 hours to complete. Ready to upskill yourself? Then go ahead and enroll now

Who Is This Course For?

It is a beginner-level course, therefore, any one of you interested to learn GCP can apply for this course. 

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

This course is a part of multiple specializations and teaches you to build data pipelines and machine learning models with vertex AI on Google Cloud. You will learn these concepts from this course

  • Big data and machine learning on Google Cloud
  • Solutions provided by Google Cloud to manage streaming data
  • Teaches you about Google’s wholly managed serverless warehouse
  • Allows you to explore BigQuery ML and key commands and processes to build machine learning models
  • Learn different options to build machine learning models on Google Cloud
  • Learn machine learning workflow in Vertex AI

With this course, you will become adept in analyzing big data with BigQuery, understand machine learning workflow, and build machine learning models on Google Cloud. 

What Are Its Duration And Price?

The course is of 10 hours. You can access the learning material during your 7-day free trial, however, once your trial ends, you have to pay $49/month. 

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • Engaging course
  • Gives you a good idea about GCP tools and platform
  • Improves career opportunities

Cons

  • Some of the material needs to be updated as it is not coherent with the new version of the platform

What Are People Saying – Reviews

The students find this course very engaging and useful. The course gives you an excellent introduction to GCP tools and the platform itself. Moreover, the hands-on exercises also play an important role in making you adept at GCP. 

However, some of the course material is outdated and needs to update according to the new version of the platform. 

14. Taming Big Data With Spark And Python – An affordable Course To Learn Spark & Python For Big Data

Considering the significance of Spark in managing big data, Udemy has offered another useful course on Spark and Python. The course is an update of Udemy’s previous courses i.e., Spark and Python for big data. 

This is because you will learn to use Spark 3 in this course, the latest version of Spark. To make this learning material accessible for the majority of people, the course is offered at prices affordable to everyone. 

This course will thus enable you to make your career in big data, machine learning, and data science by learning from the knowledge of experts at an affordable cost. 

Who Is This For?

You are eligible to apply for this course if you have access to a personal computer and possess prior programming or scripting experience. Python experience will be preferred. 

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

The course aims at teaching you to manage big data through Spark and Python. The content of the course is organized in the following manner

  • Understand the basics of Spark and RDD Interface
  • Learn SparkSQL, DataSets, and DataFrames
  • Exercise advanced examples regarding Spark
  • Learn to run Spark across clusters
  • Explain Machine learning via SparkML
  • Learn structured streaming and Spark streaming

What Are Its Duration And Price?

The course will take 7 hours to complete and you can buy this course for only $24.99. 

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • Easily understandable
  • Allows to learn both Python and Apache Spark 
  • Affordable

Cons

  • Very few hands-on examples
  • Some of the codes are skimmed with little explanation only

What Are People Saying – Reviews

The course is considered a great course by almost all reviewers. The course content and delivery style of Frank, the instructor of the course simplify the learning process of Apache Spark and Python. 

15. The Building Block of Hadoop – The Best Course To Learn Hadoop

Hadoop is an open-source software framework and it allows the storage of huge amounts of data with enormous processing speed. Therefore, learning this framework is an important constituent for working in the field of big data. 

PLURALSIGHT has come up with an excellent short course for all beginners. The course aims at teaching you all the building blocks of Hadoop in both a cost and time-effective manner. 

Let me show you the complete picture of the course. 

Who Is This Course For?

It is a beginner-level course and you do not need to have any prior experience in the Hadoop framework, however, you must have

  • Experience writing Java code
  • Know what type of processing you have to do on huge datasets

What Are Its Features & Course Content?

The course will guide you on processing and managing huge data sets through the following features

  • Learn the basics of the Hadoop framework
  • Discuss the building blocks of the Hadoop Framework
  • How HDFS helps in storage
  • How you can use MapReduce for processing datasets
  • How to use YARN for cluster management

With this course, you will have a deep understanding of distributed computing and you will learn to process huge datasets easily with the Hadoop framework. 

What Are Its Duration And Price?

The course will be completed in 2 hours and 18 minutes. You can either choose to take this course for free or pay $19/month to access the other courses offered by PLURALSIGHT.

Pros & Cons – Is It Worth Spending?

Pros

  • Affordable
  • Makes you learn all Hadoop tools in an easily understandable manner
  • Teaches you Hadoop without disturbing your work schedule

Cons

  • Some of the concepts lack depth and were not explained in detail

What Are People Saying – Reviews

The course has received positive reviews from all reviewers. And most of the students taking this course appreciated it for its effectiveness in teaching all the building blocks of Hadoop in an easily understandable manner. 

Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)

What is Big data?

Big data is large and complex datasets. It refers to the data that possess a wide variety, increasing volume, and more velocity. 

What are the three types of big data?

The three types of big data are

  • Structured
  • Unstructured
  • Semi-structured

Can I learn techniques to manage big data via online platforms?

Yes, you can learn a wide variety of techniques to manage big data through online platforms.

What is the best online course to learn big data?

There are a variety of platforms that are offering different types of courses on big data. The best course depends on your needs, preferences, and budget.

Is big data an emerging field?

Big data has been pervading nearly every type of organization. Therefore, learning to manage, analyze, and store big data sets has become inevitable for the survival of organizations

Conclusion – Final Thoughts

To conclude, the enlisted courses are the most reliable and trustworthy options to start your career in big data and improve your competitiveness. 

You can choose any of these courses to learn how to manage, process, and store big data. Moreover, building machine learning models will also become easier with these courses. 

Wendy has worked in Marketing for a Fortune 500 company for the past 26 years. She brings a tremendous amount of skill to the site not only in marketing but in software tools as well. With her educational background she will be a valuable asset to reviewing all of the educational courses as well. Financial Nomads is happy to have Wendy on board our team. https://financialnomads.com

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