Wes Bos Review 2024 (JavaScript courses, React courses, price & more)

Are Wes Bos courses worth it? In today’s Wes Bos review I’ll be sharing what this guy is all about.

This post contains affiliate links. I may receive compensation if you buy something. Read my disclosure for more details.

TLDR: Wes Bos Review

💻 Wes Bos currently offers over a dozen web development courses.

🔥 Course production values, content organization & projects are A grade.

🚀 My favorite courses are Beginner JavaScript, React for Beginners, and Fullstack Advanced React and GraphQL.

Who is Wes Bos?

Wes is a Canadian speaker, teacher and full stack developer.

In addition to creating over a dozen web development courses, he also co-hosts the Syntax.fm podcast with Scott Tolinski.

He has over 40,000 students taking his premium courses, with hundreds of thousands of students who’ve accessed one of his freebies.

Wes Bos Review: What courses are available?

Wes Bos currently offers 13 web development courses, with some paid (premium) and some free.

His premium courses include:

• Master Gatsby
• Beginner JavaScript
• Fullstack Advanced React and GraphQL
• ES6 for Everyone
• React For Beginners
• Learn Node
• Sublime Text Power User

While his free courses include:

• CSS Grid
• JavaScript30
• What The Flexbox?!
• Command Line Power User
• Learn Redux
• Mastering Markdown

In my opinon, Wes Bos’ best courses are all the ones that cover JavaScript (frontend, backend, React).

These 3 courses in particular gave me the biggest vanilla JavaScript immersion I’ve seen in awhile:

• Beginner JavaScript
• ES6 for Everyone
• JavaScript 30

Note, you’ll need some JavaScript experience in order to get the most out of ES6 for Everyone & JavaScript 30.

You’ll also build a TON of projects in both JavaScript 30 and Beginner JavaScript.

One of the nice things about both of these JavaScript courses is that there isn’t one massive project. So you aren’t locked into the course for hours. You can skip around and work on other stuff if you get bored.

For example, here’s some of what you build in Beginner JavaScript:

• Face Detection & Censorship
• Audio Visualization
• Image Gallery
• Etch-a-Sketch
• Async+Await Prompt UI
• Web Speech Game
• Dad Joke Fetcher
• Recipe Search

⚠️ Check out Beginner JavaScript here. ⚠️

The React courses (React for Beginners & Fullstack Advanced React and GraphQL) also offer good projects, although you’ll just do one per course.

For example, in Fullstack Advanced React and GraphQL, you’ll build an ecommerce store called Sick Fits.

And in React for Beginners, you’ll build an app called Catch of the Day.

Catch of the Day is a real-time app for a hip seafood market where price and quantity available fluctuate at any given time.

In this project, you build a menu, an order form, along with an inventory management area.

This is where authorized users can update product details immediately.

⚠️ Check out React for Beginners here. ⚠️

And there’s also a Redux course.

However, a note on that.

Wes does mention that Learn Redux is deprecated and that he doesn’t plan on re-recording it. (Specifically, the syntax is outdated.)

On one hand, this is a disappointment, but on the other hand…This type of transparency is desperately needed in modern web development courses!

So many of the bigger platforms don’t even bother publishing their course dates, let alone inform students things are outdated.

Fortunately, from what I’ve seen, that free Redux course is the only one in need of major updates.

Teaching Style

Wes’ teaching style focuses more on the HOW rather than the WHY.

So if you need a more well-rounded introduction to something like React, I would suggest a React course by someone like Web Dev Simplified.

Wes Bos Course Review: Price

As noted above, about half of his courses are that sweet, delicious FREE.

This includes his most popular course, JavaScript 30.

Here’s my full video review of JavaScript 30:

https://youtu.be/gbf36hm9PHc

For his paid courses, Wes offers Purchasing Power Parity so the price varies on your location.

For USA-based learners, the premium courses are *mostly* $89 or $139, depending if you want the upgrade.

For example, the Beginner JavaScript Starter Course is $89. This gives you access to the first 6 modules.

But the Beginner JavaScript Master Package for $139 gives you full access to all 15 modules + the ability to download videos.

The only premium course that does not follow this pricing convention is Sublime Text Power User. You can buy the book for $40 or get the book/video package for $65.

Course Organization & Production Values

For an indie course producer, these courses feel like they’ve been produced by a team of talented people. They are sharp.

I don’t know if he has a crew of devs, wild alpacas or arctic monkeys helping him, and TBH I don’t really care. Because whoever is responsible for these production values is boss level.

Even the landing pages are filled with eye-catching designs while maintaining a good organization.

And I think that’s one of the biggest selling points with Wes Bos courses.

They’re mindfully organized.

As I learned years ago when learning guitar: it’s not about the notes you play – it’s about the notes you don’t play.

And that ethos shines through Wes Bos web development courses.

There isn’t an onslaught of well, let’s just go consult the docs here, ahhh yes, here we are…um OK where were we? and why isn’t my hehehehe terminal running hehehe.

As he notes in JavaScript 30:

We learn by application – encountering many new situations while talking about the hows, the whys and the whats that we use to solve them.

He goes on to say:

We steer clear of opinionated design patterns, frameworks, libraries and any type of abstraction. These things are great and often needed, but can obstruct learning and constrain initial understanding.

Put simply, Wes Bos knows what’s important for learners.

And he sticks to those teaching points and gets you on your way.

Respect for students, pass it on.

THAT is also where the value is. And it’s honestly missing in most other platforms.

Wes Bos vs Andrei Neagoie (ZTM)

I’m going to be honest, I like both Wes Bos and Andrei Neagoie courses.

That said, I think Wes Bos offers a deeper dive into the technicals of JavaScript.

Conversely, Andrei Neagoie / Zero to Mastery (ZTM) is geared more towards new web developers.

Second, another big difference between Wes Bos & Andrei / ZTM is that Wes’ courses are sold individually.

ZTM is offered as a monthly or yearly subscription, where you get access to all of their courses.

The third biggest difference is that Wes focuses almost exclusively on frontend web development.

Whereas Andrei Neagoie / ZTM covers everything from frontend to backend, to cloud computing, hacking and a lot more.

Wes Bos Review: Final Verdict

Are Wes Bos courses worth it?

Yes, I believe most Wes Bos courses are worth it – but you’ll need to have foundational knowledge of JavaScript before heading into a few of them.

Why are they worth it?

Firstly, each course is packed full of relevant information you can start using nearly instantly.

Further, the projects are fun and engaging.

I’m also a personal fan of the course aesthetics.

The landing pages, the production values, and the organization are all hip, fun and engaging.

If you’re having trouble with other courses that just have too much information, check out a Wes Bos course.

Or if you just want to get on the right track the first time, check out a Wes Bos course.

Producing courses is a tough task. Producing good courses is even tougher. Yet Wes Bos manages to create A-grade courses without selling out to a bigger platform.

Wes is looking like one of my favorite indie course creators this year.

Between him and Andrei Neagoie, the Canadians are really upping their web developer education game.

Developers interested in this Wes Bos review are also reading:

• Is The Complete Web Developer: Zero to Mastery worth it?
• Andrei Neagoie Interview: The ZeroToMastery.io Founder Shares His Web Development Journey
• 8 Best Front-End Courses for Beginners [Learn Front-End Web Development ASAP]
• 3 Best React Courses for Absolute Newbies [Learn React ASAP]
• 12 Best React Books [Learn React ASAP for Beginners and Beyond]