About 87% of professional developers use Git daily — yet most bootcamps spend fewer than two hours on it. The result: junior developers who know React or Python but freeze when a merge conflict appears on day one of their new job. Learning Git by doing, with a real step-by-step version control workflow, is one of the highest-leverage things a new developer can do before landing that first role.
This review covers Learn Git by Doing: A Step-by-Step Guide to Version Control (Udemy, free), what the course actually teaches, where it falls short, and what to do next once you've finished it. The target audience is anyone who has heard "commit your changes" and nodded along without fully understanding what that means.
What Does "Git by Doing" Actually Mean for Version Control?
Most Git tutorials fall into two traps: they either explain every flag in the manual before you've typed a single command, or they show you a polished finished repo with no explanation of how it got there. The doing approach flips this. You run git init before you understand what a repository is, then the understanding arrives naturally because you can see what changed.
Step-by-step version control learning in this style works because Git has a small core of commands you'll use 90% of the time:
git init/git clone— start a repogit add/git commit— snapshot changesgit push/git pull— sync with remotegit branch/git merge/git rebase— manage parallel work
A course that drills those eight commands with real projects will serve you better than one that explains distributed version control theory for three hours. This Udemy course sticks to the former.
Learn Git by Doing: Course Overview
What's Covered
The course walks through Git from a completely blank slate. There are no assumed prerequisites — not even familiarity with the command line. Lessons are short (5–12 minutes each), and every module ends with a hands-on exercise rather than a quiz. You create a real GitHub repository during the first lesson, which immediately grounds the abstract concept of "remote origin" in something you can click on.
Key topics include:
- Initializing and cloning repositories
- The staging area (the concept most beginners misunderstand)
- Committing with meaningful messages
- Branching strategy for feature development
- Resolving merge conflicts manually
- Pushing to and pulling from GitHub
- Reading
git logandgit diffoutput
What's Not Covered
Be honest with yourself about what this course is and isn't. It does not cover:
- GitLab or Bitbucket (GitHub only)
- Advanced rebase strategies (
--interactive,cherry-pick) - CI/CD pipelines triggered by Git events
- Monorepo management
- Git hooks for local automation
That's fine. It's a beginner course. Trying to cover all of the above would make it worse, not better.
Ratings and Specs
| Platform | Udemy |
| Rating | 4.8 / 5 |
| Price | Free |
| Difficulty | Beginner |
| Pace | Self-paced |
| Certificate | Certificate of completion |
Step-by-Step Version Control: How the Course Structures Git Learning
The course is organized around tasks, not concepts. Instead of opening with "what is version control?", it opens with "let's track a project." Here's the rough sequence:
- Create a repository — run
git init, make your first commit, seegit logshow it - Connect to GitHub — push to a remote for the first time; understand origin/main
- Branch for a new feature — create a branch, make changes, see them isolated from main
- Merge and resolve conflicts — intentionally create a conflict, fix it by hand
- Collaborate — simulate a second developer, pull their changes, handle divergence
Each step has a before/after state you can verify. That's what makes the "doing" label accurate rather than marketing language.
Honest Pros and Cons
What Works
Free with no catch. No upsell into a paid tier after lesson three. The whole course is free, and the certificate is real.
Short lessons prevent fatigue. A 10-minute lesson you finish is worth more than a 45-minute lecture you abandon 20 minutes in. The pacing here is right for developers who are fitting learning in between other tasks.
Real GitHub usage from day one. Some courses simulate a repository locally for weeks before introducing remotes. This one doesn't. You're on GitHub from the first session, which is where you'll be in a job.
Merge conflicts are taught, not avoided. A lot of beginner Git courses show you the happy path and mention conflicts exist. This course makes you create and resolve one on purpose. That's the right call.
What Doesn't Work
No coverage of GitLab or Bitbucket. A significant percentage of companies use one of these instead of GitHub. The core commands are identical, but the web UI, CI integrations, and permission models differ. Worth supplementing with their official docs.
No advanced branching strategies. Git Flow, trunk-based development, and feature flags are all out of scope. Once you're on a real team, you'll need to learn your team's branching conventions regardless of what any single course taught you.
No scripting or automation. Git hooks — small scripts that run before commits or pushes — can save hours of review-cycle time. Not covered here.
Who Should Take This Course
This course is the right call if:
- You are learning to code and have avoided Git because it seems complicated
- You have used Git by copying commands from Stack Overflow without understanding what they do
- You are transitioning careers and a hiring manager mentioned Git in a job description
- You have taken a bootcamp that skipped or rushed version control
Skip it if you already know branching and merging. At that point, you'd be better served by a targeted resource on rebasing, Git internals, or your specific platform (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, etc.).
Top Courses to Expand Your Skills
Once you have Git fundamentals down, the highest-leverage next step depends on your goal. If you're building toward a career in tech — development, digital marketing, or data — these courses are worth a look.
Growth Hacking with Digital Marketing (Now with AI!) Course
For developers who want to understand how to market the products they build, this course bridges the gap between technical skills and distribution — covering growth loops, acquisition funnels, and AI-assisted campaign management.
Foundations of Digital Marketing and E-commerce Course
A Google-backed Coursera course that covers the full digital marketing stack from search to analytics. Useful if you're freelancing or building a side project and need to understand how users actually find your work.
Industrial AI: Predictive Maintenance, Digital Twin & Vision Course
If your Git learning is in service of an engineering or data career, this course shows how AI is applied in physical systems — a fast-growing niche where developers with version-control fluency and domain knowledge are in high demand.
e-Learning Ecologies: Innovative Approaches to Teaching and Learning for the Digital Age Course
If you are building educational content or teaching Git to others, this Coursera course covers the theory and design principles behind effective online learning — relevant for developer educators and technical writers.
FAQ
Is "Learn Git by Doing" actually free on Udemy?
Yes. The course is listed at $0 on Udemy with no trial period. You enroll, access all content, and receive a certificate of completion — all without entering payment information.
Do I need to know the command line before starting?
Basic command-line familiarity helps (knowing how to open a terminal, navigate directories, run a command), but it isn't a hard prerequisite. The course explains the specific commands you need as you go.
How long does the step-by-step version control course take to finish?
Most learners complete it in 3–6 hours of focused work spread across a few days. Because it's self-paced, you can pause between sections without losing progress.
Is the Git certificate from Udemy recognized by employers?
Udemy certificates are not industry-recognized credentials like certifications from AWS or Google. They're useful for demonstrating initiative on a resume but won't substitute for a portfolio of projects that actually use Git. The learning matters more than the paper.
What should I learn after I finish this course?
After completing the basics, prioritize: (1) GitHub Actions for CI/CD, (2) your company's branching strategy (ask on day one), (3) interactive rebase for cleaning up commit history. All of these are learnable through free GitHub documentation once you have the foundation this course builds.
Is Git harder to learn than the course suggests?
The core 80% of Git — the commands you use daily — is not hard to learn. The remaining 20% (resolving complex merge conflicts, recovering from a bad rebase, managing large binary files with Git LFS) does take time and repeated exposure. This course correctly focuses on the 80% and doesn't oversell the rest.
Bottom Line
Yes, take this course. It's free, it's short enough to finish in a weekend, and it teaches Git the right way — by doing it, not by describing it. The step-by-step version control approach means you finish with a real GitHub repository and muscle memory for the commands that matter, not just a theoretical understanding you'll forget by Tuesday.
The main caveat: treat it as a foundation, not a finish line. Git is a tool you learn continuously through use. After completing this course, your next moves are a real project on GitHub, reading your team's branching conventions, and eventually learning GitHub Actions or GitLab CI so your commits actually trigger something useful in the world.
For a free course with a 4.8 rating and a clear, practical structure, there's no reason to skip it.