Every student discount, credit, freebie and free tool — sorted by category and country.
| Offer | What you get | Verify via | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⭐ Your institution’s subscriptions | LinkedIn Learning, O’Reilly, Coursera for Campus, IEEE/ACM access… are often already included — check your library/IT portal first | Institution login | your school portal |
| ⭐ Your university library | Pays for journals, ebooks, databases (JSTOR, IEEE, ACM, press…) | Institution login | your library portal |
| GitHub Pack courses | Educative, Frontend Masters, DataCamp, Boot.dev, Codédex, Scrimba, GoRails… (10 platforms) | GitHub Pack | see github-pack.md |
| MongoDB certification | Free cert exam ($150 value) | GitHub Pack | mongodb.com/students |
| GitHub Foundations cert | Free cert exam (~$99 value) | GitHub Pack | education.github.com |
| SOLIDWORKS CSWA/CSWP | Free certification exams | School email | solidworks.com |
The Free cert? column tells you whether you can get a certificate without paying — the real differentiator between platforms.
| Platform | What you get | Free cert? | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⭐ freeCodeCamp | Full dev curricula (JS, Python, data, ML…) | ✅ Free verified certs | freecodecamp.org |
| ⭐ The Odin Project | Full-stack web dev path | — (portfolio instead) | theodinproject.com |
| ⭐ CS50 (Harvard) | The famous CS intro course via edX | Audit free, cert paid | cs50.harvard.edu |
| MIT OpenCourseWare | Full MIT courses, materials only | — | ocw.mit.edu |
| Missing Semester (MIT) | The tools course CS degrees skip (shell, git, vim…) | — | missing.csail.mit.edu |
| fullstackopen (Helsinki) | Modern full-stack course | ✅ Free cert | fullstackopen.com |
| Khan Academy | Math, science, econ — all levels | — | khanacademy.org |
| Coursera | University courses — audit most courses free | 💡 Financial aid = free cert on most courses | coursera.org |
| edX | University courses (Harvard, MIT…) | Audit free, cert paid | edx.org |
| OpenLearn (Open University) | Free courses | ✅ Free statements/badges | open.edu/openlearn |
| Saylor Academy | Free college-level courses | ✅ Free certs | saylor.org |
| fast.ai | Practical deep learning courses | — | fast.ai |
| DeepLearning.AI short courses | Free short courses on LLMs, RAG, agents… | ✅ Free completion certs | deeplearning.ai |
| roadmap.sh | Community roadmaps (frontend, backend, DevOps…) | — | roadmap.sh |
| Exercism | Coding practice in 70+ languages + free mentoring | — | exercism.org |
| Codewars | Coding challenges ranked by difficulty | — | codewars.com |
| SQLBolt / Mode SQL | Interactive SQL tutorials | — | sqlbolt.com |
| MDN Web Docs / web.dev | The web platform references | — | developer.mozilla.org · web.dev |
| Duolingo | Language learning | Free tier (ads/hearts; Super paid) | duolingo.com |
| Microsoft Learn | Free MS/Azure training paths | ✅ Free fundamentals certs during exam events | learn.microsoft.com |
| Google Skills / Skillshop | Google product & cloud training | Varies | skills.google |
| Cisco NetAcad / Skills for All | Free networking/cyber courses + labs | ✅ Free badges | netacad.com · skillsforall.com |
| AWS Skill Builder | Cloud training | Free tier (paid tier exists) | skillbuilder.aws |
| GitHub Skills | Interactive git/GitHub courses | — | skills.github.com |
| Class Central | Search engine for free online courses | — | classcentral.com |
| Alison | Free courses (ad-supported) | Cert paid | alison.com |
💡 Coursera trick: most courses have a “Financial aid” link on the course page — apply, wait ~2 weeks, get the full course + certificate for free. Open to anyone, no student status needed.
⚠️ Legal sources only. Shadow libraries (LibGen, Z-lib…) are deliberately excluded — they put you and this repo at risk. Everything below is legal.
| Resource | What you get | Limits | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⭐ OpenStax | Peer-reviewed university textbooks | Fully free | openstax.org |
| LibreTexts | Open textbooks across all fields | Fully free | libretexts.org |
| Project Gutenberg | 70K+ public-domain books | Fully free | gutenberg.org |
| Standard Ebooks | Polished public-domain editions | Fully free | standardebooks.org |
| Open Library / Internet Archive | Borrow scanned books | Free w/ account; lending periods | openlibrary.org |
| DOAB / OAPEN | Open-access academic books | Fully free | doabooks.org · oapen.org |
| arXiv | Preprints (CS, math, physics…) | Fully free | arxiv.org |
| bioRxiv / medRxiv / SSRN | Preprints for bio, med, social sciences | Fully free | biorxiv.org · ssrn.com |
| ⭐ Google Scholar / Semantic Scholar | Academic search engines | Fully free | scholar.google.com · semanticscholar.org |
| Unpaywall | Browser ext. → finds the legal open-access version of paywalled papers | Fully free | unpaywall.org |
| CORE | Aggregator of open-access research | Fully free | core.ac.uk |
| DOAJ | Directory of open-access journals | Fully free | doaj.org |
| Connected Papers / ResearchRabbit | Paper-discovery graphs | Free tier | connectedpapers.com · researchrabbit.ai |
| ⭐ Zotero | Reference manager — essential for papers/theses | Fully free (paid sync storage optional) | zotero.org |
| JSTOR | Open-access journals + register & read | ~6 articles/mo free | jstor.org |