Best Cybersecurity Courses in 2026

With so many different Cybersecurity courses out there, it can be easy to get overwhelmed and not know which to choose. (Especially when some of these courses are focused on specific tools, niche roles, or are insanely expensive).

So I figured I would make it easy for you and share my top picks for the best Cybersecurity courses you can take in 2026 if you’re just starting out as a beginner.

I breakdown the details of each course, how much it costs, as well as any other important information so you can choose the best option for your own needs.

Mile high overview

For the skimmers in the audience, here’s a quick overview of each course

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at each of these, working through them in alphabetical order.

#1. Foundations of Cybersecurity by Coursera

• Price: $59 a month or $399 for the year

• TrustPilot score: 1.5/5

• Last updated: Doesn’t say

At 8 hours long, this course is a great introductory option to cybersecurity principles. 

You’ll learn the foundation of threats and attacks, as well as common steps to protect, detect, and deal with them, and even get a certificate by the end.

It should be pointed out however, that this isn’t one of the industry recognized cybersecurity certificates that some employers look for, such as the CompTIA+ security. (None of the ones provided here are). These are more for showing on your LinkedIn profile.

As for support, they offer an old school customer forum for you to ask questions, however it’s not super active.

They also have some TrustPilot score issues due to people getting charged when they shouldn't and refund requests not going through. However, this is bound to happen when you have literally hundreds of millions of students.

As with all online platforms, check reviews and see what the recent students have to say.

#2. Cybersecurity 101 by TryHackMe

• Price: $16.99 a month or $126 a year if paid in advance

• TrustPilot score: 4.5/5

• Last updated: Doesn’t say

This course is more of a roadmap than a single program, but it does cover mainly beginner principles before moving onto more advanced stuff.

One of the things I really like about this course is they have follow along ‘mini-games’ during each lesson to help you pick up ideas. Basically it loads up a virtual machine with a specific example program. Then you follow along and either hack or try to defend, by following the steps and hints they provide in the lesson.

For example

In this case, we’re shown how to run a command line tool that looks for backdoor exploits on a fake bank account. You then access the admin URL and steal funds.

Pretty cool right?

This type of thing is great for getting the basic ideas and has almost a video game quality where you’re searching for the solution.

However, it does require some searching on your part, as some terms are used that you are assumed to know, so you may be scratching your head a little. And it's not always clear what you need to do at each point, which can be a little hard to figure out at first.

Also, it’s not quite the same as running these tools yourself, because you’re learning on rails in a closed program environment. Obviously this is very different to getting practice with the same kind of thing in the real world, where you might need to run a few different things, and look for opportunities, so you’re kind of learning only how to do it in their example vs actually being able to do it properly.

That being said, you’ll definitely pick things up and remember them vs just learning theory. 

Add in the fact that it’s just $17 a month, and you’ll get a great understanding, and can always move onto more advanced courses. Not only that but the platform has hacking challenges added each month as well as a private Discord community to chat to other students.

All in all, it’s a great option, and they have the 2nd highest TrustPilot score on this list.

#3. CS50’s Introduction to Cybersecurity by Harvard University

• Price: Free on their trial or $499 if you want the certificate at the end...

• TrustPilot score: 1.3/5

• Last updated: Doesn’t say

I’ll be honest, this course is almost entirely theory based, so it's great for learning concepts, but not very applicable. Not only that but the assignments are just questions and answers from the videos you watch.

Those complaints aside, it’s still worth watching, simply because CS50 puts out fantastic content, and are great teachers. So you’ll pick up things here easier than other programs.

Even better news?

You don’t actually have to pay for this course. Yes you can get free trial access via EdX, but you can also watch the entire thing for free (minus the q+a assignments) on FreeCodeCamp:

I recommend watching this if you’re starting from absolute zero and you can throw it on in the background and pick up a few things, before diving into more applicable courses on this list after.

#4. Complete Cybersecurity Bootcamp by Zero To Mastery

Intermediate

Complete Cybersecurity Bootcamp: Zero to Mastery

11 Hours •98 Lessons

Go from zero to hired as a Cyber Security Engineer. Learn the latest cybersecurity best practices, techniques, and tools so that you can build and defend your digital assets against hackers.

Aleksa Tamburkovski

• Price: You can buy this course at a one off price of $199. or you can get access for $43 a month, or $299 for the year if paid in advance. There is also a lifetime offer where you get access to all courses, forever, for just $1,299. That includes all future courses and updates

• TrustPilot score: 4.9/5

• Last updated: December 2025

Just a quick heads up. We are Zero To Mastery so this course is one of ours, and is taught by our cybersecurity expert Aleksa Tamburkovski. (It’s his introduction before some more advanced courses). 

However, I promise to give an unbiased opinion, and you can check the 3rd party reviews for yourself. In fact, I recommend doing this for all these courses and platforms.

You can check out all the 3rd party reviews here, as well as student testimonials here. We’ve had people hired at companies like Google, Amazon, Tesla, NVIDIA and more. Often with zero prior experience!

With that out of the way, let me break this course down.

At 11 hours long, this course is designed to take you from absolute beginner to understanding and getting experience with more advanced techniques and tools.

This means that rather than just overarching theory, you’ll learn how hacks happen and defense works, and get to see them in action in real world situations.

For example

In this lesson, you’re learning about social hacking and phishing. Basically getting people to give you their details and information, so you can then use that to get further access to things.

Here you can see that the tool on the screen allows you to create fake login screens of major websites. (In this case, Instagram). The idea being that you send this to  the user, they go there and try to enter their login details, and you can monitor and steal their passwords.

Sneaky right? The worst thing is, it takes about 10 seconds to set this up!

The goal with these lessons is to help you learn about these threats, how they work, as well as security best practices to be more secure and also fix any hacks.

To be clear, you’re not going to be actively hacking sites as such just yet in this particular course, as it's for beginner's. However, it does give you the foundations for follow up programs, so you can then choose where to focus on next. 

• Do you want to defend? 

• To attack? 

• To search for vulnerabilities and get paid big bucks when you find them?

It covers the entry to all of this and more, as well as give you access to a private Discord community where you can chat with the teacher (yes there are in there answering questions!), as well as other students and working cybersecurity professionals.

This way if you get stuck or want to ask career questions, you can get help right away.

As a ZTM member, you get access to this course and all other cybersecurity programs, so you can follow a set roadmap of what to learn in what order to be hired.

Not only that, but you get access to the entire course library, so you can pick up other skills and drill down further.

What to focus on network security? 

Why not take the AWS, DevOps, and Network Security+ programs so you have even more specific experience!

All available on the same membership. All up to date. All with certifications.

So which should you choose?

All of these programs are priced fairly similarly, and each have their own pros and cons.

I would say:

• Watch the CS50 video for free to get a basic mile high understanding of how cybersecurity works

• Have a play around with TryHackMe so you can learn while playing. It’s super cheap but it is limited to just cybersecurity courses

• If you already have a Coursera account, then this is a great program to check out

• And if you want get hired in a cybersecurity role, and move into other positions (or simply start securing your own sites), then join our program at Zero To Mastery

The trick is to pick one and get going. 

Cybersecurity is a booming industry and becoming more and more important each year. So don’t hold off on picking up these skills!