25+ Best Ansible Courses & Certifications Online in 2026

Ansible is the configuration-management and automation tool that turned tedious server setup into a few lines of readable YAML. Learn it well and you can provision infrastructure, manage configuration and deploy applications across hundreds of machines from one playbook, which is why it appears in so many DevOps, Linux and network job descriptions.

The best Ansible courses are inexpensive, hands-on and taught by working engineers. We checked every course and resource on this page on its live listing on 17 October 2026, recorded current ratings and update dates, read the certification pages on Red Hat’s site, and read recent r/ansible and r/linuxadmin threads to see what practitioners recommend.

Last updated: October 2026. Written by Josh Hutcheson. See our review methodology.

See the top beginner course →

The best Ansible courses at a glance

We list 27 courses and resources. Picks 1 to 4 are reviewed in full; the rest follow in the “more Ansible courses” section after the comparison with Terraform.

Ratings and update dates as shown on each listing on 17 October 2026. Coursera and Educative do not show a last-updated date; “Live” means open for enrollment that day. Red Hat’s course versions are from its own course pages.

Why learn Ansible?

Ansible’s appeal is that it is agentless and readable. Nothing needs to be installed on the machines you manage, because it works over SSH (and WinRM for Windows), and its playbooks describe the desired state in YAML that reads almost like plain English. That makes it one of the friendliest ways into infrastructure automation and a natural companion to Linux, Docker and Kubernetes skills.

Red Hat owns Ansible and sells the enterprise product, Ansible Automation Platform, while the open-source ansible-core remains free. For anyone moving toward DevOps, site reliability or systems administration, Ansible is often the first automation tool you are expected to know.

How we chose these courses

Ansible changes: collections, ansible-core releases and new modules have reshaped it over the years, so freshness was a hard filter, and we flag every course that has not been updated since 2024 or earlier. We favored hands-on labs over slides, weighed rating volume heavily (a 4.5 from 50,000 ratings is a stronger signal than a 4.8 from 200), and opened each listing on 17 October 2026 to confirm it is live and still taught by the same instructor. We also checked each certification claim against Red Hat’s own exam pages.

We earn a commission on some links. It does not change the order, and we list free resources from Red Hat and Jeff Geerling that earn us nothing because they are among the best ways to learn.

1. Ansible for the Absolute Beginner — best starting point

This is the course nearly everyone recommends first. Mumshad Mannambeth of KodeKloud teaches Ansible from zero with labs that run in your browser, so you write real playbooks from the start without building a lab of your own. On 17 October 2026 it had 4.5 stars from 53,898 ratings and 225,257 students, about 2.5 hours of video, and a September 2026 update. It is the most-reviewed Ansible course we found on any platform.

It covers inventory, playbooks, variables, conditionals, loops and roles: enough to be useful on a team. It is short by design, so plan to follow it with pick 3 or pick 2 once the basics click.

Best for: anyone new to Ansible. Watch for: at 2.5 hours it is an introduction, not the whole tool.

Check the price on Udemy →

2. DiveIntoAnsible — Beginner to Expert — most comprehensive

James Spurin’s Dive Into Ansible goes from the fundamentals through templating with Jinja2, dynamic inventory, roles and real project structure, with a lab environment you run yourself. Among the highly rated beginner-to-expert courses it is the most complete single track. On 17 October 2026 it had 4.5 stars from 7,402 ratings and 51,585 students, with 7.5 hours of video.

Its last update was July 2024, so it trails the KodeKloud courses on freshness. The core playbook, role and templating material is still accurate; for current ansible-core and Ansible Automation Platform features, add pick 5 or the Red Hat resources below.

Best for: learners who want one structured course rather than a beginner course plus an advanced one. Watch for: the 2024 update date.

Check the price on Udemy →

3. Ansible Advanced — Hands-On — the natural step up

KodeKloud’s follow-up to the beginner course covers the features you need on real teams: advanced inventory and variables, custom modules and plugins, strategies and performance, and patterns for larger environments. On 17 October 2026 it had 4.5 stars from 10,572 ratings and 75,428 students, with 4 hours of video and a September 2025 update.

Because it is built as a sequel, the two KodeKloud courses pair cleanly: beginner first, then this one. Together they are also a sensible foundation before EX294-specific prep.

Check the price on Udemy →

4. Ansible for Network Engineers (GNS3) — best for network automation

Network engineers have a specific use for Ansible: automating switches, routers and firewalls. David Bombal’s course pairs Ansible with the GNS3 simulator so you can practice on virtual Cisco devices without buying hardware. It is still the most-enrolled network automation course we found (82,772 students), which is why it keeps its place here.

Be aware of two things that have changed. Its rating has fallen to 4.1 from 4,614 ratings, and it has not been updated since January 2024. If you want current material, Shibi Dev’s Mastering Ansible Automation for Network Engineers (4.4 stars, 507 ratings, 23 hours, updated October 2026) is the more up-to-date choice, and Red Hat’s interactive labs include a network section. Bombal’s course remains a quick, low-cost start for Cisco engineers.

Check the price on Udemy →

Ansible certification: the Red Hat path

Red Hat, the company behind Ansible, runs the only Ansible certifications that matter to employers, and it reorganized them recently. Here is the current structure, from Red Hat’s own pages on 17 October 2026:

The old version of this page named EX374 as “the” Ansible certification. That was wrong: EX374 is a specialist exam. For most people the route is the RHCSA (EX200) first, then EX294. All of these are performance-based: you complete real tasks on live systems rather than answering multiple-choice questions.

Red Hat’s official prep course for EX294 is Red Hat Enterprise Linux Automation with Ansible (AU294), now based on RHEL 10, ansible-core 2.16 and Ansible Automation Platform 2.6. Red Hat prices exams and courses by country and shows the price once you choose a location. For lower-cost prep, Imran Afzal’s EX294 course (4.6 stars, 1,672 ratings, updated October 2026) and Shikhar Verma’s RH294-style course (4.6 stars, 904 ratings) are the two we would choose. We have no affiliate relationship with Red Hat.

Free ways to learn Ansible

You can get a long way without paying anything:

• The Ansible documentation. The getting started guide walks you through your first inventory and playbook.
• Ansible Basics: Automation Technical Overview (AU094). A series of free on-demand videos from Red Hat introducing Ansible Automation Platform.
• Red Hat interactive labs. Preconfigured browser environments, starting with a 30-minute ansible-navigator lab, plus network and event-driven Ansible scenarios.
• Ansible 101 by Jeff Geerling. A free YouTube series from the author of Ansible for DevOps; the name r/ansible users mention most.
• Learn Linux TV’s Ansible playlist. Jay LaCroix’s free videos; several r/ansible users say it is where their Ansible knowledge started.

A free start plus one paid beginner course is enough for most people.

Which Ansible course should you take?

• Brand new? Ansible for the Absolute Beginner.
• Want one course that goes deep? Dive Into Ansible or Imran Afzal’s complete course (more recently updated).
• Comfortable and want professional depth? Ansible Advanced.
• Network engineer? Shibi Dev’s course for current material, or Bombal’s for a quick start.
• Need the Red Hat credential? RHCSA first, then EX294 prep and Red Hat’s free labs.
• Building infrastructure too? The Terraform with Ansible bootcamp.

Whichever you choose, install Ansible and automate something real in the first week. In an r/linuxadmin thread, the most practical advice was to rebuild one of your existing virtual machines from scratch with Ansible, then repeat for the rest of your home lab.

Start with the beginner course →

What a good Ansible course should teach

Check the syllabus against the topics you will use on the job. A complete Ansible course should cover:

• Inventory and connections: static and dynamic inventories, groups, and how Ansible reaches hosts over SSH.
• Playbooks and tasks: YAML structure, modules, and idempotency (running the same play safely twice).
• Variables, facts, conditionals and loops: the logic that turns scripts into reusable automation.
• Templates (Jinja2): generating configuration files from variables.
• Roles and collections: structuring automation so it scales and can be shared through Ansible Galaxy.
• Ansible Vault: handling passwords and keys securely.
• Modern tooling: ansible-navigator and execution environments, which Red Hat now teaches in AU294.

If a course stops at playbooks and never reaches roles, templates and Vault, treat it as an introduction.

Ansible vs Terraform, Puppet, and Chef

Terraform is the standard for provisioning cloud infrastructure (servers, networks, managed services), while Ansible’s strength is configuring machines once they exist. The two are complementary, and many teams use Terraform to build and Ansible to configure. Our guide to the best Terraform courses covers the other half, and pick 10 teaches both together.

Puppet and Chef are Ansible’s closest configuration-management rivals, but both rely on an agent on every managed node and on their own languages. Ansible’s agentless, YAML-based approach is a big reason it became the easiest of the three to pick up. If you are learning one configuration tool today, Ansible is the safe choice.

More Ansible courses and resources (picks 5 to 27)

More Udemy courses

• 5. Complete DevOps Ansible Automation Training (Imran Afzal). 4.6 stars from 4,301 ratings, 25,893 students, 7 hours, updated October 2026. The most recently updated all-round course here.
• 6. Getting Started with Ansible (Jay LaCroix). 4.6 stars from 723 ratings, 4.5 hours, updated January 2025. The paid, structured version of the Learn Linux TV style that r/ansible users credit.
• 7. Linux Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE EX294) (Imran Afzal). 4.6 stars from 1,672 ratings, 14,736 students, 7.5 hours, updated October 2026. Exam-focused prep for EX294.
• 8. Red Hat Ansible Automation Training (RH294) (Shikhar Verma). 4.6 stars from 904 ratings, 15 hours, updated September 2026. Follows the Red Hat course syllabus closely.
• 9. Mastering Ansible Automation for Network Engineers (Shibi Dev). 4.4 stars from 507 ratings, 16,778 students, 23 hours, updated October 2026.
• 10. The Complete Terraform with Ansible Bootcamp (TechLynk). 4.7 stars from 482 ratings, 28,062 students, 31 hours, updated February 2026.
• 11. Learn Ansible Automation in 300+ examples (Luca Berton). 4.3 stars from 785 ratings, 48 hours, updated December 2024. Useful as a reference library of worked examples.
• 12. Ansible Automation Platform By Examples (Luca Berton). 4.1 stars from 227 ratings, 3 hours; last updated October 2023, so check it against current AAP before relying on it.

Coursera, Educative and Pluralsight

• 13. Fundamentals of Ansible (Red Hat, Coursera). 4.7 stars from 95 reviews, 10,585 learners, about 6 hours. Made by Red Hat Training.
• 14. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Automation with Ansible (Red Hat, Coursera). Red Hat’s own course on Coursera, about 9 hours. New enough that it had no rating yet.
• 15. Ansible for the Absolute Beginners (KodeKloud, Coursera). The KodeKloud course on a Coursera plan; 4.2 stars from 17 reviews, about 5 hours.
• 16. Ansible: Zero to Production Ready (Educative). Advanced, text-based course with in-browser exercises; 4.7 stars, about 13 hours. Covers Docker and cloud provisioning.
• 17. Automating IT Infrastructure with Ansible (Educative). Beginner level, about 12 hours, 4.4 stars.
• 18. Configuration Management Using Ansible (Educative). A short 4-hour course on inventory, playbooks, roles and Jinja2; 4.6 stars.
• 19. Ansible learning path (Pluralsight). 10 courses, 4 labs and about 17 hours, from environment setup to enterprise automation; courses dated 2025.

Red Hat and free resources

• 20. AU294: Red Hat’s official course for EX294 (RHEL 10, ansible-core 2.16, Ansible Automation Platform 2.6). Priced by region; included in Red Hat’s Learning Subscription.
• 21. AU094: free on-demand videos introducing Ansible Automation Platform.
• 22. Red Hat interactive labs: free, preconfigured browser labs.
• 23. Ansible getting started guide: the official documentation.
• 24. Ansible 101: Jeff Geerling’s free video series.
• 25. Ansible for DevOps: Geerling’s book (2nd edition), the most praised Ansible book in r/ansible threads in 2026.
• 26. Learn Linux TV’s Ansible playlist: free videos by Jay LaCroix.
• 27. Ansible: Up and Running (O’Reilly): the other book r/ansible users recommend alongside Geerling’s.

What Ansible users on Reddit recommend

We read r/ansible and r/linuxadmin threads from March to September 2026 in which people asked how to learn Ansible. The same names came up repeatedly:

• Jeff Geerling. His book and Ansible 101 videos were the most recommended resources by a wide margin. When a September 2026 thread asked whether the book is still current, Geerling replied that it still works with the latest Ansible apart from a few deprecated usages, and an Ansible core developer endorsed the reply.
• Learn Linux TV. Several users said Jay LaCroix’s playlist is where their Ansible knowledge started.
• Automate something you actually need. Configure a web server, harden SSH, create users, or rebuild a home-lab virtual machine from scratch, then keep the playbooks in Git.
• Understand why you automate something. One experienced user noted that AI tools already write decent playbooks; the valuable skill is deciding what to automate and how.

Ansible project ideas to practice

1. Write a playbook that installs and configures Nginx with a templated configuration file.
2. Harden SSH on a group of servers: disable password login, change settings, restart the service with a handler.
3. Create users and groups from a variables file, with passwords stored in Ansible Vault.
4. Turn the playbooks into roles and publish one to a private Git repository.
5. Use Terraform to create two cloud VMs and Ansible to configure them; destroy everything afterwards.
6. For network engineers: back up the configuration of virtual switches in GNS3 or Containerlab.

A four-week Ansible learning plan

If your goal is EX294, hold the RHCSA first, then add one to two months of exam-style practice with pick 7 or 8.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Ansible course for beginners?

Ansible for the Absolute Beginner by Mumshad Mannambeth of KodeKloud on Udemy. It is the most-reviewed Ansible course anywhere (4.5 stars from 53,898 ratings, 225,257 students), it runs browser-based labs, and it was updated in September 2026. If you prefer a slower video style, Jay LaCroix’s Getting Started with Ansible (Learn Linux TV) is the alternative.

Is there an official Ansible certification?

Yes, from Red Hat. The core exam is EX294, which now makes you a Red Hat Certified Advanced System Administrator in Ansible and counts toward Red Hat Certified Engineer in Ansible for RHCSA holders. Red Hat also offers specialist exams such as EX374 (developing automation with Ansible Automation Platform) and EX467 (managing automation). All are hands-on, performance-based exams.

How much does the Red Hat Ansible exam cost?

Red Hat prices its exams by country and shows the price after you choose a location on the exam page, so check EX294 for your region before you budget. Red Hat also sells exams inside its Learning Subscription. The Udemy and Coursera prep courses on this page cost far less than Red Hat’s own instructor-led training.

Is EX374 the main Ansible certification?

No. Older guides, including an earlier version of this page, presented EX374 as the main Ansible credential. EX374 is a specialist exam in developing automation with Ansible Automation Platform 2.5. The main entry point is EX294 (Red Hat Certified Advanced System Administrator in Ansible).

How long does it take to learn Ansible?

Most people write useful playbooks within a few days and reach a solid working level in two to four weeks of practice. Ansible is quick to start because playbooks are readable YAML and it needs no agents on the machines it manages. Exam readiness for EX294 usually takes one to two months for someone who already holds the RHCSA.

Do I need to know Linux before learning Ansible?

Basic Linux command-line comfort helps a lot, since Ansible is mostly used to manage Linux servers over SSH. You should be able to navigate the shell, edit files, manage users and services, and use SSH keys. Our Linux courses guide covers the best places to learn that first.

Can I learn Ansible for free?

Yes. The official Ansible documentation has a getting started guide, Red Hat offers the no-cost Ansible Basics: Automation Technical Overview (AU094) and free interactive labs, and Jeff Geerling’s Ansible 101 video series is free on YouTube. Learn Linux TV also publishes a free Ansible playlist.

Is Jeff Geerling’s Ansible for DevOps still up to date?

Mostly yes. In a September 2026 r/ansible thread, Geerling wrote that the book still works fine with the latest Ansible, while noting he still needs to update a few deprecated usages. He also offers a free copy of the manuscript on Leanpub through the book’s repository.

Is Ansible still worth learning with AI writing playbooks?

Yes. AI tools can draft playbooks, but someone still has to decide what to automate, structure roles and inventories, review the output and keep secrets safe. Experienced users in r/ansible make this point: the value lies in understanding the tool and the problems it solves.

Related guides

• Best Linux courses
• Best Terraform courses
• Best Docker courses
• Best Kubernetes courses
• Best DevOps courses
• Best Jenkins courses
• Best CCNA courses (for network automation)
• Best system administration courses
• Best Google Cloud courses

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