Best PowerShell Courses in 2026: Free and Paid, Ranked

Last updated: October 2026. Written by Josh Hutcheson, OnlineCourseing editor. We re-opened every course below on 22 October 2026 and read its rating, enrollment, length and last-update date from the provider’s own page that day. See our review methodology.

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PowerShell is the automation language every Windows administrator eventually has to learn, and increasingly Linux and cloud engineers too, because PowerShell 7 runs on Windows, Linux and macOS. The right course depends on what you administer: general scripting, Active Directory, Azure or Microsoft 365. We opened every course and resource below on 22 October 2026 to read its rating, enrollment, length and last-update date, and we read the r/PowerShell threads where admins describe how they learned. We earn a commission on some links; it never changes the order, and several top picks are free.

One fact to know before you choose: the current release is PowerShell 7.6 (7.6.6 is the current long-term-support build, and 7.5 is the current stable release). Windows still ships Windows PowerShell 5.1, which Microsoft no longer updates with new features. A good course teaches the shared language and flags where 5.1 and 7 differ.

The best PowerShell courses in 2026

1. PowerShell: Step-by-step — Udemy (Best overall)

Kevin Brown’s six-hour course is the one we recommend to most learners: 4.6 stars from 7,364 ratings and 31,123 students, updated in October 2025. It builds from PowerShell’s principles and Help system through the pipeline, object members, variables, arrays and hash tables, operators and parameters, WMI and CIM commands, processes and services, execution policy, loops and conditionals in scripts, transcripts and PowerShell remoting. It also covers working across PowerShell versions, which is exactly the progression a working admin needs.

Best for: Windows admins and IT staff starting from zero.  Worth knowing: it teaches scripting in the PowerShell ISE; if you prefer Visual Studio Code, pick 2 shows you how to set it up.

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2. PowerShell for Sysadmins: Getting Started (v7+) — Udemy (Best for PowerShell 7)

Adam Bertram’s four-hour course (4.6 stars from 1,201 ratings, updated May 2024) is built on PowerShell 7 and the modern toolchain: installing PowerShell 7, understanding objects, setting up Visual Studio Code, writing your first scripts, Pester tests, remoting, error handling, and building a real PowerShell module. It is the better choice if you mainly work with PowerShell 7 or on Linux and macOS. See the course on Udemy.

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3. Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches, 4th edition — book (Best book)

The resource r/PowerShell recommends more than any other. One member wrote that they learned from this single book and were soon ahead of most of their team; another said they were writing useful scripts by chapter 6. The fourth edition (Manning, March 2022, 360 pages) is by Travis Plunk, James Petty, Tyler Leonhardt, Don Jones and Jeffery Hicks, and it covers Windows, Linux and macOS. Each chapter is designed to fit a lunch break. It is not an affiliate link; we recommend it because it works.

4. Microsoft PowerShell 101 — free, official

Microsoft’s own PowerShell 101 guide, adapted from Mike F. Robbins’s book of the same name, is free on Microsoft Learn and covers getting started, the Help system, discovering objects, one-liners and the pipeline, formatting and comparison operators, flow control, WMI, remoting, functions and script modules. It is authoritative and current, and you can download the whole guide as a PDF. It has no videos or exercises, so pair it with a course or with the practice sites below. Read PowerShell 101.

5. John Savill’s PowerShell Master Class — free on YouTube

A 13-video course from the John Savill’s Technical Training channel, with the class materials on GitHub. Its first video, PowerShell Fundamentals, has more than 532,000 views. The series was recorded in 2019 to 2021, so check version-specific details, but the core lessons on the pipeline, remoting and scripting remain accurate. Watch the Master Class.

6. Learn PowerShell — Codecademy (Best interactive start)

Codecademy lists Learn PowerShell as a free, beginner course: about six hours, with five lessons, four projects and five quizzes covering variables, operators, control flow, objects, arrays and functions. It has 4.4 stars from 678 ratings and 41,332 learners. You type into the browser from the first lesson, which suits people who learn by doing. Start Learn PowerShell on Codecademy.

7. PowerShell for Active Directory Administrators — Udemy (Best for AD)

Also by Kevin Brown (4.5 stars from 8,525 ratings, updated October 2025), this three-hour course focuses on the automation that saves Windows administrators the most time: managing Active Directory users, computers and groups, bulk-importing accounts, automating routine tasks, and even deploying domain controllers with PowerShell. It assumes basic PowerShell, so take it after pick 1. See the AD course.

8. Mastering Azure PowerShell — Udemy

Alan Rodrigues’s 20-hour course has 4.8 stars from 972 ratings and was updated in March 2026. It teaches you to build and manage Azure infrastructure with PowerShell, with practical scripts for a range of Azure resources. It is the natural next step for admins moving toward AZ-104. See Mastering Azure PowerShell.

9. PowerShell 7.5: Beginner to Advanced — Udemy

Fettah Ben’s 12.5-hour course (4.4 stars from 1,058 ratings, updated July 2026) is one of the most recently updated long courses, covering the command line, installing and updating PowerShell, discovering and running commands, local modules, files, variables, arrays and hash tables, and administering Windows machines and servers. See the PowerShell 7.5 course.

10. Practical Windows PowerShell Scripting — Coursera (Pearson)

A three-course Pearson specialization (4.5 stars from 21 reviews, 2,434 enrolled) that takes about four weeks at five hours a week: basics and core concepts, scripting and automation, then building PowerShell tools, including GUIs and reports. Choose it if you want a shareable certificate; it is included in Coursera Plus, which costs $319.20 (normally $399) a year. See the specialization on Coursera.

11. PowerShell Scripting skill path — Pluralsight

Pluralsight’s PowerShell Scripting path bundles 15 courses and 13 hands-on labs, about 63 hours in total. It is the deepest structured option here, and the hands-on labs add practice that video courses lack. It suits IT teams that already have a Pluralsight subscription. See the Pluralsight path.

12. Under the Wire — free PowerShell wargames

Under the Wire teaches PowerShell through wargames: numbered challenge levels you solve in a live PowerShell session over SSH. It is the best free way to practice once you know the basics, and it fits the advice r/PowerShell gives most often: learn by solving problems. Visit Under the Wire.

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What is PowerShell, and why learn it?

PowerShell is Microsoft’s command-line shell and scripting language for automation. What sets it apart from older shells is that it works with objects, not just text: commands, called cmdlets, pass structured data down a pipeline, which makes results far easier to filter, sort and act on reliably. For anyone administering Windows, Active Directory, Azure or Microsoft 365, that means one repeatable way to do work that would otherwise take hundreds of clicks. It is the clearest dividing line between an administrator who does tasks one at a time and one who automates them.

What can you automate with PowerShell?

• User management: create, disable or report on hundreds of Active Directory or Microsoft 365 accounts at once.
• System administration: query services, manage processes, configure servers and audit settings across many machines through remoting.
• Reporting: pull data from systems and export clean CSV or HTML reports on a schedule.
• Cloud resources: provision and manage Azure resources with the Az module, or administer Exchange Online and Teams.
• Scheduled maintenance: turn repetitive tasks into scripts that run unattended.

The fastest way to learn, according to almost every r/PowerShell thread we read, is to pick one tedious task from your own job, such as a weekly report or account setup, and automate it. The skill sticks because you need it.

Windows PowerShell 5.1 vs PowerShell 7: which should you learn?

Learn PowerShell 7, and expect to meet 5.1 at work. Windows PowerShell 5.1 ships in Windows, uses the full .NET Framework, runs only on Windows and no longer gets new features. PowerShell 7 is the open-source, cross-platform successor, built on modern .NET, and it is where Microsoft adds new features: 7.6 is the current long-term-support release, and the previous LTS, 7.4, is supported until 10 November 2026. The core language, cmdlets, the pipeline and objects, is nearly identical in both, so skills transfer directly. Most existing enterprise scripts still run on 5.1, which is why the best courses teach the shared fundamentals and point out the differences.

PowerShell for Azure and Microsoft 365

A large share of PowerShell demand is now cloud-driven. The Az module manages Azure resources from the command line, and dedicated modules administer Exchange Online, Teams and the rest of Microsoft 365, the kind of bulk, repeatable work that is painful in a web portal. If your role is cloud-leaning, build the general scripting foundation first, then take a course like Mastering Azure PowerShell. These skills feed directly into Microsoft’s role-based certifications, covered next.

Is there a PowerShell certification?

No. Microsoft does not offer a standalone PowerShell certification, so be wary of any course that implies one. PowerShell is tested inside Microsoft’s role-based certifications instead. The study guide for AZ-104 (Azure Administrator) lists PowerShell first among the tools candidates should have experience with, alongside the Azure CLI, the portal and ARM or Bicep templates, and Windows Server and Microsoft 365 administration exams expect it too. The practical path is to learn PowerShell as a skill, then earn the role-based certification that matches your job. See our AZ-104 certification guide.

How long does it take to learn PowerShell?

You can be writing useful one-line commands within a week and simple scripts within a month: Month of Lunches is designed as a month of short daily sessions, and Codecademy’s course takes about six hours. Writing robust scripts and modules, with error handling, tests and remoting, takes a few months of regular practice on real tasks. Admins with Bash or programming experience usually move faster, because the concepts of a shell and a pipeline are already familiar.

How r/PowerShell members say they learned

• Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches came up in every thread we read, often as the single resource that worked.
• John Savill’s Master Class was the most-recommended free video course.
• Automate a real task. The most common advice was to find one manual job you repeat and script it, then the next one.
• Use Get-Member and tab completion to explore objects instead of memorizing commands.

Related IT and infrastructure guides: best Windows Server courses, best Active Directory courses, best Linux courses, best Azure DevOps courses, best VMware courses and best IT support courses.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best PowerShell course?

For most learners, Kevin Brown’s PowerShell: Step-by-step on Udemy (4.6 stars from 7,364 ratings, updated October 2025). If you work mainly with PowerShell 7, Adam Bertram’s PowerShell for Sysadmins: Getting Started (v7+) is the better fit, and for Active Directory work, Kevin Brown’s PowerShell for Active Directory Administrators.

Can I learn PowerShell for free?

Yes. Microsoft’s PowerShell 101 guide, John Savill’s 13-video PowerShell Master Class on YouTube, Codecademy’s free Learn PowerShell course and the Under the Wire wargames are all free.

Is there a PowerShell certification?

No standalone PowerShell certification exists. PowerShell is tested within Microsoft role-based certifications: the AZ-104 Azure Administrator study guide lists PowerShell experience, and Windows Server and Microsoft 365 administration exams expect it too.

Should I learn PowerShell 5.1 or 7?

Learn PowerShell 7, and expect to meet 5.1 at work. Windows PowerShell 5.1 ships in Windows but gets no new features; PowerShell 7 is cross-platform, and 7.6 is the current long-term-support release. The core language is nearly identical, so skills transfer.

Is PowerShell easy to learn?

The basics are approachable: most people write useful commands within a week. PowerShell works with objects rather than text, which takes some adjustment if you know Bash, but it also makes scripts more reliable. Writing robust scripts takes a few months of practice.

Should I learn PowerShell?

Yes, if you administer Windows, Active Directory, Azure or Microsoft 365. It is the standard automation tool for Microsoft environments, and the AZ-104 study guide expects it. For Linux-only work, Bash and Python are more common.

Is Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches still worth reading?

Yes. The fourth edition (March 2022) covers PowerShell 7 on Windows, Linux and macOS, and it is the resource r/PowerShell members recommend most often for beginners.

Can PowerShell run on Mac and Linux?

Yes. PowerShell 7 is cross-platform and runs on Windows, Linux and macOS. Windows PowerShell 5.1, the version built into Windows, runs only on Windows.