eCourses Online

In this article, I’ve picked the best online PowerShell courses. Anything you can do with a GUI, PowerShell can do faster. PowerShell is a cross-platform command-line shell and scripting language commonly used for automating tedious tasks, managing system configurations, and much more. You’ll find many system admins, IT managers, and developers who use PowerShell daily. And thanks to scheduling, they don’t even need to lift a finger in order to run PowerShell scripts!

Here are my top picks. Click on one to skip to the course details:

What is PowerShell?

PowerShell is Microsoft’s open-source cross-platform command-line shell and scripting language built for task automation, configuration management, Azure resource management, and much more. Released in 2006, it was originally used for automating administrative Windows tasks but has since expanded to include other platforms like Mac and Linux.

Anything you can do with a GUI, PowerShell can do faster. As a command-line shell, PowerShell has clear benefits like easy automation. But it also differs from the traditional command-line shell in a few ways, like how it operates on objects over text, how it has cmdlets, and how it has many different types of commands.

PowerShell is well-loved among sysadmins, IT managers, and developers (especially those using Windows). In fact, it is the 12th most popular language according to Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2022. And since PowerShell has the support of Microsoft, it is clear that it will continue to be maintained and developed for years to come (the latest version of Powershell, version 7.2.7, was just released a month ago at the time of writing).

Best Courses Guides Methodology

I built this ranking following the now tried-and-tested methodology used in previous Best Courses Guides (you can find them all here). It involves a three-step process:

1. Research: I started by leveraging Class Central’s database with 100K online courses and 200K+ reviews. Then, I made a preliminary selection of 60+ PowerShell courses by rating, reviews, and bookmarks.
2. Evaluate: I read through reviews on Class Central, Reddit, and course providers to understand what other learners thought about each course and combined it with my own experience as a learner.
3. Select: Well-made courses were picked if they presented valuable and engaging content and they have to fit in a set of criteria and be ranked accordingly: comprehensive curriculum, affordability, release date, ratings and enrollments.

Course Ranking Statistics

Here are some aggregate stats about the ranking:

• All of the courses in this ranking with the exception of one are free or have free trial.
• Five of the courses are beginner-friendly, while three are for intermediates or all levels.
• Most of the courses do not require familiarity with the command line.
• 1.6K people follow Class Central’s PowerShell Topic.

Without further ado, let’s go through the top picks.

My #1 pick for the best PowerShell course in 2022 is Microsoft’s Automate administrative tasks by using PowerShell learning path.

By the end of this free course, you’ll be able to create and run script files to automate tedious tasks locally, remotely, and on the Azure cloud.

To enroll in this course you should have some familiarity with the command line.

What You’ll Learn

The first module of this course gives you an introduction to the basics of Powershell. You’ll understand what Powershell is and how to use it to automate simple tasks. Powershell has a built-in help system which you’ll learn how to call to inspect the arguments and return types of commands.

You’ll advance your knowledge of Powershell even further by learning about the pipeline, which can take the output of a file and send it to the input of another file. Coupled with basic programming concepts like variables and flow-control which you’ll learn, you’ll be capable of automating more complex tasks.

So far, you’ve been writing commands to the interactive terminal. What if you can write your commands to a file instead and then run it when necessary? That’s why you’ll be taught how to write and run your own PowerShell scripts while also managing and fixing errors that may appear. Finally, you’ll learn about Azure PowerShell, which you can use to manage Azure resources locally from your terminal.

How You’ll Learn

This course is 2–3 hours long. You’ll learn by going through the tutorials that come with an interactive shell in the browser where you can learn hands-on. You’ll also get badges, points, and trophies for completing the courses.

Fun Facts

• Microsoft Learn is a free, online training platform that provides interactive learning for Microsoft products and programming languages, like C++, C#, Python, and TypeScript.

If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here.

My second pick for the best PowerShell course is John Savil’s PowerShell Master Class.

By the end of this free comprehensive course, you’ll have all the knowledge and technical skills needed to become a PowerShell master.

What You’ll Learn

You’ll start off this course by going through the fundamentals of PowerShell. You’ll learn what was there before PowerShell, the kinds of interfaces available, and the basic structure around commandlets and modules.

Next, you’ll cover objects and utilize the PowerShell pipeline which allows you to redirect outputs to wherever you want. You’ll see the world of opportunities this sort of technique brings to automation! Moving on, you’ll also learn how to use the remoting module in PowerShell so that you can work with PowerShell across the same or even different platforms.

Running PowerShell interactively is nice, but you can also create scripts which you can run when needed. You’ll learn how to write the best scripts to help you automate those pesky tasks, and even learn some advanced scripting techniques in the process. In the course’s final lectures, you’ll learn how to parse data, work with states, as well as a few sections related to Azure automation and functions.

How You’ll Learn

This course is 10 hours long. You’ll learn by watching the lecture videos, following along with the demonstrations, and browsing through the course materials on GitHub.

Fun Facts

• John Savill is a Principal Cloud Solutions Architect at Microsoft. He holds many Microsoft certifications including Azure Infrastructure and Azure Architecture specialist.
• He is the author of eight books on Microsoft technologies including Mastering Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Services and Mastering Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V.
• He is also an instructor on Pluralsight with over 80+ course published and an average course rating of 4.5 / 5.0

If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here.

My third pick for the best PowerShell course is PowerShell for IT Professionals, made by Kamil Pro.

This free course is aimed at IT professionals or system administrators that have never coded before and manage Windows workloads. By the end, you’ll master the shell and be able to write and run your own automated scripts.

You’ll need a Windows machine (preferably you should run Windows server edition as a virtual machine) to get started with this course.

What You’ll Learn

You’ll begin the course with the most important feature: the help feature. It is essential to learn because you don’t want to waste time looking for answers elsewhere if you can find them directly in the shell.

Next, you’ll learn how to run basic commands like navigating through directories and creating files. You’ll also learn how to use pipelines to take the output of a command, format and filter it, before sending the result to the input of another command, moving you one step closer to automation. Providers as blueprints will also be covered.

Remotely managing systems is another powerful tool PowerShell provides, so you’ll learn how to do that. Moving on to the good stuff, you’ll learn how to write scripts, which will include learning programming concepts like variables and conditionals, as well as other PowerShell related concepts like cmdlets. After mastering script writing, you’ll discover that PowerShell is also great at scraping websites and contacting APIs. Finally, you’ll discuss the opportunities with PowerShell you can explore after ending this course.

How You’ll Learn

This course is 9 hours long. All the videos and related exercises are available for free and each video is 20-30 minutes long – thus you can easily find spare time to learn.

Fun Facts

• Kamil is an IT Developer at Mott MacDonald. He has posted many helpful guides on tutorials on several technologies on his blog.

If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here.

In this free series of videos on PowerShell from Microsoft, your hosts Jason Helmick and Jeffrey Snover (the inventor of PowerShell!) discuss everything needed to work effectively with Powershell.

Although the PowerShell version used in this course is 3.0, much of the information in this course is still relevant to this day (as PowerShell forward compatible meaning that anything you wrote in PowerShell 3.0 will still work in 7.0). Plus, it also teaches you the mindset behind PowerShell which will never go out of date.

This course is targeted towards IT professionals that need to improve management and automation.

What You’ll Learn

Don’t fear the shell! The first module will tame your fear of using the command line by giving you an overview of PowerShell, including how to install it, manage it, and customize it. Afterward you’ll get into one of the most important features of PowerShell which is the help system.

Next, you’ll discover what the pipeline is and what it does. You’ll go into the details importing and exporting all sorts of file types. Furthermore, you’ll learn about objects, especially sorting and selecting objects, and how they fit in with pipelines. You’ll then dig deeper into the details of pipelines and see how it actually works. Additionally, you’ll learn about extending the shell and how to find and add snap-ins, modules and commands.

Remoting allows you to run PowerShell commands directly on remote systems from a local machine. You’ll see how useful it can be especially when remoting automations. Speaking of automation, you’ll of course learn how to automate stuff using scripts as well as look at other things like PowerShell security goals, execution policy, and variables.

How You’ll Learn

This course is 6 hours long. You’ll learn by watching the lecture videos and following along with the instructors as they demonstrate PowerShell features throughout the course.

Fun Facts

• Jason is the Program Manager of PowerShell at Microsoft. He’s an avid supporter of the PowerShell/DevOps community and former founder and CFO of PowerShell.Org. He has also authored and co-authored several books on PowerShell.
• Jeffrey Snover is a Microsoft Technical Fellow, PowerShell Chief Architect, and the Chief Architect for the Azure Infrastructure and Management group. He is more commonly known as the inventor of PowerShell.
• This course is for PowerShell 3.0 and above.

If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here.

My fifth pick for the best PowerShell course is PowerShell Koans.

The PowerShell Koans are a set of exercises designed to get you familiar with PowerShell through hands-on code-writing. The koans (questions) start very simple to get you familiar with the basic concepts and progress towards more difficult ones. By the end of the free course, you’ll have a good understanding of the syntax of PowerShell and scripting.

What You’ll Learn

The course consists of 6 modules: Introduction, Foundations, Katas, Cmdlets 1, Constructs and Patterns, and Cmdlets 2.

Introductions will teach you basic programming and PowerShell concepts, some of them being assertions, data types, and cmdlets. Then, Foundations covers arrays, comparisons, conditionals, functions, order of operations, hash tables, loops, and pipelines. Meanwhile, Katas is a short module on processing strings and sorting characters.

The Cmdlets 1 and 2 modules will introduce you to various useful cmdlets like discovery, object methods like SelectObject and MeasureObject, and a lot more. Finally, Constructs and Patterns will teach you about lists, StringBuilders, advanced functions, redirection, error handling, regular expressions, etc.

How You’ll Learn

The course consists of 6 modules. Each koan is represented by a failing Pester test (a PowerShell test framework). You’ll learn hands-on by making those tests pass by filling out the correct answer or writing the correct code.

Fun Facts

If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here.

If you want to learn PowerShell while at the same time learning the features available in the latest version of PowerShell (PowerShell 7.0), then this LinkedIn Learning course with free trial is for you.

By the end, you’ll be able to automate, inspect, and manage your IT environment efficiently and with ease.

No prior experience with PowerShell or the command-line is required for this course.

What You’ll Learn

First, you’ll set up your PowerShell, choose your development environment, and take a look at basic PowerShell syntax. Then, you’ll get started writing new commands and executing existing commands that use data, specific types of objects, and then even use existing commands that you already have on your machine. You’ll also learn some basic programming concepts like variables and control-flow to help you write your first script.

Scripts can run not only on your machine but also remotely on other machines. Before learning how to execute scripts remotely though, you’ll figure out how to navigate file systems and retrieve data from files, including JSON files. Finally, you’ll step through some of the new updated commands and properties available in PowerShell 7.

How You’ll Learn

This course is 4 hours long. You’ll learn by watching the lecture videos, answering the chapter-wise quiz, and trying your hands on the exercise files given in the course.

Fun Facts

If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here.

UnderTheWire is a platform for information technology and security people for learning and practicing PowerShell. The website hosts free interactive ‘wargames’ or exercises where you’ll be given cybersecurity and system administrative tasks to complete from your PowerShell terminal.

You should have basic familiarity with the command line and cybersecurity concepts prior to taking this course.

What You’ll Learn

There are 5 wargames in total: Century, Cyborg, Groot, Oracle, and Trebek.

Century is the most basic wargame. It focuses on parsing files, usage of PowerShell operators, file searches and general navigation techniques in a Windows environment.

Cyborg covers slightly more advanced topics like working Active Directory, AppLocker policies, Alternate Data Streams and auto-start items.

Groot contains a wide range of topics like file hashing, working with Windows registry, getting information about filesystems, managing firewall rules, getting BIOS info, and more.

Oracle meanwhile will have you filter through Windows event logs, manage group policies, and extract recently visited websites and remote desktop sessions from Windows registry.

The final wargame includes topics like working with Windows scheduled tasks, event logs parsing, and auto-run.

You can find more detail about the wargames and view their solutions here.

How You’ll Learn

This course contains five wargames. Each wargame contains a number of levels which you’ll have to complete to progress to the next level. You’ll learn by writing commands directly from your PowerShell terminal.

Fun Facts

• This website was inspired by a very similar website but for Bash scripting called OverTheWire.
• The idea of Under the Wire was conceived on a business trip between two co-workers in 2015.

If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here.

This paid course is designed to teach beginners about PowerShell and hopefully get them started in writing PowerShell scripts.

Starting from the very beginning, beginners will learn how to install and configure PowerScript and then kind of work their way through learning PowerShell and writing scripts. By the end of the course, learners will be able to automate common administrative tasks and perform bulk operations using PowerShell.

No prerequisite knowledge is required for this course.

What You’ll Learn

This course is divided into three domains: PowerShell basics, scripting basics, and practical scripting.

The first domain dives you right into the world of PowerShell. You’ll learn what PowerShell is and what it is used for, how to install it, and what are the basic configurations that you’ll need to work efficiently with PowerShell.

The second domain covers basic scripting concepts needed to automate common tasks. You’ll learn about data structures like arrays and hash tables. You’ll also learn about arithmetic, assignment, comparison, and logical operators. You’ll also learn about flow-control statements like if, switch, foreach, for, do, and while statements. All of these concepts will help you build the best script for your automation needs.

Finally, the third domain takes scripting a step further by exploring practical uses in the real-world. For example, you’ll learn how to prompt for user input, archive files by dates, and compare hash values of different objects.

How You’ll Learn

This course is 8 hours long. You’ll learn by watching the lecture videos and following along with the course instructor.

Fun Facts

• Mike Rodrick is a tech enthusiast working at ITPro.TV as a technical instructor. He became a Microsoft Certified Trainer in 2004, and since then has been helping people get their Microsoft certifications since Windows 2000 Server.
• Certain parts of the course can be skipped. If you’re new with PowerShell, start with the basics. If you’re familiar with PowerShell but new to scripting, start with scripting basics. If you’re familiar with scripting but want to take it to the next level, start with practical scripting.

If you’re interested in this course, you can find more information about the course and how to enroll here.