10 Best Elixir Courses for 2026: From First Steps to OTP

Best Comprehensive Free Elixir Course (Elixir School)

Elixir School is a free, open-source, text-based resource for learning Elixir, and I listed it first because of how comprehensive its curriculum is. It runs from fundamentals all the way through advanced topics like OTP, metaprogramming, and Ecto, plus a range of libraries for testing, data processing, and storage.

It suits all levels. Lessons include examples, explanations, and a companion set of coding exercises to practice alongside the reading. There are no assessments or certificates, just the material and the work you put in.

Founded by Sean Callan, the project is fully open-source and volunteer-driven. Anyone can contribute lessons, translations, or blog posts, and the site has been translated into roughly 20 languages, including German, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian, and Japanese.

The one gap here is practice: the companion exercises are limited. If you want structured coding feedback alongside your reading, Exercism’s Elixir track pairs well with it.

Best Hands-On Elixir Course with Free Mentoring (Exercism)

Exercism’s Elixir track stands out from other exercise-based sites through its free mentoring service. After solving an exercise, you can submit it to one of 857 volunteer mentors who give personalized feedback on your code’s strengths and flaws, and push you toward more idiomatic Elixir. That service costs nothing.

The track splits into two modes. In learning mode, completing exercises unlocks others in the syllabus tree, so the difficulty ramps up gradually. In practice mode, you choose freely from exercises across three difficulty levels. In total, there are 168 exercises covering 58 concepts.

If you want structured reading alongside the practice, Elixir School pairs well as a reference.

Best Elixir Course for Learning OTP (The Pragmatic Studio)

Elixir & OTP teaches Elixir by building an HTTP server from scratch, moving from fundamentals like pattern matching and recursion all the way through GenServers, Supervisors, and a full OTP supervision tree. The course uses screencasts, animated visual explanations, and 56 guided exercises to explain how OTP works under the hood. The Elixir community recommends The Pragmatic Studio as top notch and great value for money.

You can sample the first modules free. No prior Elixir or functional-programming experience is required, but it assumes you already program in another language. This course stops at a peek at Phoenix; for full Phoenix and LiveView coverage, Elixir for Programmers covers that ground.

Best Free Hands-On Elixir Course with Free Certificate (CodeSignal)

Introduction to Elixir is a five-course learning path for beginners covering the fundamentals of the language, from basic syntax to functional programming concepts. It works through data types, structures, functions, and modules, then closes by building a TodoList application.

The path emphasizes practice: 21 lessons and 106 hands-on coding exercises. Cosmo, an AI tutor built into the platform, answers questions and gives hints as you work through them.

CodeSignal runs on a freemium model. Most features are free, including a Certificate of Achievement for each course, but Cosmo interactions are limited in the free tier. More AI help or more frequent exercise submissions require a paid subscription.

Note that the path stays introductory. It does not cover concurrency, processes, or OTP. For that depth, Elixir & OTP from The Pragmatic Studio picks up where this leaves off.

Best Beginner Elixir Video Course (freeCodeCamp)

Functional Programming with Elixir, released in May 2023, is a single five-hour video aimed at programmers new to Elixir. It covers the language from setup through functional-programming fundamentals: pattern matching, immutability, the actor model, Elixir’s core data types, recursion, and list operations, closing with small projects like an expense manager.

It does not reach GenServers, Supervisors, or OTP. For those, Intro to Elixir covers them.

The course code is available in its GitHub repository.

Best Concise Elixir Video Course (Tensor Programming)

No knowledge of functional programming or Elixir is required to take the Intro to Elixir YouTube series by Tensor Programming. In three and a half hours, it covers the language concisely.

What sets it apart is how far it goes for its length: past syntax and data types into processes, message passing, a generic server process, OTP, and GenServer, which short beginner videos rarely reach.

For hands-on practice after watching, Exercism’s Elixir track pairs well.

Best Project-Based Elixir Course for Programmers (The Coding Gnome)

Elixir for Programmers, Second Edition builds a single Hangman application from scratch across all 83 lessons, moving from Elixir types and pattern matching through OTP processes, supervisors, and distributed Elixir, then into Phoenix and LiveView. That single-project spine keeps the learning coherent. The format mixes video, text, quizzes, and exercises throughout.

One caveat: the second edition targets Elixir 1.12 and Phoenix 1.6, both several versions behind current. The language and OTP fundamentals hold up well; the Phoenix and LiveView sections will show their age. An updated code version is available on GitHub.

The instructor is Dave Thomas, who co-authored The Pragmatic Programmer, wrote Programming Ruby and Programming Elixir, and was an original signatory of the Agile Manifesto.

For a free path over similar ground, from fundamentals through Phoenix and LiveView, DockYard Academy’s curriculum is a good alternative.

Best Free Full-Stack Elixir Course (DockYard Academy)

DockYard Academy released its previously paid Elixir curriculum as free, MIT-licensed open source. It covers the full arc: fundamentals, OTP, Phoenix, LiveView, and a capstone project, making it one of the most complete free paths from Elixir fundamentals through full-stack web development.

The material runs as interactive Livebook notebooks. You download the latest release zip, open it in Livebook, and work through exercises locally. That setup takes a few steps, and the latest tagged release is Cohort 2 from June 2023, so the Phoenix and LiveView content reflects 2023 versions of those libraries.

If you’d rather skip local setup entirely, Introduction to Elixir on CodeSignal runs in the browser and requires nothing to install.

Best Elixir Book for Programmers (Saša Jurić)

Elixir in Action by Saša Jurić is the standard reference for the language. Elixir’s creator, José Valim, has praised it as the top book on Elixir. The third edition, released February 2024, covers Elixir 1.15 and recent OTP releases across 416 pages.

It’s aimed at programmers comfortable with client/server applications. No experience with Elixir, Erlang, or functional programming is required, but it skips programming basics entirely.

The book moves in a clear arc: functional Elixir first, then concurrency and OTP, then production and distributed systems. That progression makes it useful both as a learning path and as a reference you return to.

It’s a paid book, though Manning frequently has discounts. It’s also included with a Manning subscription. A free online preview is available via Manning’s liveBook.

If you’d rather learn through video, Elixir & OTP from The Pragmatic Studio covers similar OTP depth in a guided video format.

Best Free Spanish-Language Elixir Course (Martin Algañaraz)

Curso de Elixir de 0 a 100 is a free, comprehensive introduction to Elixir in Spanish, requiring no prior knowledge of the language. At about 28 hours across 81 videos, it covers far more ground than a typical beginner course.

The arc runs from installation and basic data types through pattern matching, recursion, and the pipe operator, then into OTP concurrency (GenServer, supervisors, agents, DynamicSupervisor), testing with ExUnit and Mox, umbrella applications, Plug, and metaprogramming with macros and hot code swapping. That breadth is the real strength here.

Instructor Martin Algañaraz specializes in backend development and distributed systems.