Best Back-End Development Bootcamps

By
portrait of Bethanny Parker
Bethanny Parker
Read Full Bio

Writer

Bethanny Parker has been a freelance writer for 14 years. She writes about career advancement, higher education, and real estate. She is a homeschooling mom who writes stories for children in her spare time. She is currently working on her marketing ...
Updated on April 18, 2023
Edited by
portrait of Madison Hoehn
Madison Hoehn
Read Full Bio

Editor

Madison Hoehn has worked as an associate editor for BestColleges, focusing on coding bootcamp rankings and the skilled trades. She is passionate about providing readers with alternatives to a traditional four-year college. She holds a BA in English l...
Learn more about our editorial process

BestColleges.com is an advertising-supported site. Featured or trusted partner programs and all school search, finder, or match results are for schools that compensate us. This compensation does not influence our school rankings, resource guides, or other editorially-independent information published on this site.

Find the program that's right for you

Learn new skills quickly with a bootcamp, or earn a degree from a traditional college.

Find a Bootcamp
Search Colleges

Bill Gates once said, "Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight." Essentially, the behind-the-scenes of web development is so much more than simple code.

If you are a person who is interested in understanding how web development works "behind the curtain," then you may want to look into back-end development. Concerned that it's hard? Learning this discipline may be easier than you think. Coding bootcamps are becoming more and more popular, and back-end development bootcamps are no exception. Attending a back-end development bootcamp can help you establish a new career as a back-end developer or move from a front-end developer position to a full-stack position, which includes both front-end and back-end development.

There are two big advantages to attending a coding bootcamp vs. going to college. The first is that the typical coding bootcamp takes 3-6 months to complete. This allows you to jump into the workplace much more quickly.

The second big advantage is the cost. College can be very expensive. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the average cost of undergraduate tuition and fees in 2019-20 was $13,360 per year. In comparison, the average cost of attending a coding bootcamp was $13,580 in 2021.

In this guide, you'll learn more about the best back-end development bootcamps.

What Is Back-End Development?

You might still be wondering, "What is back-end development?" Back-end development involves coding what happens with the data submitted to the website. For example, if there is a registration form on the website, the user will need to enter his or her email address, desired username, and password. The front-end developer embeds the form into the site, but the back-end developer programs the functionality of the form.

The back-end developer codes the form to accept data and checks it to ensure it meets certain requirements. For example, the code may check the email address to make sure it contains both an "@" and a dot. If it doesn't, the site may display a warning or refuse to accept the input. Once the data has been verified, it is saved in a database.

The most popular programming languages for back-end web development are JavaScript, Python, PHP, Java, and Ruby. Back-end bootcamps usually focus on just one of these languages, but you'll be more desirable to employers if you learn more than one.

Front-End vs. Back-End Development

Front-end development involves coding the part of the website the user can see. Back-end development focuses on the data that is stored behind the scenes on the server. Many web design teams include a front-end developer, back-end developer, and web designer. When one person does both front-end and back-end development, that person is considered a full-stack web developer.

Front-End Development Includes: Back-End Development Includes:
The color theme of the website Collecting data from forms
The font size and styles Validating data
The navigation menu Prompting the user to change the data if it is invalid
Ad placements Saving the data in a database
Headlines Extracting data from a database to display content
Image and video placements Using APIs to connect to other websites
Form embedding Web servers
Sliders Anything else that happens behind the scenes
Anything else the user can see

Coding Bootcamps for You

Best Back-End Development Bootcamps

Clarusway

  • Location: Remote
  • Program Cost: $18,000
  • Learning Format: Online
  • Time Commitment: Part-Time

Career Services
Evening & Weekend Options

This back-end development course teaches students how to develop applications in Python using the Django framework in the back end of a website. Students learn how to design and use databases and how to develop APIs. They learn to use ReactJS and Git. The course includes over 100 hours of training plus 54 hours of career management.


NuCamp

  • Location: Remote
  • Program Cost: $1,925
  • Learning Format: Online
  • Time Commitment: Part-Time

Career Services

Nucamp's back-end bootcamp teaches data structures and algorithms in Python. The 16-week course covers SQL and uploading data to the cloud. Students learn about data structures and how to use Django, Docker, PostgreSQL, and DevOps. The bootcamp is divided into three sections, each of which includes a project that students can add to their portfolios.

Get the Qualities You Want in a Bootcamp

We use icons to make browsing bootcamps easy for you. Use this breakdown to quickly identify program qualities you are looking for.

Accepts GI Bill®

Accepts the GI Bill® as funding for tuition.

Also Available In Person

This online bootcamp also offers in-person options.

Career Services

Offers career services to help you land your dream job after graduation.

CIRR Member

This bootcamp is a current member of the Council on Integrity in Results Reporting. Learn more at cirr.org.

Evening & Weekend Options

Bootcamps are offered during convenient evening and weekend hours.

Job Guarantee

Employment is guaranteed as soon as you finish your bootcamp.

Money-Back Guarantee

Tuition is refunded if you don't land a job within a given time frame after graduation. Visit the bootcamp website for terms and conditions.

Start for Free

No deposit is required to get started. Begin your bootcamp for $0.

Methodology

Bootcamp Ranking Guidelines

At BestColleges, we believe the best bootcamp is the one that fits your schedule, your learning needs, and your career aspirations. That's why we often present our recommendations in alphabetical order -- because the real best bootcamp is the bootcamp that's best for you.

Our Methodology

The Bootcamp Team at BestColleges has collected data for over 150 bootcamps to help you find the best bootcamp.

At BestColleges, we believe the best bootcamp is the one that fits your schedule, your learning needs, and your career aspirations. That's why we often present our recommendations in alphabetical order -- because the real best bootcamp is the bootcamp that's best for you.

At this time, our recommendation round-ups feature only immersive bootcamps designed to prepare students for job placement upon graduation.

To be included on our lists, bootcamps must meet the following criteria:

  • Must offer at least one bootcamp in the United States.
  • Must offer at least one bootcamp that is a minimum of 4 weeks long.
  • Must require at least 15 hours of work per week if the bootcamp is part time.
  • Must encourage at least 10 hours of work per week if the bootcamp is self-paced.

Pricing disclosure: The prices listed were collected from product websites in 2022. However, given the dynamic, fast-paced nature of the tech space, prices are subject to change throughout the year. To get the most up-to-date information about pricing, contact providers directly.

Methodology for Recommending Cheap Bootcamps:

  • The bootcamp must meet all of the general criteria listed above.
  • The bootcamp must cost less than $8,000 if it is offered full time, and less than $5,000 if it is offered part time. These numbers were chosen based on data collected by BestColleges in 2020 that determined the average cost of a coding bootcamp is $13,580.

Back-End Development Careers

The most in-demand back-end development careers are back-end developer, full-stack developer, and software engineer.

Back-End Developer

The back-end developer programs the parts of the site where data is stored, changed, or extracted. The developer writes code that interacts with a database or databases on the server.

Average Annual Salary: $88,490

Full-Stack Developer

A full-stack developer codes both the front end and the back end of a website. The full-stack developer does everything except design the look and feel of the site.

Average Annual Salary: $80,150

Software Engineer

The software engineer works to combine the parts of a project into a unified whole. They work with programmers to define programming tasks and functions.

Average Annual Salary: $89,090

Frequently Asked Questions About Back-End Development Bootcamps

Are coding bootcamps worth it?

Yes, coding bootcamps are generally worth taking. You can learn everything you need to know to start a web development career in just a few months for a fraction of what it would cost to earn a four-year degree.

If you take a coding bootcamp, there's a good chance that you'll be able to land a job as a junior web developer within six months of completing the course. Depending on what you make now, that could mean a significant pay raise when you start your new career.

Is back-end development hard to learn?

Back-end development is not hard to learn, but it is harder than front-end development. In part, the difficulty of learning back-end development depends on the language being used. The bootcamps listed in this guide both use Python, which is relatively easy to learn.

Most back-end programming languages have frameworks and tools that add to their functionality. You'll need to learn these tools, as well as the actual programming language. You'll also need to learn how to interact with SQL databases.

Should I learn front-end development first?

Most developers recommend learning front-end development first. Not only is it easier, but you'll need to understand the code in which the website is written so you can figure out how the back-end code fits into the website as a whole.

Learning front-end and back-end development will help you qualify for more jobs since you could do the job of a front-end developer, back-end developer, or full-stack developer.


GI Bill® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). More information about education benefits offered by VA is available at the official U.S. government Web site at https://benefits.va.gov/gibill/index.asp.


Feature Image: vgajic / E+ / Getty Images