Before You Start

DataTalks.Club zoomcamps are free, multi-week, cohort-based online courses. Each cohort follows a fixed schedule with weekly modules, homework deadlines, and a final project. After a cohort ends, materials remain available for self-paced study.

Cost

Free to take, free to receive the certificate. Optional registration for course updates is also free.

You may incur small third-party costs if a course uses a paid cloud service. Most cloud providers offer free tiers or trial credits that cover the course material. See the course-specific environment-setup pages.

Before using any paid cloud, API, or AI tool:

  • Check whether the course has a recommended free tier, trial credit, or low-cost setup.
  • Set a budget alert if the provider supports it.
  • Stop or delete cloud resources when you are done working for the day.
  • Remove unused disks, databases, buckets, clusters, and API keys after a module or project is finished.
  • Ask in Slack before spending money if you are unsure whether a paid resource is required.

The exact tools differ by course. For example, Data Engineering Zoomcamp uses GCP in the main flow, Machine Learning Zoomcamp uses AWS in later modules, and LLM Zoomcamp may use a few dollars of LLM API credits. Always check the course-specific environment setup page.

Cohort schedule

Each course runs once a year as a live cohort. Approximate windows:

  • Data Engineering Zoomcamp: starts in mid-January.
  • Machine Learning Zoomcamp: starts in mid-September.
  • MLOps Zoomcamp: discontinued for now.
  • LLM Zoomcamp: starts in June.
  • AI Dev Tools Zoomcamp: dates announced separately.
  • Stocks Analytics Zoomcamp: dates announced separately.

For the exact start date, check the course GitHub page. Register there if you want to receive cohort announcements by email.

Format

A live cohort runs for 7 to 10 weeks, depending on the course. The structure is:

  • Weekly modules with pre-recorded lectures, reading material, and a homework assignment per module.
  • Occasional live sessions, streamed on YouTube and recorded.
  • A final project at the end (some courses also have a midterm project).
  • Optional workshops between modules.

Between cohorts you can watch all the videos and work through the materials self-paced, but homework forms close after each deadline and the leaderboard is tied to the live cohort. Certificates are only issued during the live project window.

Time commitment

  • 10 to 15 hours per week during the cohort.
  • 2 to 3 weeks of focused work for the final project.

Prerequisites

Most courses assume:

  • Comfort with the command line.
  • Basic Python (or willingness to pick it up).
  • Basic SQL.
  • Basic Git.

The Data Engineering and Machine Learning Zoomcamps are designed for beginners in their respective fields, but they assume general programming literacy. The course-specific prerequisites pages have the exact list.

Certification

The certificate is project-based, not exam-based. Rules vary per course (one project for some, two of three for others), but in all cases you must:

  • Submit the project (or projects) by the deadline.
  • Complete peer reviews of other students’ projects.

Both are required. Skipping the peer reviews means no certificate, even if your project itself passed.

For details, see Certification and the course-specific project page.

Self-paced before a cohort

You can watch past videos and work through the materials before the next live cohort starts. When the next cohort begins, your homework can earn leaderboard points and your project can earn the certificate.

If a cohort is already in progress and you missed the start, see Joining Mid-Cohort.