Best free courses · Data structures & algorithms
Best free DSA courses on YouTube, ranked by total hours
Updated 2026-09-22 · 10 courses · totals are live
DSA is the one subject where the playlist length really matters: the popular placement-prep series run to hundreds of videos, and the difference between a 60-hour course and a 200-hour one is the difference between finishing before campus placements and not. Every entry below is a complete, free course — the numbers are live totals from the playlists themselves.
Language matters less than people think. Pick the instructor you can listen to for 100 hours; the ideas transfer.
From 9h 47m (Data structures) to 4d 18h 33m (Strivers A2Z-DSA Course | DSA Playlist | Placements).
| # | Course | Videos | Total | At 1.5× |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Strivers A2Z-DSA Course | DSA Playlist | Placements · Striver's A2Z DSA Course — take U forward The most complete placement-prep series on YouTube, ordered as a syllabus with a problem sheet to match. Long, and worth it. |
315 | 4d 18h 33m | 3d 4h 22m |
| 2 | Complete C++ Placement DSA Course · Complete C++ Placement DSA Course — CodeHelp by Babbar Love Babbar's placement course: thorough, with a lot of solved problems on the whiteboard. |
149 | 4d 29m | 2d 16h 19m |
| 3 | Java DSA Series · Java DSA Series — CodeHelp by Babbar The same approach in Java, for learners who'd rather not switch languages. |
125 | 3d 2h 34m | 2d 1h 42m |
| 4 | Complete C++ DSA Course | Data Structures & Algorithms Playlist · Complete C++ DSA Course — Apna College Beginner-friendly C++ series that starts from basics and builds up to graphs and DP. Good first course. |
144 | 2d 21h 38m | 1d 22h 25m |
| 5 | Data Structures and Algorithms · Data Structures and Algorithms — Jenny's Lectures University-style coverage of the data structures half in C, at a pace that suits first-year students. |
121 | 1d 19h 37m | 1d 5h 4m |
| 6 | MIT 6.046J Design and Analysis of Algorithms The sequel to 6.006 — advanced algorithms and complexity. For those who want to go further than interviews require. |
34 | 1d 15h 28m | 1d 2h 19m |
| 7 | MIT 6.006 Introduction to Algorithms, Spring 2020 · MIT 6.006 Introduction to Algorithms (Spring 2020) The theory course: proofs, recurrences, and why the algorithms work. Best after a coding-first series. |
32 | 1d 11h 20m | 23h 33m |
| 8 | Data Structures and Algorithms Course in Hindi — CodeWithHarry A Hindi DSA course in C with notes. Accessible if the others feel intimidating. |
92 | 1d 7h 52m | 21h 14m |
| 9 | Algorithms · Algorithms — Abdul Bari The algorithms course everyone recommends: clear derivations of complexity, recursion, divide and conquer, greedy, DP and graphs. Not language-specific. |
84 | 1d 4m | 16h 3m |
| 10 | Data structures · Data structures — mycodeschool Older and shorter, but the linked-list and tree explanations are still among the clearest on YouTube. |
42 | 9h 47m | 6h 31m |
Totals count available videos only and update as the playlists change. Private or deleted videos are excluded. Compare the top 5 side by side →
How to choose
- Preparing for placements or interviews? Striver's A2Z with its problem sheet, or Babbar's course if you want more hand-holding. Do the problems; the videos alone won't do it.
- First time seeing any of this? Apna College or Jenny's Lectures, then Abdul Bari for algorithms.
- Want to understand, not memorise? Abdul Bari, then MIT 6.006.
- Java rather than C++? Babbar's Java series; Striver's course has Java code in the descriptions too.
Finishing a 100-hour course
Nobody finishes these by binge-watching. Open the course here, set a daily budget in the planner — 60–90 minutes with problem-solving time on top — and let it give you a date. Tick videos as you go; the remaining time updates, and you can subscribe your calendar to the plan so it follows the playlist. The study-schedule guide explains the method, and how long DSA takes on YouTube compares these ten courses by hours, with the minutes a day each placement series needs to finish in one to six months.