SQLBolt is free, has no signup, and is the best first hour in SQL we know of. It is also finite: we counted 53 exercise tasks across 18 lessons on 2026-09-11, and the tutorial ends before window functions and CTEs — the two things SQL interviews test most. This page is about what SQLBolt does brilliantly, where it stops, and what to do on the day you finish it.
219 FREE of 287
Every Easy + Medium, 6 Hard previews
Both are free
SQLBolt has no paid tier at all
No signup either way
Browser-only, instant
We fetched sqlbolt.com and every lesson page on 2026-09-11. There is no pricing page, no account, no login, no subscription and no premium tier anywhere on the site. That is unusual and it is worth saying plainly: nobody is trying to sell you anything on SQLBolt. The comparison below is therefore not about money. It is about where a free tutorial ends.
Use SQLBolt when…
You have never written a SELECT. SQLBolt's first lesson puts a runnable query and a Pixar movies table in front of you in about four seconds, with no account and no setup. Eighteen lessons take you from SELECT to GROUP BY in an order that was clearly designed by someone who has taught this. If that is where you are, start there and come back.
Use SQL Quest when…
You can already write a JOIN and an aggregate, and you have an interview or a job to be ready for. That is the point where SQLBolt runs out: no window functions, no CTEs, no company-shaped questions, and no feedback beyond right-or-wrong. 219 free challenges, a wrong-answer diagnostic that names the mismatched row, and a Coach that picks what to do next.
Not a criticism. A tutorial is supposed to end. But it is worth knowing where the edge is before you walk off it in an interview.
1. The last six lessons are not analyst SQL
Lessons 13 to 18 cover INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE TABLE, ALTER TABLE and DROP TABLE — 12 of the 53 tasks. Useful, and almost never what a data interview asks. The query half of SQLBolt is 41 tasks.
2. Window functions never appear
There is no lesson and no topic page for them. In our own bank window functions are the single deepest skill, and they are what separates a passing screen from a failing one at most analytics employers.
3. The subqueries topic has no exercises
We checked the page on 2026-09-11: it explains subqueries well and gives you nothing to run. Same for the Unions, Intersections and Exceptions topic. Reading a subquery and writing one under time pressure are different skills.
4. Nothing remembers you
With no account there is no record of what you solved, so a second visit starts from a blank slate and there is no way to see which patterns you keep failing. That is the thing a person preparing for something actually needs.
5. Wrong means wrong
The exercise checks your result table against the expected one. When they differ you are told they differ. Finding out which row and why is left to you, and for a beginner that is exactly the moment the session ends.
6. One small dataset
The Pixar movies table is charming and it is tiny. Query patterns that only show up on data with real shape — fan-out on a join, NULLs in an aggregate, ties in a ranking — are hard to meet there.
You are on day one. Nothing we have built beats SQLBolt's first twenty minutes. It asks for nothing, explains one idea at a time, and the exercise is on the same screen as the explanation. If you are starting from zero, start there. We would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
You want to learn INSERT, UPDATE and DDL. SQL Quest does not teach those at all. SQLBolt has six lessons on them.
You want a fixed, finite path with an end. Eighteen lessons and you are done. A 287-challenge bank with an adaptive coach is the opposite shape, and for some people that is worse, not better.
You object to accounts on principle. SQLBolt has none. SQL Quest does not require one either, but it will offer you one so your progress survives, and that is a real difference in kind.
Every SQLBolt number on this page was counted from the live site on 2026-09-11, not from memory. We fetched sqlbolt.com, took the twenty lesson links from its own index, requested each one, and counted the items in the exercise task list on each page: 53 tasks across 18 lessons, with the introduction and closing pages carrying none. We fetched both topic pages (Subqueries, and Unions/Intersections/Exceptions) and found no task list on either. We searched the homepage and lesson pages for pricing, subscription, account and login strings and found none. SQL Quest's counts come from its own challenge bank, which a test in our repository binds these pages to, so a stale number here fails our build rather than quietly misleading you. If any of this has changed since, the fix is to re-count, and we would rather you tell us: the feedback button is on every screen.
Related: best SQL practice sites · vs SQLZoo · vs DataLemur · comparison hub
Pick up at window functions and CTEs, the two things the tutorial never reached. Every Easy and Medium challenge is free, and the Coach tells you why a query is wrong rather than that it is.
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Other comparisons: vs SQLZoo · vs DataLemur · vs LeetCode SQL · vs StrataScratch