Hi everybody,

recently I had some people, who asked me, what useful links I had for new learners of Oracle SQL, PL/SQL and Apex. That’s why I did the following little list:

First of all, it’s useful to create an account with Oracle, if you don’t already have one (it’s free and you don’t need any Oracle Licenses for that):
https://profile.oracle.com/myprofile/account/create-account.jspx – actually, nearly every page listed below demands that, but you always also have the possibility to create an account there as well.

With an Oracle account you can download the Oracle XE database (that is basically a full database, with all functions, but you have restrictions regarding the size of the database: https://www.oracle.com/de/database/technologies/xe-downloads.html. The Oracle XE database contains Oracle Apex and is also usable commercially (at least, was, when this post was written. I do not take any responsibility if that changes in the future).

With the free Oracle account you can also interact with the Oracle community and ask questions (however, as always, please use the search function first and if you don’t find anything don’t forget to list as many facts to your questions as you can think of ;-)): https://community.oracle.com/tech/developers

If you just want to play around with Oracle Apex a little bit, there is also the possibility to create an Apex-Instance directly with Oracle (not for production purposes): https://apex.oracle.com/ (click on auf „Sign In“ and then „Request a Workspace“ – that is a little bit small on the lower end of the page underneath the “Sign In”-button).

You can try SQL and PL/SQL-statements using LiveSQL: https://livesql.oracle.com 

If you want to get more in-depth-knowledge about SQL and PL/SQL-programming with Oracle I would also suggest to check out the DevGym: https://devgym.oracle.com (you can also use it with the Oracle Account).

Have Fun!