AWS free training on Skill Builder: what the free account includes
AWS Skill Builder is Amazon Web Services' own training site, with a free account and a paid subscription. Only the free tier is listed here. AWS describes it as access to over 900 free self-paced digital courses covering every AWS service and skill level, and the subscriptions page marks digital courses, learning plans and digital badges as included with a free account. Each course page on Skill Builder shows an access row, and every one of the 9 courses listed here reads "Free" there.
AWS free training and certification are different things
AWS Certifications, such as Certified Cloud Practitioner, are proctored exams that cost money and are separate products from Skill Builder courses. The free courses prepare you for them but never replace them: AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials is the standard preparation course for the Cloud Practitioner exam, and the exam itself is not listed on this site. The official practice exams and pretests are also outside the free tier; the free account gets what AWS calls limited access to exam preparation.
AWS free courses with a free certificate: Knowledge Badges and Cloud Quest
What the free tier does issue is a digital badge. AWS's badge page says its badges are free to earn and share: you register for a free Skill Builder account, enrol in a module that offers a badge, such as a Knowledge Badge Readiness Path or a Cloud Quest role, pass the plan's assessment with a score of at least 80 percent, and claim the badge through Credly, where a unique link lets anyone verify it. Cloud Quest badges are earned by completing every assignment in the role instead of by an assessment. AWS states no expiry for these badges. Digital courses on their own, such as Cloud Practitioner Essentials and Technical Essentials, end with a completion record but no badge, which is why those two are marked "no certificate" here while the paths and quests are marked as having a free one.
What the paid subscription adds
The Skill Builder subscription, listed at 29 US dollars a month or 449 a year when the subscriptions page was read, unlocks the full Builder Labs catalogue (a free account gets the Cloud Foundations labs only), the remaining Cloud Quest and SimuLearn roles beyond Cloud Practitioner and Generative AI Practitioner, Industry Quest and the official practice exams. Some Knowledge Badge paths include subscription-only trainings, and their pages say so; those paths, such as Serverless, Object Storage and Networking Core, are not listed here because they are not free in full.
AWS free courses listed here
The 9 entries fall into three kinds: digital courses, Cloud Quest roles and Knowledge Badge Readiness Paths. The hours shown on each page are the estimates AWS prints on the course or plan page.
AWS free training for beginners: Cloud Practitioner
AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials is the 12 hours 45 minutes digital course covering compute, networking, storage, databases, security, pricing and the Well-Architected Framework, with a module outline read from the course page. AWS Technical Essentials is the shorter, more hands-on introduction. Cloud Quest: Cloud Practitioner teaches the same ground as a game with assignments in a live AWS environment and ends with a Credly badge, and the Cloud Essentials Knowledge Badge Readiness Path bundles courses, labs and an assessment into the longest listing on this page at 21 hours 55 minutes.
Compute, containers and generative AI paths
Four further Knowledge Badge Readiness Paths are free in full: Compute, Amazon EKS, Amazon ECS and Amazon Q Developer. Cloud Quest: Generative AI Practitioner is the second free Cloud Quest role. All five sit in the IT hub next to Microsoft's Azure fundamentals paths and IBM's courses, and the AWS certification page lists the badge-earning ones on their own.
How to start AWS free training
The free tier needs an account and, for a badge, a Credly profile.
- Create a free AWS Skill Builder account; no card is needed for the free tier, and AWS Educate offers a separate free route for learners from age 13 with an email address.
- Open the course from its page here and confirm the access row reads "Free" on Skill Builder.
- For a badge, complete the path and pass its assessment with at least 80 percent, or finish every Cloud Quest assignment in the role.
- Create a Credly account to claim the badge; AWS says each badge has its own timeline for being awarded.
AWS free training review: the terms in facts
Cost: nothing for digital courses, learning plans, two Cloud Quest roles, the Cloud Foundations labs and the badges. Credential: a Credly-issued AWS badge for paths and quests, none for standalone digital courses, and no AWS Certification without the separate paid exam. Limits: most labs, the other quest roles, practice exams and Industry Quest need the subscription. The comparison points on this site are the Microsoft Learn paths, which are free and end with a trophy rather than a credential, and the IBM courses, which issue completion certificates and, for some courses, Credly badges.