AWS Cloud Practitioner vs AZ-900: Best $100 Cloud Cert in 2026

Here's the short answer: if you have no idea where you'll work yet, take the AWS Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02). AWS still leads the overall cloud market, so it's the safer default.

But if you're aiming at a big enterprise, a government agency, or any company that runs on Microsoft 365, take AZ-900 instead. Azure owns that world, and hiring managers there care more about Azure skills than AWS ones.

Either way, you're spending about $100 and a couple weekends. Let's break down exactly what you get for that.

What each exam costs and covers

Both exams are entry-level, multiple-choice, and priced within a dollar of each other. The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (exam code CLF-C02) costs $100. The Microsoft Azure Fundamentals exam (AZ-900) costs $99 in the US, with regional pricing elsewhere.

Here's how they stack up side by side:

	AWS Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02)	Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)
Exam fee (US)	$100	$99
Questions	65 (50 scored, 15 unscored)	About 34-60
Time limit	90 minutes	About 45 minutes
Passing score	700 out of 1,000	700 out of 1,000
Cert validity	3 years	Never expires
Typical study time	About 20-30 hours	About 10-15 hours
Best for	Startups, SaaS, general tech	Enterprise, government, Microsoft shops

CLF-C02 tests four domains: cloud concepts, security and compliance, cloud technology and services, and billing plus support. The security and services domains carry the most weight, so expect a lot of "which AWS service does X" questions.

AZ-900 covers three areas: cloud concepts (25-30%), Azure architecture and services (35-40%), and Azure management and governance (30-35%). It leans harder on general cloud theory and lighter on memorizing individual services.

One underrated difference: the AZ-900 certification never expires. AWS makes you recertify every three years, though passing any higher-level AWS exam renews it automatically.

Which exam is harder?

AZ-900 is the easier of the two, and it's not particularly close. It's shorter, covers fewer services, and asks more conceptual questions like "what's the difference between IaaS and PaaS."

CLF-C02 expects you to recognize a wider spread of services — EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS, CloudWatch, IAM, and a few dozen more. You don't need hands-on depth, but you do need to know what each one does and when you'd pick it. That recall load is what trips people up.

Neither exam is genuinely hard, though. These are the "prove you did the reading" tier of IT certs. If you've passed something like the CompTIA A+ — see our CompTIA A+ certification guide if you're weighing that route — either of these will feel manageable.

Study time: what to realistically expect

For AZ-900, plan about 10-15 hours if you're new to cloud. People with any IT background regularly prep in a single weekend. The exam's 45-minute time limit sounds tight, but most test-takers finish with time to spare.

For CLF-C02, budget about 20-30 hours. The extra time goes into learning the AWS service catalog, which is bigger and messier than Azure's fundamentals scope. Spread it over two to four weeks and you'll be fine.

My honest advice: don't over-study either one. These exams have a passing score of 700 out of 1,000, not 900. Once your practice test scores sit comfortably above 75-80%, book the real thing.

Which cert matters more in the 2026 job market?

Market share is where this gets interesting. As of early 2026, AWS holds roughly 30% of global cloud infrastructure spending, Azure sits in the low-to-mid 20s, and Google Cloud is around 13-14%. AWS is still the overall leader, but Azure has been growing faster — around 40% year over year against AWS's roughly 19%.

Raw share doesn't tell the whole story, though. Azure dominates specific hiring pockets: large enterprises, government agencies, healthcare systems, and any org already paying for Microsoft 365. Those companies get bundled pricing and existing vendor relationships, so they default to Azure.

AWS leads almost everywhere else — startups, SaaS companies, media, and most cloud-native engineering teams. It also shows up in more job postings overall.

So the practical rule: search job listings in your city for "AWS" and "Azure" and count. Whichever appears more in the roles you actually want is your answer. A cert aligned with your local market beats a cert aligned with global statistics every time.

What about getting both?

Taking both exams is a legitimate move, and cheaper than it sounds. The core concepts — shared responsibility, IaaS versus PaaS versus SaaS, pricing models, high availability — overlap heavily between the two exams.

That means whichever one you pass first does most of the studying for the second. Plenty of people knock out AZ-900 a week or two after passing CLF-C02 with maybe five extra hours of prep. For about $200 total, "certified in both major clouds" is a genuinely nice line for a beginner resume.

I'd still only recommend this for career changers padding a thin resume. If you have IT experience, that $200 and time is better spent on one associate-level cert.

Free study resources that actually work

You shouldn't pay for a course to pass either of these exams. Both vendors give away everything you need.

For AWS, use AWS Skill Builder. The free tier includes the official Cloud Practitioner exam prep course and a free official practice question set. Pair that with the free-tier AWS account so you can poke around the console yourself.

For Azure, Microsoft Learn has a complete free AZ-900 learning path with sandboxed hands-on exercises. Even better, Microsoft regularly runs free Virtual Training Day events for Azure Fundamentals, and attending has historically come with a free AZ-900 exam voucher. Check the current schedule before you pay the $99 — you might not have to.

If you want video, the freeCodeCamp full-length courses for both exams on YouTube are legitimately good and completely free.

Should you skip both and go straight to associate-level?

Here's my honest take: fundamentals certs are optional resume boosters. Associate certs get jobs.

Nobody gets hired as a cloud engineer because of CLF-C02 or AZ-900. Recruiters filter for AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) or Azure Administrator (AZ-104), because those certs signal you can actually build and manage things. The fundamentals tier signals you understand the vocabulary.

So who should skip the fundamentals? If you already work in IT — help desk, sysadmin, networking — go straight to associate-level. You'll cover all the fundamentals material on the way anyway, and you'll save $100 and a few weeks.

Who shouldn't skip? Total beginners, career changers, and non-engineers. If you're coming from retail, sales, or an unrelated field, a fundamentals cert gives you a confidence win, a structured start, and a line on your resume while you work toward the bigger cert. It's the same logic we cover in our guide to certifications that pay well without a degree — stack small wins into a bigger credential path.

Fundamentals certs also make sense for people who work near cloud rather than in it: project managers, sales engineers, recruiters, and analysts. For those roles, AZ-900 or CLF-C02 alone is genuinely enough.

What entry-level cloud jobs pay

Cloud pays well, even at the bottom rung. Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for computer and IT occupations was $105,990 as of May 2024 — more than double the median for all occupations.

Entry-level is lower than that median, obviously. Realistic starting ranges for cloud support and junior cloud ops roles in the US run about $75,000 to $95,000, depending on city and company. Job board averages for "cloud support engineer" often show $120,000 or more, but those figures blend in experienced folks, so don't anchor on them for your first role.

The trajectory is the real story. Mid-level cloud engineers routinely clear $130,000, and specialized roles — security, DevOps, architecture — go well beyond that. Cloud certs consistently rank near the top of our highest-paying certifications list, and the entry point you pick here feeds directly into those paths.

One caveat: a fundamentals cert alone won't command these salaries. The $75,000-plus entry roles expect an associate cert, some hands-on projects, or prior IT experience alongside it.

Bottom line

Pick based on where you want to work, not on which exam is easier.

Go with AZ-900 if your target employers are enterprises, government, healthcare, or anywhere already running Microsoft. It's cheaper by a dollar, faster to study for at about 10-15 hours, and the cert never expires.

Go with CLF-C02 if you're aiming at startups, tech companies, or you're genuinely unsure. AWS's roughly 30% market share means it's the most portable single choice, and the harder exam does a better job forcing you to learn the service catalog.

And if you already have IT experience? Skip both. Put your $100 and your study hours into AWS Solutions Architect Associate or AZ-104 instead — those are the certs that show up in job requirements. The fundamentals exams are a great on-ramp, but they're the on-ramp, not the destination.