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Sanju Shaw
Sanju Shaw

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☁️ AWS Free Tier – Your Survival Guide to Building on the Cloud

#aws #cloud #cloudcomputing #webdev

Slurping coffee ☕

AWS is like that intimidating gym in your neighborhood — full of shiny machines, you don’t know where to start, and you’re scared you might pull something (in this case, your wallet).

If you’re a beginner, the AWS Free Tier is your entry ticket. But here’s the thing:

  • It’s not a magic “everything is free forever” card.
  • It’s not idiot-proof (you can still launch a $200/month server by clicking the wrong dropdown).
  • It is a golden sandbox if you know what you’re doing.

This isn’t a “hey, just sign up for AWS and it’ll be fun!” post. This is the comprehensive guide that tells you:

  • what’s actually free,
  • how not to get billed,
  • what you can realistically build,
  • and why you should even care.

Coffee ready? Let’s go.

🏗 What the Heck Is AWS Free Tier?

The AWS Free Tier is basically Amazon saying:

“Here, try out our services before you decide whether you want to commit. Oh, and if you mess up — that’s on you.”

It comes in 3 categories (don’t mix them up):

✅ 1. Always Free

  • Stays free. Forever.
  • Stuff like 1M Lambda requests/month, 25GB DynamoDB storage, 1M API Gateway calls.
  • Perfect for tiny side projects and “learning mode” work.

📅 2. 12-Month Free

  • Free for your first year after account creation.
  • Includes big-ticket items like 750 hours/month of EC2 t2.micro/t3.micro and 750 hours of RDS.
  • Important: Month 13 comes. The bill comes with it.

⏳ 3. Short-Term Trials

  • “Try SageMaker for 2 months” or “Kendra for 30 days.”
  • Useful for testing, easy to forget to turn off.

Check out their official docs: AWS Free Tier official page

🖥 What’s Actually Worth Using (and What You’ll Break Stuff With First)

Let’s cut through the AWS glossary soup. Here’s the Free Tier starter pack and what you can do with it:

  • 🖥 EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)

    • 750 hours/month for a t2.micro or t3.micro.
    • Think of it as your first “tiny Linux box in the cloud.”
    • Build: a portfolio site, a simple API, or a WordPress blog.
    • ⚠️ Danger Zone: Don’t pick “m5.4xlarge” because it “sounds faster.” That’s a Lamborghini rental, not a free bicycle.

  • 📦 S3 (Simple Storage Service)

    • 5GB Standard Storage, thousands of requests.
    • Build: host a static website, backup project files, store memes.

🎯 CLI Example – Create an S3 bucket:

  aws s3 mb s3://my-free-tier-bucket
  aws s3 cp index.html s3://my-free-tier-bucket
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(For those who are using aws CLI can store media in S3 by running the command above)

  • 🗄 RDS (Relational Database Service)

    • 750 hours for MySQL/PostgreSQL t2.micro.
    • Build: a managed DB for your app (without “sudo apt install mysql” headaches).

  • ☁️ Lambda

    • 1M free requests/month.
    • Build: a Discord bot, a webhook, or a cron job that runs “every morning at 7 AM” without leaving your PC on.

  • 🌐 CloudFront

    • 1TB/month free data transfer.
    • Build: a CDN for your site → faster load times (and bragging rights).

⚠️ The Dark Side of Free Tier:

AWS won’t stop you from making expensive mistakes. Here’s what beginners learn the hard way:

  • ⚡ The “free” instance trap → Free tier covers t2.micro and t3.micro. Click anything bigger → cha-ching.

  • 📤 Data Transfer Gotchas → Inbound traffic = usually free. Outbound = not always. Your side project going viral? That might cost you.

  • 🗑 Zombie Resources → You stop using an EC2 instance but forget to terminate it? AWS doesn’t “assume you’re done.”

  • 🔔 No Billing Alerts → If you don’t set them, you’ll only find out about charges when your card statement hits.

One can set up a billing alarm using AWS CloudWatch.

📌 *🧠 Some AWS wisdom *

☑ “Stopped” ≠ “Deleted” – Stopping EC2 doesn’t stop charges for storage. TERMINATE.

☑ Regions matter – Some Free Tier resources are “per region,” some are global. Don’t scatter them everywhere.

☑ IAM users > root account – Never develop with the root account. Use IAM users.

☑ Billing dashboard is your friend – Check it like you check your phone battery.

🚀 So… What Can You Actually Build for Free?

Here’s where the magic happens. Real beginner-friendly projects that don’t trigger billing nightmares:

✅ Host Your Portfolio or Blog

  • EC2 (server) + S3 (assets) + CloudFront (CDN).
  • Tell recruiters: “Yeah, my site runs on AWS infrastructure.” Boom 💥.

✅ Create a Serverless REST API

  • Lambda + API Gateway + DynamoDB.
  • No server management, no 24/7 EC2 bill.

✅ Build a Discord/Telegram Bot

  • Lambda runs only when triggered.
  • Free Tier = no “always-on server” costs.

✅ Experiment with CI/CD

  • Play with AWS CodePipeline + CodeBuild, or even Terraform → Learn DevOps for free.

✅ Run a Small Database

  • RDS for MySQL/Postgres → Learn DB management without local setup pain.

🛠 Tips for Staying Sane on Free Tier

  • ☑ Always check the region. Free Tier applies everywhere, but pricing differs.

  • ☑ Delete resources. EC2 stopped ≠ EC2 deleted. Delete. Terminate. Burn the evidence.

  • ☑ Use the AWS Pricing Calculator. Before you YOLO deploy something, sanity-check it: calculator.aws.

  • ☑ Stay in the docs. Not glamorous, but AWS Free Tier docs will save you🍀.

☕ Final Sip

The AWS Free Tier isn’t just a “free hosting coupon.” It’s your cloud playground. You can:

  • Learn how real-world infrastructure works.
  • Build a side project or even an MVP for $0.
  • Impress interviewers (“Oh yeah, I deployed that API on AWS Lambda”).

But it’s also not a toy — treat it recklessly and you’ll learn the fastest DevOps lesson of all: cloud billing is scarier than any production bug.

👉 So go ahead. Spin up that t2.micro, deploy your first Lambda, host your blog.
And remember: delete your experiments before AWS deletes your bank balance.

📌 P.S. – This was your map of the AWS Free Tier jungle.
Next up: we’ll dive into real beginner-friendly projects you can build on AWS for $0 — from serverless APIs to personal dashboards. Stay tuned with coffee🍵.

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