Top 10 AWS Courses and Certifications [2021 July]

With AWS, you take advantage of a scalable, reliable, and secure global computing infrastructure, the virtual backbone of Amazon.com’s multi-billion-dollar online business that has been honed for over a decade.

Read on to find out about top 10 choices for Amazon Web Services courses and certifications online that will help you build a successful start-up or a career that helps businesses start-up!

Disclaimer: We may receive affiliate compensation for some of the links below at no cost to you.

1. AWS Machine Learning Foundations Course by Udacity

Advance your career by earning a scholarship for the AWS Machine Learning Engineer Nanodegree program.

Study machine learning techniques and algorithms, programming best practices, python coding, and Amazon AI Services and Amazon AI Devices, including Amazon SageMaker and Amazon DeepComposer. The foundations course is intended to help developers of all skill levels get started with machine learning.

This course will take help you Learn software engineering practices and how they apply in data science, Clean and modular code, code efficiency, refactoring, documentation, and version control, Learn software engineering practices and how they apply in data science, Testing code, conducting and logging code reviews, Learn the basics of object-oriented programming, Build your own Python package. You will also learn introduction to machine learning, generative AI, and AWS Decomposer, build a custom Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) with deep learning foundations.

The course leads for this certification will be Jyothi Nookula, Principal Product Manager at AWS; and Rahul Suresh, Engineering Manager at AWS AI.

Top 5 reasons we love this course

• Learn by doing exercises
• Taught by industry professionals
• Part of a Nanodegree program
• 2 months of Free learning
• Beginner level 

Interested? Sign Up Here

2. XSeries Program in AWS Developer Series by edX

In this integrated, three-part skills series, you will learn how to use your software development and developer operations skills in the AWS Cloud ecosystem.

We will begin with an introduction to AWS services and AWS development SDKs. You will start with a simple web application. Throughout the course, you will then learn how to make the application more durable, scalable, and secure. You will gain hands-on experience with foundational AWS services such as Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, and Amazon RDS. 

In addition, you will create an event-driven architecture using AWS Lambda, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), and Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS); improve application performance; and make your application highly available. You will also implement image processing with Amazon Rekognition and text-to-voice functionality with Amazon Polly.

This course is taught by 7 experts from AWS who are committed to teaching learners in this 5-month self-paced learning curriculum recognized by industries across the globe.

Top 5 reasons we love this course

• 3 high quality courses with expert instructions
• More than 80 hours of online learning
• Each course can be taken independently as well
• Flexible Schedules
• Certificate recognized by employers

3. AWS Solutions Architect Certification Training Course by Simplilearn

AWS certification training is essential for every aspiring AWS certified solutions architect. You will master AWS architectural principles and services such as IAM, VPC, EC2, EBS and elevate your career to the cloud, and beyond with this AWS solutions architect course.

The AWS Solutions Architect Certification training will enable you to design, plan and scale AWS implementations utilizing over 70 cloud computing services. The AWS course is aligned with the latest AWS exam featuring Amazon designated best practices.

This course is taught by Marc Weaver, who is an AWS Solutions Architect & Database Expert. He has over 15+ years of experience working with investments banks across the globe. He has authored courses on AWS solutions architecture and Database migration.

The need for AWS certified professionals is increasing every year. The AWS market is expected to reach $236B by 2020 at a CAGR of 22 percent with more than 380,000 cloud computing jobs available around the world (source: Indeed). 

Are you still thinking??

Top 5 reasons we love this course

• Cutting-edge curriculum designed in guidance with industry and academia to develop job-ready skills
• Leading practitioners who bring current best practices and case studies to sessions
• Capstone projects involving real world data sets with virtual labs for hands-on learning
• 24x7 Learning support from mentors
• A community of like-minded peers to resolve any conceptual doubts

4. AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate by Pluralsight

AWS is the most popular and most widely used cloud platform in the world. This course will teach you design principles, including strategies for networking, storage, DNS, DBaaS, Monitoring, Load Balancing and much more.

Before you begin, make sure you are already familiar with the fundamentals of AWS, perhaps by taking the AWS Fundamentals for System Administrators course at Pluralsight.

In this course, you will learn about designing workload deployments on the Amazon Web Services platform by learning Strategies for networking, Storage, DNS, DBaaS, Monitoring, Load balancing and much more.

Your instructor for this course will be Elias Khnaser, a Research Vice President with Gartner for Technical Professionals (GTP). Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Khnaser was the CTO for Sigma Solutions. He is well-published with six books and hundreds of blogs on Forbes, InformationWeek and VirtualizationReview.com. He has also presented at various Gartner and industry conferences.

By the end of this course, you will have the skills and knowledge needed to securely design highly available and scalable systems, and you'll also be highly prepared for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate certification exam.

Top 5 reasons we love this course

• Free 10-day trial
• Taught by Industry expert
• Flexible schedule
• Industry recognized skills and certification
• 500mins+ of online learning

5. Free AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner 2019 by Udemy

Next on our list is this free study course that you can use to pass the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner. If you're new to AWS or Cloud Computing this course will teach you the fundamental knowledge for AWS and will directly prepare you for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification. With a week's works of study, you'll be confident enough to take and pass this AWS exam.

This 3-hour 45 min course has 10 sections with 87 lectures that will take you through Cloud Concepts, AWS global Infrastructure, EC2 Pricing models, Billing and Pricing, technology overview, security, variation study, and much more.

Andrew Brown, CEO, Founder and Lead Instructor at ExamPro (previously the CTO of Teambox and OneClass. I've been a full-stack developer specializing in Ruby on Rails where in the last decade he has built 30+ web-applications.) will be your instructor for this course along with Andrew Bayko, Co-founder at ExamPro, Network and Support Engineer for 12+ years. I can wear all hats: Growth Hacking, DevOps, Full Stack Development.

No prior knowledge of AWS is needed to take this course, so what are you thinking about?

Get, set and go!

Top 5 reasons we love this course

• Taught by experts with practical knowledge
• Flexible schedule
• 3 hour and 45 mins of on demand video
• Shareable certificate
• No prior knowledge required

6. Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional 2021 by Udemy

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional certification is one of the most challenging exams. It requires some substantial hands-on and real-world experience for you to pass. This course is going to help you solidify the knowledge you already have and put it in perspective through the study of various solutions architectures and services.

The creator of the course is Stephane Maarek, he will also be your instructor in this course. He is a 7x AWS Certified including AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional & AWS Certified DevOps Professional, and has already taught 270,000+ students and received 80,000+ reviews with a rating of 4.7 star out of 5.

500+ slides on how to clear the AWS Professional Certification available in downloadable PDF Format. A lot of pre-requisite knowledge is assumed for that course. If you don't feel confident, please review the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate course first. Other certifications and extra hands-on experience is a huge plus.

Top 5 reasons we love this course

• 13 hours on-demand video
• 3 articles and 1 downloadable resource
• Full lifetime access
• Access on mobile and TV
• Certificate of completion

7. AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials by Coursera

If you’re new to the cloud, whether you’re in a technical or non-technical role such as finance, legal, sales, marketing, this course will provide you with an understanding of fundamental AWS Cloud concepts to help you gain confidence to contribute to your organization’s cloud initiatives. 

This course, offered by AWS itself, is also the starting point to prepare for your AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification whenever it’s convenient for you.

You will be taught by Rudy Chetty, a Senior Solutions Architect originally from sunny Cape Town, South Africa. He works with numerous customers including Amazon Robotics, Amazon Fulfillment Technology, Supply Chain Optimisation Technology and Amazon.com itself. Along with Morgan Willis, a Senior Cloud Technologist based in the US. Morgan has a background in Software Development, technical training, and has earned 6 AWS Certifications. And, a Top Instructor from Coursera - Blaine Sundrud, from Washington D.C., who has been teaching technology for more years than he is willing to admit.

In this course, you’ll understand the benefits of the AWS Cloud and the basics of its global infrastructure, describe and provide an example of the core AWS services, including compute, network, databases, and storage, articulate the financial benefits of the AWS Cloud, define core billing and pricing models, and learn how to use pricing tools to make cost-effective choices for AWS services.

Top 5 reasons we love this course

• 20 hours on-demand video of 4.8 out of 5-star rating
• Shareable certificate
• Flexible deadlines
• Taught by Subject matter experts
• Financial Aid available

8. AWS Fundamentals: Going Cloud-Native by Coursera

This 4.7 rating course will introduce you to Amazon Web Services (AWS) core services and infrastructure. Through demonstrations you'll learn how to use and configure AWS services to deploy and host a cloud-native application. 

You will learn how the AWS cloud infrastructure is built, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and Amazon Lightsail compute services, networking on AWS, set up Amazon Virtual Public Cloud (VPC) and different cloud storage options, including Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS), Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Amazon Elastic File Service (EFS), along with AWS Database services, such as Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) and Amazon DynomoDB, monitor and scale you application on AWS using Amazon CloudWatch and Amazon EC2 Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) and Auto Scaling, plus security on AWS, as well as how to manage costs when using the AWS cloud platform. 

The course will be taught by Allen Goldberg, Coursera Top Instructor, who leads the development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). Previously he was a Technical Trainer with AWS, teaching classes worldwide on Architecting, Systems Operations, Data Warehousing, and Big Data and Analytics. Along with Morgan Willis, a Senior Cloud Technologist based in the US. Morgan has a background in Software Development, technical training, and has earned 6 AWS Certifications. And, another Top Instructor from Coursera - Blaine Sundrud, from Washington D.C., who has been teaching technology for more years than he is willing to admit.

Top 5 reasons we love this course

• 24% learners started a new career after completing these courses
• 22% got a tangible career benefit from this course
• 11% got a pay increase or promotion
• Shareable certification
• Subtitles available in Arabic, French, Portuguese (European), Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Vietnamese, Korean, German, Russian, English, Slovak, Spanish

9. AWS Fundamentals: Building Serverless Applications by Coursera

This course is part of the AWS Fundamentals Specialization, and will introduce you to Amazon Web Services (AWS) serverless architecture. Through demonstrations and hands-on exercises, you'll learn skills in building and deploying serverless solutions.

Using real-world examples of a serverless website and chat bot, you'll build upon your existing knowledge of the AWS cloud to take advantage of the benefits of modern architectures for greater agility, innovation, and lower total cost of ownership across a range of AWS services, including AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Lex.

With a rating of 4.76 out of 5, instructors Rick Hurst, Technical Architect; Jonathan Dion, Senior Technical Trainer; Adam Becker, Technical Trainer; Bobbie Atristain, Technical Trainer; and Wes Gruver, Senior Technical Trainer from AWS teach cloud computing courses around the globe.

Top 5 reasons we love this course

• 40% learners started a new career after completing these courses
• 27% got a tangible career benefit from this course
• 11% got a pay increase or promotion
• Shareable certification
• Subtitles available in Arabic, French, Portuguese (European), Italian, Vietnamese, Korean, German, Russian, English, Spanish

10. Certified Developer – Associate Certification Preparation for AWS by Cloud Academy

To master your professional skills as a software developer who develops cloud applications on AWS, this training is an excellent way to learn more topics and best practices.

This Learning Path will help to develop students' knowledge of DevOps with AWS. You will learn about key services, techniques, and methodologies including CI/CD, Serverless, and the decoupling of architecture to design, implement and support optimized and resilient applications at scale.

The components of this learning path have been grouped together in the following categories where you will find both courses and labs to take you through each topic - Access Management, Compute, Databases, Storage, Encryption, Edge Services, Serverless Architecture, CI/CD, and Developer Tools.

This is an intermediate difficult course and needs prior understanding of AWS. You will have 42 hours of learning grouped into 32 videos, 2 resources, 6 examinations, and 24 hands-on-lab practices. Ultimately the objective is to gain the knowledge required to successfully pass the AWS Certified Developer - Associate Certification.

Stuart Scott, the instructor for this course, has been working within the IT industry for two decades covering a huge range of topic areas and technologies, from data center and network infrastructure design, to cloud architecture and implementation.

To date, Stuart has created 90+ courses relating to Cloud reaching over 140,000 students, mostly within the AWS category and with a heavy focus on security and compliance.

Top 5 reasons we love this course

• 4.6 out of 5-star rating
• Hand-on-practices to test skills and learning
• Certificate of Completion
• Taught by expert faculty
• Self-paced learning