How to Experiment With AWS For Free

The AWS Free tier is a great opportunity to test out and learn about many of the core services

Séverin Bruhat
The Tech Collective
4 min readApr 30, 2024

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Screenshot by the author (source: aws.amazon.com)

In my developer days, I enjoyed using Amazon’s free services for my side projects. I would like to share insights about AWS Free Tier as I think it’s a fantastic way to experiment at no cost. You can use AWS Free Tier for your personal projects. It’s also good if you need to quickly prototype something at work.

Explore the AWS Free Tier

Potential clients can test out and get comfortable with several of the AWS Cloud services for free with the AWS Free Tier. After a year, the majority of the discounts expire, and you’ll have to pay standard prices for the services you use.

You’ll receive an email from AWS when the Free Tier’s expiration date approaches. Then, it will be your responsibility to manually decline or remove the services for which you wish to avoid being billed.

To learn more about the Free Tier options, visit aws.amazon.com/free. Here, you can see that AWS offers more than sixty services that may be used and are categorised into three main kinds of offers.

Screenshot by author

The three types of offers in AWS Free Tier are: Always free; 12 months free; and Trials. Let’s dig into those!

Always free

As you might guess, these services are always free to use up to a certain point. There are generally usage limits after which point you must pay to use these services.

Screenshot by the author — Always Free

For instance, you can use DynamoDB (NoSQL database) for free until you’ve reached 25GB of data. For a side project or a prototype, it should be more than enough.

12 months free

These services are free for use, also generally up to a certain usage limit, for 12 months after your initial signup date.

Use time, number of requests, storage capacity, number of characters, and number of actions per month are a few examples of frequent usage restrictions.

Screenshot by the author — 12 Months Free

Even if you’re still within the first 12 months, you’ll be charged for the service you utilise whenever you exceed a usage cap.

Trials

The majority of the trials have stricter usage limitations and are shorter than a year. Typically, these constraints relate to how much time, space, or requests can be used.

Screenshot by the author — Free Trial

Embrace the AWS Free Tier

Software engineers have access to an affordable platform for developing and deploying apps with AWS Free Tier services. You may test new technologies, create prototypes, and start small-scale projects without breaking the bank by using these services.

You can easily move to paid tiers to meet your growing needs as your apps increase and your needs change. I highly recommend that you take advantage of AWS’s free tier features to expedite your software development process.

If you want more info or wish to browse the large range of services available, check out this link.

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Séverin Bruhat
The Tech Collective

Software Engineering Manager (Scotland, UK). Writing about team management, leadership and software engineering.