Amazon Web Services

About AWS certifications

AWS sorts its certifications into levels by how much hands-on experience they assume. Foundational exams, Cloud Practitioner and AI Practitioner, need no prior experience and test whether you understand what AWS offers and when to use it. Associate exams, such as Solutions Architect and Data Engineer, check core skills for a job role, and AWS recommends some prior cloud or IT experience first. Professional exams, Solutions Architect and DevOps Engineer, are for people with two or more years on AWS and test design and automation across many accounts and services. Specialty exams go deep on one area such as security or networking.

None of the exams requires another one first. The levels describe how hard an exam is and who it is for, not a fixed order you must follow.

Which exam to start with

• New to cloud, or in a non-technical role: start with Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02). It covers the vocabulary every other AWS exam takes for granted.
• Working with AI rather than building it: AI Practitioner (AIF-C01) is the foundational exam for that, and it pairs well with Cloud Practitioner.
• Building on AWS: Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) is the most common first associate exam, and what it teaches about networking, storage and resilience comes up in almost every later exam. Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01) is the alternative if you build data pipelines.
• After a year or two on AWS: Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02) builds directly on SAA-C03, and DevOps Engineer – Professional (DOP-C02) suits people who own deployments and operations. AWS has announced that SAP-C02 is being replaced by SAP-C03 in November 2026.

Machine Learning Engineer – Associate (MLA-C01) and SysOps Administrator – Associate (SOA-C02) are kept here as retired archives. The exams they were written for have been replaced.

How the practice questions here work

Each cert has practice tests of 10 questions that mix the exam's domains, so any one test is a fair sample of the whole exam. Every question explains why the right answer is right and why each wrong option is wrong, with a link to the AWS documentation it is based on, and each has its own page. Cloud Practitioner, AI Practitioner, Solutions Architect – Associate, Data Engineer and Solutions Architect – Professional also have a full-length timed practice exam that copies the real exam's question count, time limit and domain weights. Your scores are kept in your browser, with optional sign-in if you want them on another device.

These questions are original, written from the public AWS documentation and exam guides. They are not real exam questions, and this site is not affiliated with AWS.