AZ-900 vs AZ-104: which Azure exam should you take first?

What AZ-900 is: cloud literacy, no experience assumed

AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals is Microsoft’s foundational Azure exam. It assumes no hands-on experience and tests broad conceptual understanding: what cloud computing is, the service and deployment models, Azure’s core services and architecture, security and identity basics, and governance and pricing concepts. It is deliberately accessible — the audience includes career changers, students and non-engineering professionals as much as future engineers.

Its questions ask whether you understand what things are and when they apply, not whether you can configure them. That makes it passable from study alone: Microsoft Learn’s free learning paths cover the entire syllabus, and a few weeks of steady preparation is a realistic runway for a genuine beginner. Our full guide on whether AZ-900 is worth it goes deeper on the exam itself.

What AZ-104 is: hands-on Azure administration

AZ-104 Azure Administrator Associate is a different animal. It is a role-based technical exam covering the day-to-day work of running Azure environments: managing identities and governance with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory), implementing and managing storage, deploying and managing compute resources, configuring virtual networking, and monitoring and maintaining resources.

The exam assumes real Azure experience, and its format shows it — scenario questions, and potentially case studies and drag-and-drop tasks, that are very hard to reason through without having actually done the work. Candidates who attempt AZ-104 from reading alone tend to discover that administration is a practised skill, not a memorised one. Hands-on time in a real or free Azure account is not optional preparation; it is the preparation.

Side by side

The comparison, compressed to its essentials:

• Level — AZ-900 is Fundamentals; AZ-104 is a role-based Associate.
• Audience — AZ-900 suits beginners and non-engineering professionals; AZ-104 targets working (or aspiring) Azure administrators.
• What is tested — AZ-900 tests concepts and literacy; AZ-104 tests practical administration: identity, storage, compute, networking, monitoring.
• Assumed experience — none for AZ-900; real hands-on Azure experience for AZ-104.
• Difficulty — AZ-900 is the most approachable Azure exam; AZ-104 is a substantial step up, with scenario and case-study questions.
• Renewal — AZ-900 never expires; AZ-104 expires after one year and renews free via an online, unproctored assessment on Microsoft Learn in the six months before expiry.
• Both — proctored, delivered by Pearson VUE online or at a test centre, passed at 700 out of 1000, with fees varying by country (check each exam’s page on Microsoft Learn).

Who should take AZ-900 first

Start with AZ-900 if you are new to Azure or to cloud computing generally. The exam’s syllabus doubles as the structured introduction the associate assumes you already have — service models, regions and availability zones, identity concepts, governance — and studying it properly makes AZ-104 preparation dramatically less disorienting. A pass is also a permanent credential: Fundamentals certifications never expire.

AZ-900 first is also the right call for people who may never need AZ-104 at all — non-engineering professionals working around Azure, or anyone still deciding whether cloud infrastructure is their path. It is the cheaper, gentler exam, and if it turns out to be the destination rather than the on-ramp, it stands perfectly well on its own. Nothing about starting with AZ-900 slows down a later run at the associate; its content is the associate’s first chapter.

Who should go straight to AZ-104

Skip AZ-900 if you already administer Azure — or comparable infrastructure — for a living. AZ-900 is not a prerequisite for AZ-104, and for someone who manages identities, storage, networks or virtual machines daily, the fundamentals exam would largely certify existing vocabulary. The associate is the credential employers actually short-list for administration roles, and it is the better use of your study time and exam fee.

Engineers arriving from AWS sit in the same category with one caveat: the concepts transfer, the names do not. If you hold AWS associate-level skills, you already understand the ideas AZ-900 tests; budget your preparation for learning Azure’s services, portal and Entra ID identity model rather than relearning cloud fundamentals, and go straight to AZ-104. The only honest reason for an experienced engineer to sit AZ-900 first is wanting a low-stakes rehearsal of Microsoft’s exam mechanics — legitimate, but optional.

The honest deciding question

Strip everything away and one question decides this: could you sit down in the Azure portal today and do real administration — create and secure resources, manage users in Entra ID, configure a virtual network — without a tutorial open in the next tab? If yes, go straight to AZ-104. If no, AZ-900 first is not a detour; it is the correctly ordered path, and pretending otherwise usually means paying for an associate exam twice.

Taking both, in order, is the most common route for beginners and a perfectly good one — literacy first, then depth, with hands-on practice in a free Azure account bridging the two. Whichever you choose, prepare from the official source: Microsoft Learn’s free learning paths cover both syllabuses, and each exam’s page there carries the current fee for your country. Decide by experience, not by ambition, and either exam will be worth what you pay for it.