Which certification should you take?
Answer five quick questions about your platform, experience, role and interests, and we’ll point you at the certification that fits — across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, Terraform and security. Free, no account needed.
Which platform do you want to certify on?
Five quick questions. No account needed — your result shows instantly.
Which certification should you take?
Pick the platform your job — or the job you want — actually runs on, then pick the level that matches your experience. If you have little or no hands-on time, take that platform’s foundational exam first: it assumes nothing, and it teaches the vocabulary every later exam takes for granted. If you already work with the platform, skip the foundation and go straight to the associate-level exam that matches your role, whether that is architecture, development, operations, data or security. No certification here has prerequisites, so the order is about what makes you most likely to pass, not what you are allowed to sit. The quiz above weighs your platform, experience, role and interests to point you at one; the table below compares every certification we cover.
| Certification | Vendor | Level | Best for | Exam | Our take |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS Certified AI Practitioner (AIF-C01) | AWS | Foundational | Anyone heading into AI or ML on AWS, beginners included | 65 Qs · 90 min | A foundational AI credential and a valid first exam |
| AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) | AWS | Foundational | Beginners, career-switchers and non-technical roles | 65 Qs · 90 min | The right first AWS exam for almost everyone |
| AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01) | AWS | Associate | Data engineers and analytics-focused builders on AWS | 65 Qs · 130 min | The right associate if data pipelines are your work |
| AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) | AWS | Associate | Developers building applications on AWS | 65 Qs · 130 min | Deepest on the developer toolchain |
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) | AWS | Associate | Architects, generalists and anyone unsure which associate | 65 Qs · 130 min | The most popular and versatile AWS associate |
| AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate (SOA-C03) | AWS | Associate | Operations, sysadmin and DevOps engineers | 65 Qs · 130 min | The most operations-focused AWS associate |
| AWS Certified Security – Specialty (SCS-C03) | AWS | Specialty | Experienced engineers specialising in cloud security | 65 Qs · 170 min | The deepest AWS security credential, and a later exam |
| Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) | CNCF | Foundational | Anyone starting with Kubernetes and cloud-native tooling | 60 Qs · 90 min | The gentle way into Kubernetes — multiple choice, not a lab |
| Google Cloud Generative AI Leader (GenAI Leader) | Google Cloud | Foundational | Managers, strategists and anyone leading AI adoption | 55 Qs · 90 min | Conceptual by design — no hands-on prerequisite |
| Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer (ACE) | Google Cloud | Associate | Engineers building and running workloads on Google Cloud | 55 Qs · 120 min | The standard entry point for Google Cloud engineers |
| HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate (004) | HashiCorp | Associate | Platform, DevOps and infrastructure engineers on any cloud | 57 Qs · 60 min | The most portable certification here — no vendor lock-in |
| ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity (CC) | ISC2 | Foundational | Career-changers and beginners entering security | 100 Qs · 120 min | A real entry point into security, with no prerequisites |
| Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) | Microsoft Azure | Foundational | Beginners and non-technical roles working around Azure | 45 Qs · 45 min | The right first Azure exam, and it never expires |
| Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) | Microsoft Azure | Associate | Azure administrators, ops and infrastructure engineers | 50 Qs · 100 min | The most-requested Azure associate |
| Microsoft Certified: Fabric Data Engineer Associate (DP-700) | Microsoft Azure | Associate | Data engineers working on Microsoft Fabric | 55 Qs · 100 min | Narrow and deep — take it if Fabric is your platform |
How to choose your certification
Three questions settle it for almost everyone: which platform, how much experience you have, and what you actually do all day.
Let the job pick the platform
Certify in what your employer runs, or what the roles you want name in their listings. Check a few real job adverts for the work you are aiming at and certify in the platform they ask for. If nothing points anywhere in particular, AWS is the most common starting point simply because more organisations run on it — and the concepts transfer readily afterwards.
Let your experience set the level
With little or no hands-on time, start with a foundational exam. It exists to be your first one, and skipping it is the most common reason people fail an associate exam. With real experience, skip it — the foundational paper would mostly re-test what you already know.
Then match the exam to your role
Past the basics, your day job decides: architects take the architecture exam, developers the developer exam, operations engineers the operations one. Within a vendor these are usually the same level and similar in difficulty — the difference is emphasis, not depth.
Consider a portable certification too
Not everything is tied to one cloud. Terraform certifies infrastructure-as-code skills used on every platform, and the Kubernetes and cloud-native exam covers orchestration that runs anywhere. Paired with a cloud certification, either is stronger than a second cloud credential.