Alibaba Cloud Academy vs AWS Skill Builder

Alibaba Cloud Academy is Alibaba Cloud’s training and certification division for clients, partners, and developers. Programs include Clouder, Specialty, and short video courses, with certification routes across Associate, Certified, Expert, Professional, Capability and Competency, Clouder, and developer credentials. The listed Academy Membership costs $19.90 a year and includes unlimited access to 130+ online training courses, free Apsara Clouder certifications, and up to four attempts for each Apsara Clouder and Specialty certification. Other courses, specialties, credentials, vouchers, and subscriptions may require payment. Academy activities require a main Alibaba Cloud account; RAM accounts are unsupported. Pearson VUE exams can be taken at test centers or online, except online-proctored exams are unavailable in the Chinese mainland. Professional certifications last two years, and status can be verified through a one-step process. Badges can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, but not through Credly.

AWS Skill Builder is a web-based training service for developing AWS Cloud and AI skills, with material for learners from fundamental to advanced levels. Its free resources include 1,000+ learning resources and over 900 self-paced digital courses. Individual subscriptions add AWS Builder Labs, game-based learning, AWS Jam challenges, a no-fee practice sandbox, exam-preparation courses with guided labs, and Official Practice Exams. The annual Individual subscription also includes AWS Digital Classroom courses, which provide self-paced digital training based on classroom courses. Team subscriptions provide administration for assigning and tracking training, plus reports on course enrollment, labs, AWS Cloud Quest, active users, and AWS Jam challenge results. Team learners can use company credentials when their organization has SSO through ADFS, Azure AD, Ping, or Okta. Courses can be browsed, searched, and enrolled in on phones and tablets, though labs and game-based learning are best experienced on a laptop or workstation. Individual subscriptions exclude live classroom training and AWS Certification exams. Team seats are limited to the purchasing company’s employees and contractors.