Alibaba Cloud Academy vs Cantrill

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.

Cantrill provides self-paced cloud and technical training through its website, with courses covering AWS, Microsoft Azure, Docker, and technical fundamentals. Lessons combine theory with practical demonstrations; the Advanced Networking course also describes section quizzes, practice exams, GitHub demo assets, visual aids, and captions. A free Docker Fundamentals course covers installing Docker, containerization, and deployment. Paid options include $29 a month for ALL THE THINGS PLUS and one-time plans at $400, paid once for ALL THE THINGS and $600, paid once for ALL THE THINGS PLUS — 1 PAYMENT. Other listed choices split payments across two or three months. The ALL THE THINGS bundle includes current and future courses, unlimited access across devices, and early access to new and in-production courses 6–8 weeks before public availability. Advanced Networking is aimed at experienced engineers or consultants and people with AWS associate-level knowledge, though it starts with fundamentals. It requires an AWS account, which learners need an email address and credit or debit card to obtain. The course page offers a 14-day unconditional money-back guarantee.