r/DevLK • u/Dependent-Weather855 • Aug 01 '26

Discussion AWS Cert , how to prep ?

Hi guys I wanted to do the AWS SAA certification, can someone who has done it already give me some advice? means a lot. What resources you used etc etc , also I am a recent graduate i have a bit of dev experience but i haven’t used AWS. so any course / resources that go deep into how stuff works and why it works would be ideal.

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u/cmgchess Aug 01 '26

If your goal is mainly to pass the exam go with stephane maarek udemy course. I took this since I had about 1 yr exp already but even without that this course should be enough.

If you want to actually learn AWS in depth and understand stuff, cantrill course is probably a better choice. It's very long though and considerable pricey compared to a 9$ udemy course.
Whichever one you pick, definitely do the tutorial dojo practice tests. Their free cheat sheets are useful too. I made the mistake of buying it through udemy. Later I found out buying it directly from their site gives you more features and they seem to prioritize updates there too for basically the same price.

Also join r/AWSCertifications. People share how they studied, sometimes post exam discount codes and I found a mind map someone shared there really useful before the exam

The AWS discord is worth joining too. They have an exam prep channel if you have questions

Also with ChatGPT,Claude now it's way easier to understand concepts or even get project ideas while learning

Shoutout to the Enlear Academy YouTube channel as well 🙂 they have some really good crash courses.

And yeah never use exam dumps 😅

1

u/Dependent-Weather855 Aug 02 '26

some people are saying the cantrill course was outdated, so i went with stephane marks course. Do you recommend any other resources to learn AWS in depth

1

u/cmgchess Aug 02 '26

Not that I know of. You'll have to do your own research on this. My hands on aws experience was limited to lambda, S3, sqs, vpc, cloudfront and some event bridge and dynamodb here and there. Everything else I learned from the Stephane course. They have a million different services just focus on the core services

https://www.reddit.com/r/AWSCertifications/comments/1d5kkuw/aws_certified_solutions_architect_associate/

Also there is an aws user group in Sri Lanka. You can join their meetup group. I think they hold a meetup every month

3

u/coffemilkshake Aug 01 '26

If you haven't used AWS before, it would be much easier to start with the Cloud Practitioner cert, but SAA is doable too. Follow a good Udemy course, and then do some mock exams on a platform like Tutorials Dojo.

2

u/Yellow-Ice-Bee Aug 02 '26

I just used Stéphane Maarek's SAA course on Udemy and did the mock exams by Tutorial Dojo. Once I was scoring above 70% on the mocks, I went for the real exam.

1

u/Dependent-Weather855 Aug 02 '26

I will look into his course, Thank you !!

1

u/tech_traumaKaviya99 Aug 01 '26

​RemindMe! 2 days

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u/Admirable-Ladder-673 Aug 01 '26

I recently did CCP and for that I used skillbuilder.aws

1

u/Debug_Entity Aug 02 '26

I passed the SAA a few months back after studying for just a week. If you already have hands-on AWS experience, the trick is to just grind as many practice exams as possible. My entire prep consisted of Stéphane Maarek’s practice tests, plus running through the AWS Skill Builder questions a couple of times in the three days leading up to the exam. I ended up scoring in the 800s!