Free Resources vs Paid Courses: What's Worth Your Money
You can pass most IT cert exams spending between $0 and $150 on study materials (on top of the exam fee). Here's where to spend and where to save.
Free Resources Worth Your Time
Professor Messer (Security+) — Free YouTube video series covering every exam objective. The gold standard for free Security+ content. His study groups are also free.
AWS Skill Builder (AWS CCP) — AWS's own free training platform. The "Cloud Practitioner Essentials" course is solid and up to date.
Exam objectives document — Download the official exam objectives from CompTIA or AWS. Use it as a checklist — if you can explain every objective, you're ready.
Reddit and Discord communities — r/CompTIA, r/AWSCertifications, and cert-specific Discord servers. Real experiences from people who just passed.
Paid Resources Worth the Money
Practice question banks ($40–$100) — This is the single best investment you can make. Good practice questions teach you more than another video course. Look for teaching explanations, not just right/wrong.
One structured course ($15–$50) — Jason Dion, Andrew Ramdayal, or Stephane Maarek on Udemy (wait for a sale — never pay full price on Udemy).
Not Worth the Money
- Bootcamps costing $2,000+ for a single cert
- Official CompTIA CertMaster ($350) — decent but overpriced for what it is
- Physical textbooks (the content changes faster than print editions)
- "Braindump" sites — they're unethical, potentially illegal, and the questions aren't accurate anyway
The Sweet Spot
Free video course + paid practice questions + the official exam objectives = everything you need for $50–$100 in materials.