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The Catch Behind the AWS Free Tier
Free AWS Services…to an extent
Nothing is free… right?
When it comes to AWS services, there are in fact some services that in and of themselves are free to use forever.
However, the important thing to remember (especially as you are learning and starting out on AWS), is that some free services will create other resources that are not free.
Before we get into the caveats, I would like to give you a quick list of services that on their own are actually free:
- Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
- Auto-Scaling
- Elastic Beanstalk
- CloudFormation
- Identity and Access Management (IAM)
The most immediate thing you may be thinking is, “How are auto-scaling and CloudFormation free when their sole purpose is to scale up your resources on demand?”. Well as I mentioned, the services themselves are free, but the resources they can potentially create are not free.
AWS will generally bill you based on the type of resource you want, and how long you use it for.
Having said that, lets look at what the AWS free tier consists of, so you can get the most out of it without coming across any unexpected charges.
