Hi !

This is a question that I see coming online again and again. So, here is the best way to help you start your cloud path with Azure for free

https://www.azure.com/free

Simple to remember: azure.com/free 😀

And here is what you got:

• Get USD200* credit to use in 30 days. (Depending on the country in which you sign up for your Azure free account, you may receive this credit in a specified local currency.)
• After your credit, move to pay as you go to keep getting popular services and 40+ other services. Only pay if you use more than the free monthly amounts.
• After 12 months, you’ll continue getting 40+ services free always—and still only pay for what you use beyond the free monthly amounts.

Again, the complete details on the main link below and there is an amazing FAQ for the Free Account.

And hey, if you want to have a sense about how this works, here is a step by step.

_ Disclaimer: I’m writing this on Aug 2022, this may change in the future._

Create an Azure Account

Let’s start in azure.com/free by clicking the [Start Free] button

Now it’s time to verify the account. We can use SMS, so just share a phone number and wait for the validation code. And then the no-so-fun moment of adding Credit Card information (I know … 😔).

Once you finished this steps, we are ready to start with Azure. Let’s go to the portal.

Once in the portal, let’s take a look at the free services, and let’s create a resource for one of them.

Test with 2 popular Azure Services

Click [Home // Create a resource] and search for [Static Web App]

I did a couple of online sessions at Microsoft Reactor about how we can create a Static Web App. For this post, I’ll create a very simple one, without any source code integration (select other instead of GitHub) and using the FREE plan.

This may take some time, as we are creating everything from scratch. Once the resource is created, we can navigate the details and browse our app !

How about an Azure Function? Let’s create one using Python as dev language

After the function is created, we can add some code and make it live ! Again, I hosted several online sessions where I showcase this.

When we take a look at all the resources we are using, we will see the Static Web App and the Function, and a couple of other resources which are necessary to support these two (like a storage).

Azure Free Services

There are 2 types of free services: a set of services availables for the 1st year, and another set of services available for ever (yes !)

The best way to learn about the details for this services is in the main link below. I’ll mention a couple

• In example, for a year you can use Linux Virtual Machines. Several Linux distributions are available. Limits: 750 hours of use per month (that is, just over 31 days) of size B1. The same offer applies to Windows Virtual Machines.
• Similar scenario applies to SQL Server Databases for a yearly free period.

And, how about the free services for ever?

I’ll mention the 2 that I used for examples: Azure Static Web Apps and Azure Functions.

• Using Azure Static Web App we create static file-based web applications integrated with your CI/CD processes. This also includes the use of popular web runtimes like nodejs, or Javascript or Python based websites. We have a limit 100 GB bandwidth per subscription, 2 customised domains and .5 GB storage per app.
• Azure Functions are easier to explain: 1 million requests free per month.

All the necessary information is explained here

As you can see, there are plenty of options to start with Azure. IMHO, working with Azure Functions, Azure Static Web Apps and Azure SQL Server is a great base for a robust application !

Happy coding!

Greetings

El Bruno

More posts in my blog ElBruno.com.