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Azure Free Account? Is it really free?

Michael Crump on March 09, 2020

Azure Free Account? Is it really free? Azure is an extremely big and powerful cloud platform that you can use to develop and run your ap...
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samarpandeb

Regarding the 200 credit, I wish MS would have allowed free-account holders to decide, when to start the 30days immediately upon registration or anytime later with a limit of 12 months period. The reason i am saying this, there could be many like me who are still in the beginner stage of Azure and may not need this 200USD in the initial 30days. May be after doing practice, free limited account is good enough for that, when I am feeling confident to test some complex/big scenario can use that CREDIT. MS can just give an "activate" option to trigger its usage at anytime. I am pretty sure many newbies are not able to utilize this 200USD credit for anything meaning full.

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ShowtimeBruin

I agree with some others that Azure is a bit scary because I don't really understand how the billing works completely. Each time I have ventured off a bit I got a surprising bill. It's not much (under $5) but I thought it was included in the 12 month free plan. I'm just experimenting, not using it for work. Anyway, I recently found this app. It automatically constrains your virtual machine setups to the free tier stuff, a bit like AWS EC2 if anyone has ever tried. I don't think it works on anything else but it's decent for VM setup. Here's the link: azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-...

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Dimitris Gravanis

I use Azure to host a Django app using App Service, which sits on top of a PostgreSQL database. I'm on the second month of my free account (currently Pay-As-You-Go), thus I no longer have the 170 EUR credit. Apparently, Azure charges my account for the postgres db server, as I can clearly see in the subscription overview. So, can you please clarify what "SQL Database" service covers whilst on the free tier? Thanks!

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Michael Crump

Microsoft SQL Server - any other questions then let me know.

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Federico Navarrete • Edited

I knew that because I'm a long-term Azure user, but maybe it should be clarified in the Azure Page as SQL Server/SQL Azure Database. SQL Database can be misunderstood as Oracle, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, etc. All of them are SQL Databases. This is misleading point for people new in the MS ecosystem. Furthermore, from my knowledge IBM is the one who started to develop SQL.

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Dimitris Gravanis

Thanks!

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Michael Crump

We have docs on billing, etc. that could help. There is also a pricing calculator to help.

azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/...

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Federico Navarrete • Edited

The pricing can be confusing. The Azure ML for example is not understandable by regular users or business users. You need to have quite deep technical knowledge in this area. For example,

azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/...

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mulder999

For me with small rather private usage there are too many shortcomings leading to high and costly administrative risks:

  • The always free that requires at least one paid subscription (so it is not really free)
  • You cannot cap your spending (no one want to pay unlimited/unjustified price just because someone started to ddos you for fun, we rather have the service stops)
  • PaaS and SaaS have no warranty about the version you can lock (no one want to be forced upgrading once a service is going out of support)

I am a professional developer, so when I develop for home/leisure I need an easy and worry free solution. Now that a 40 USD raspberry pi supports docker, I cannot justify anymore to hosts my solutions on the cloud. There are too many administrative risks with the cloud and I already lost countless hours with Google end of support service or Amazon sudden jumping fee, I don't want to go again on the cloud route with another copy cat (administratively speaking). When you are late to the game, you should be better and address those elementary problems !

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UchiTesting

Thank you for this article. It came along at just the right time to me.
I am currently preparing AZ-900.
Amongst others I learn from MS Learn platform.
They mentioned the free account but without going too much into details.

I heard of Azure for quite some time now, but I never dare to try because I would be afraid of being billed hundreds if not thousands without noticing.

That would be better if the limits on free account are on quantity per month for instance. This would allow for regular practice yet not being able to use it for production (should this be what MS would like to avoid).

As some comments say, it is nice to get upfront credit but as you start using the service, you may simply refrain to explore blindly and it would be gone.
1 month is pretty fast.

People may have little time to try different kind of services.

I learnt there are sandbox, but there is very few you can do in there.

Actually I would do with a sandbox that allows me to explore freely. I don't particularly need to keep assets if it is to learn.

Hopefully MS would do such changes someday.

Best Regards.

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Brian Blankenship • Edited

It is indeed free, if you're smart about it. They don't exactly tell you when you're about to create something that isn't free, you basically have to double check to make sure. The great thing is, they only charge for what you use, so in most cases your $200 credit will absorb the costs and hopefully you'll realize that something isn't quite right with your 'free' tier account.

My advice is...don't blow your $200 line just trying things out. Save it as a just in case, or for small tests. Unless that is, you're ready to move beyond the free tier.

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Shaiju T

Hi, I have one doubt. Can we host a commercial website for free forever in azure ? I need a website and a SQL Server DB and need to connect the website to godaddy domain. Is this possible using free azure trial forever ?

 
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Ferdian Alfianto

well, I'm happy to have Oracle Cloud always free server; 4 cpu, 24 GB RAM, 200 GB disk, 5 Backups, and 4 Gbps network speed. The performance is awesome!

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aRtoo • Edited

Wow free storage for a month. I wonder if aws does free tier on their storage. This is cool. thanks.

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Michael Crump

Thanks! Feel free to check around but we'd love to have you using Azure.

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alokz diptim!

Where is that website that collects 4$ per month