AWS CCP (CLF-C02) vs AZ-900 (2026): Differences & Which First

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) and Microsoft's Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) are the two most common starting points for a cloud certification path. Both are foundational, vendor-specific exams: each validates that you understand cloud concepts and the basics of one provider's platform, not that you can build on it. The real decision is rarely "which exam is better" — it's "which ecosystem am I heading into, and do I need one credential or both?" Here is how they compare on the details that are actually published.

What each exam is for

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner is AWS's entry-level credential. Its exam guide organizes the test into four content domains with published weightings: Cloud Concepts at 24% of scored content, Security and Compliance at 30%, Cloud Technology and Services at 34%, and Billing, Pricing, and Support at 12%. The Cloud Concepts domain alone is organized into four task statements covering the design principles of the AWS Cloud (including the pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework), migration benefits and strategies (including the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework), and cloud economics concepts such as fixed versus variable costs and rightsizing. In other words, it is a breadth exam: services, security responsibilities, and the business case for cloud, all through an AWS lens.

Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) plays the equivalent role on the Microsoft side — it is the foundational credential for candidates who need to demonstrate baseline knowledge of cloud concepts and Azure services. If your organization runs on Microsoft 365, Entra ID, or Azure infrastructure, AZ-900 is the credential hiring managers and internal training programs there will recognize first.

The concrete differences

Time and question format

The biggest measurable difference is time. AWS gives candidates 90 minutes to complete the Cloud Practitioner exam; Microsoft's published exam-duration policy gives AZ-900 candidates 45 minutes. That's half the seat time, which changes the experience: the AWS exam gives you room to flag and revisit; the AZ-900 rewards moving briskly from the first question.

The AWS exam contains 65 questions, of which 50 affect your score and 15 are unscored items that do not count toward your result — you won't know which are which, so treat every question as live. Question format on the AWS side is limited to two types: multiple choice and multiple response. AWS also states there is no penalty for guessing and that unanswered questions are scored as incorrect, so you should never leave a blank. Microsoft doesn't publish a comparable fixed question count for AZ-900 in the sources grounded here, so on question volume the honest comparison is qualitative: both are foundational-level exams, but AWS tells you exactly what to expect.

Passing score

Here the two exams are nearly mirror images. The AWS Cloud Practitioner requires a minimum passing score of 700 on a scaled range of 100 to 1,000, reported as a simple pass or fail. Microsoft's policy for AZ-900 is a passing score of 700 or greater on a 1 to 1,000 scale. Because both are scaled scores, 700 does not mean "70% of questions correct" on either exam — the scaling accounts for varying question difficulty, so don't convert it into a raw-answer target.

Cost and validity

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam costs 100 USD, and the certification is valid for 3 years once earned. Microsoft's fee and renewal policy for AZ-900 aren't grounded in the sources here, so budget-conscious candidates should verify the current AZ-900 fee for their country before scheduling; qualitatively, both sit at the low end of certification pricing since they are entry-level exams.

Logistics

Delivery is effectively identical in kind: the AWS exam can be taken in person at a Pearson VUE testing center or as an online proctored exam through OnVUE. To schedule the AWS exam, you visit aws.amazon.com/certification, select Schedule an exam, and sign in with an AWS Builder ID. Neither exam has published prerequisites in the grounded sources — these are designed as first certifications, so you can register without prior credentials or documented experience.

Which should you take first — or do you need both?

Neither is a prerequisite for the other, and neither is universally "first." Sequence by destination:

• Your employer or target employers run on AWS: Take the Cloud Practitioner. The domain weightings tell you where to spend your study time — Cloud Technology and Services (34%) plus Security and Compliance (30%) together make up nearly two-thirds of the scored content, so hands-on familiarity with core AWS services and the shared-responsibility model matters more than memorizing pricing tables (Billing, Pricing, and Support is only 12%).
• You're in a Microsoft-centric shop: Start with AZ-900. Learning AWS terminology first would mean immediately translating concepts back into Azure equivalents.
• You're undecided or aiming at multi-cloud roles: Take the one matching your nearest job opportunity first, and treat the second as an optional add-on. Because both exams cover overlapping cloud fundamentals (elasticity, pay-as-you-go economics, shared responsibility), the second exam is mostly a vocabulary-mapping exercise — but "both" is only worth it if a specific role or client engagement asks for it. Nothing in either program requires the pair.
• You're time-constrained on exam day: Note the format trade-off — 90 minutes for 65 AWS questions versus a 45-minute Azure sitting. If you're a slow, deliberate test-taker, the AWS format gives you more breathing room per question.

Verdict by situation

There is no universal winner. The AWS Cloud Practitioner is the right call when your career target is the AWS ecosystem, when you want a fully transparent exam blueprint (four domains, published weightings, a known 65-question / 90-minute format), or when you plan to continue up the AWS certification ladder within the credential's 3-year validity window. AZ-900 is the right call when your organization's stack is Azure, or when you need the Microsoft credential as the on-ramp to role-based Azure certifications. If you genuinely serve both clouds, sequence them by which paycheck comes first — the fundamentals transfer, the vocabulary doesn't.

If you land on the AWS side, the cheapest way to find out whether you're ready is to sit a timed run: take our free AWS CCP (CLF-C02) practice exam and see how you score against the four domains before paying the exam fee.