Free Trials and Student Programs for Analytics & Data Engineering Tools
Use best tools for free while learning
In case you are ready to learn new skills and tools and more or less defined your study roadmap, the next step would be to decide where to practice.
In case, you aren’t please check the road map to get an idea of where are you and what would be your next step.
Ultimate Data Analytics Career Roadmap
I understand that getting your first job can be challenging. You have to manage many things, and it feels like a chicken-and-egg problem.
For sure, you have an absolutely free option to leverage your laptop and install different kinds of free software such as databases, data tools, coding frameworks and so on. However, it would be far from ideal. Far from real-world use cases.
I hope it is crystal clear that you won’t get a job with localhost projects and even if you get one you will struggle in the organization because they run things differently.
So, the best path forward for you work with the most popular vendors. Luckily for us all of them are providing a Trial (Free) period that will work perfectly for your goals.
Let’s start from the baseline - public cloud providers - AWS, Azure, and GCP. You don’t need to learn all of them. Choose one, that you think is the most popular in your area and start building on top of it.
Let’s review what they give us:
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Free Tier/Trial: AWS offers a comprehensive Free Tier with 12 months of free usage on many services for new customers (e.g. up to 750 hours/month of a t2.micro VM) (Free Cloud Computing Services - AWS Free Tier). In addition, certain services are Always Free (within usage limits) even beyond the first year (Free Cloud Computing Services - AWS Free Tier). No upfront payment is required, and if usage exceeds free limits, standard pay-as-you-go rates apply (Free Cloud Computing Services - AWS Free Tier).
Student Program: AWS Educate provides students with free cloud learning resources and credits. Students can access the AWS Educate portal with no AWS account needed, and historically received $35 in AWS credits (up to $100 if their institution is part of the program) (AWS Educate – Credits, Training, Content, and Collaboration for Students & Educators | AWS News Blog). This program offers free online labs and training to help students develop cloud skills.
Microsoft Azure
Free Tier/Trial: Microsoft Azure’s free account includes a $200 credit valid for 30 days to try any Azure service (Create Your Azure Free Account Or Pay As You Go | Microsoft Azure). It also provides 12 months of free popular services for new users (e.g. 750 hours of Linux/Windows VM, databases, storage) and over 65 services always free within certain limits (Create Your Azure Free Account Or Pay As You Go | Microsoft Azure) (Create Your Azure Free Account Or Pay As You Go | Microsoft Azure). No credit card is needed for the Azure free account sign-up (unless opting to upgrade after the trial).
Student Program: Azure for Students gives eligible students $100 in Azure credits valid for 12 months, no credit card required (Azure for Students – Free Account Credit | Microsoft Azure). Students can renew this offer each year they remain eligible (i.e. reapply after 12 months for another $100) (Azure for Students – Free Account Credit | Microsoft Azure). This student account includes the same 12 months of free services and always-free products, enabling learners to experiment on Azure at no cost.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Free Trial: Google Cloud’s Free Program provides $300 in credits for new customers, usable over a 90-day period (Free Trial and Free Tier Services and Products - Google Cloud). During this trial, you can use any Google Cloud services up to the credit limit without charges. You won’t be billed unless you upgrade to a paid account after the credits or time are exhausted.
Always-Free Tier: Google Cloud also has an Always Free tier – a set of 20+ products with free monthly usage quotas for all users (Free cloud features and trial offer | Google Cloud Free Program). For example, BigQuery allows up to 1 TB of queries and 10 GB of storage free per month (Get started with the Google Trends dataset), and services like Cloud Functions, Compute Engine, and Cloud Storage have free quotas. This lets users continue using GCP in a limited capacity even after the trial (no expiration for these free usage limits).
Student Programs: Google Cloud offers educational resources and credits through its academic programs. While there isn’t a single unified “student account” like Azure’s, Google’s Cloud for Education initiatives let faculty apply for free credits to use in courses and provide students access to hands-on labs and quests (e.g. via Google Cloud Skills Boost) (Teaching Credits | Google for Education). Students can earn badges and practice with real cloud resources at no cost through these programs (Google Cloud for Education - Students). (Additionally, Google Cloud has partnerships and competitions that grant free credits to students, though these vary by region and time.)
Public cloud skills are vital now. I would think about them in the same was as Microsoft offices in 90s-2000s. So, think about this as just a day to day environment for you data experiments.
The next big thing is Data Platforms. You just need to focus on the leaders - Databricks and Snowflake. Pick one and dive deep.
Let’s check their trial options.
Snowflake
Free Trial: Snowflake (cloud data warehouse) offers a 30-day free trial which includes $400 worth of usage credits for you to run queries, load data, and test the platform (Snowflake Trial). No credit card is required to start; you just need a valid email to sign up (Trial accounts | Snowflake Documentation). The trial provides full access to Snowflake’s features (standard and enterprise editions) during that period. If you reach the $400 credit limit or 30 days pass, the account will be suspended unless upgraded (Trial accounts | Snowflake Documentation).
Student Program: Snowflake has an Academic Program called Snowflake for Academia. Through this program, students and educators receive free access to Snowflake’s platform and training materials (learn.snowflake.com). This includes hands-on workshops, industry-recognized Snowflake certifications prep, and a curriculum for instructors. The goal is to help students build data and AI skills on Snowflake at no cost, making them more marketable in data-driven careers (learn.snowflake.com). (Students typically join via their institutions or through Snowflake’s educational initiatives.)
There is a hidden gem on Coursera . These free trainings will give you 6 months trial!!!
Databricks
Free Trial & Community Edition: Databricks provides a couple of free options. First, there’s a 14-day free trial of the full Databricks platform (on AWS, Azure, or GCP) with premium features for data engineering and ML, so you can test all functionalities (Databricks Community Edition: A Beginner’s Guide). Beyond that, Databricks offers a Community Edition which is an always-free version of Databricks. The Community Edition gives you access to a small micro-cluster (15 GB memory), a cluster manager, and the notebook environment indefinitely (Databricks Community Edition: A Beginner’s Guide) (Databricks Community Edition: A Beginner’s Guide). Your Community account doesn’t expire, making it ideal for learning Spark and trying small-scale projects. (It has limitations in computing power and features, but supports Apache Spark jobs and basic notebooks for free.)
Student Program: Databricks supports academia through the Databricks University Alliance. This program provides free resources to instructors and students, such as sample course materials, notebooks, and even Azure/AWS credits for classroom use. Educators can get access to Databricks environments to teach, and students get hands-on experience with the Databricks platform (Databricks University Alliance). While not a separate “student edition” of the product, this alliance offers complimentary access to Databricks for educational purposes, helping students learn Spark and big data tools on a real platform.
Let’s check the most popular BI tools:
Looker
Free Trial: Looker (a business intelligence platform now part of Google Cloud) offers a 30-day free trial for businesses interested in the platform (Free Trial and Free Tier Services and Products - Google Cloud). Since Looker is typically a browser-based SaaS tool, the trial is often arranged by Google’s sales team and allows full use of Looker’s analytics, visualization, and data modelling features on your own data. There are no official forever-free tiers of Looker beyond this limited trial.
Student Program: Looker does not have a dedicated student license program published. It’s an enterprise-oriented tool usually sold to organizations. Students who want to learn Looker may access it via university programs or sandbox environments if provided by Google Cloud academic initiatives, but there isn’t an official free student edition of Looker itself.
Tableau
Free Trial: Tableau (a popular analytics and visualization tool) provides a 14-day free trial of its flagship products (Tableau Desktop: Start your free 14-day trial). You can download Tableau Desktop for a full-feature trial or use Tableau Cloud in trial mode. During the trial, you have the same capabilities as a paid user (connect to data, build dashboards, etc.). After 14 days, the software will prompt for a license or the account will revert unless you purchase or obtain an extension.
Student Program: Tableau has a robust academic program. Tableau for Students offers free one-year licenses for Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep to students at accredited institutions (Tableau for Students). Students can renew these each year while enrolled. This means as a student you can use the full Tableau Desktop (not just the trial) without charge. The Academic Programs also include e-learning resources and community forums to help students learn Tableau. (Recent updates indicate Tableau is transitioning students to use Tableau Desktop Public Edition for free, but core functionality remains accessible.)
Sigma Computing
Free Trial: Sigma (Sigma Computing’s analytics platform) offers a 14-day free trial of its cloud BI tool (Does Sigma have a a developer account with extended trial periods? - Forums - Sigma Community). This trial provides full access to Sigma’s spreadsheet-like analytics interface on your cloud data warehouse, with no credit card required to start. Within those 14 days, users can explore data, create dashboards, and experience Sigma’s real-time cloud analytics capabilities. After the trial, continued use requires a paid subscription (Sigma does not have a long-term free tier for its full product).
Microsoft Power BI
Free Version: Power BI has a free offering via Power BI Desktop and the Power BI Service with a free license. Power BI Desktop (the Windows application for building reports) is free to download and use locally. With a free Power BI license, users can also publish reports to the Power BI cloud for their own use. They can connect to data, create dashboards, and use the Power BI service as long as it's for personal or development use (Power BI service features by license type - Microsoft Learn). The main limitation is that Power BI Free users cannot share dashboards privately with others – sharing and collaboration features require a Pro license (Power BI service features by license type - Microsoft Learn) (Share Report with Coworkers without Pro License - Power BI forums).
Pro Trial: If you want to try full sharing and collaboration capabilities, Microsoft offers a Power BI Pro free trial (typically 60 days) for new users. This trial lets you test all Pro features – such as sharing reports with colleagues, app workspaces, email subscriptions, etc. – without payment. The official Power BI site invites users to “try Power BI free” which essentially activates the Pro trial within the Microsoft Fabric platform (Power BI: Pricing Plan | Microsoft Power Platform). After the 60-day trial, you would need to buy a Pro license (or have it assigned by your organization) to continue those capabilities.
Student Access: There isn’t a standalone “Power BI Student” edition, but students often get access through Office 365 Education. Microsoft provides Office 365 A1 licenses free to educational institutions, which include Power BI Free usage. In practice, this means a student with a school-provided Microsoft 365 account can use Power BI to create reports (and if the school has Power BI Pro or Premium capacity, they might be able to share within the school). Additionally, Microsoft offers academic pricing for Power BI Pro (and now Power BI in Fabric) – schools and students can get licenses at a discounted rate (Power BI: Pricing Plan | Microsoft Power Platform). In short, students should check if their university provides Power BI as part of Office 365; if not, they can still use the Desktop and the Pro trial on their own.
And finally, a couple of ETL vendors:
Fivetran
Free Trial: Fivetran (a managed data pipeline/ETL service) provides a 14-day free trial on its platform (Free Plan). During the trial, you can use Fivetran’s Enterprise Plan features – set up connectors from sources to destinations, and move data – without being charged. Fivetran even allows each new connector you create during the trial to run free for 14 days, so you can stagger testing multiple data sources (New Connection Free Use Period - Fivetran) (Start a free trial with any Fivetran connector for 14 days | Blog). No credit card is needed to start the trial, and you won’t incur costs until you decide to upgrade after the 14-day period.
Free Tier (Ongoing): Uniquely, Fivetran also offers a Free Plan that has no time limit. After the trial, if your data volumes are small, you can stay on the free tier. The Free Plan allows up to 500,000 rows of data (Monthly Active Rows) and 5,000 monthly active schema changes for free, using Fivetran’s standard connectors (Free Plan). This is great for individual projects or learning, as you can continue running a couple of low-volume connectors indefinitely at no cost. (If you exceed 500k rows in a month, Fivetran will prompt an upgrade and eventually freeze the pipeline until you upgrade or the month resets (Free Plan).)
Matillion
Free Trial: Matillion (a cloud-native data integration and transformation tool) offers a 14-day free trial for its Matillion Data Productivity Cloud (Free trial - Matillion Docs). When you sign up, you receive 500 free Matillion credits to use within those 14 days, which allows you to run Matillion ETL jobs and try all features. The trial is full Enterprise Edition access, meaning no feature restrictions during that period (Free trial - Matillion Docs). No credit card is initially required; if you don’t upgrade after 14 days (or once the 500 credits are used), the trial ends unless you switch to a paid plan.
Pet Projects Ideas
The tools above will cover the core skills and you can use these tools for free and build great skills. However, the main strength is coming from “pet projects”, i.e. the projects you can build yourself end to end close to real-world use cases.
At Surfalytics, we have lots of pet projects for BI and Data Engineering and you can review them in our GitHub - https://github.com/surfalytics/data-projects
Other helpful resources for our Data Career
Free Data Analytics and Data Engineering Fundamentals course
Record of SQL Mock Interviews with Surfalytics members