Ask HN: How to get free/cheap Claude and AWS credits

[jacAtSea]

Hi Laid off, took a gap year and now trying to get back into the field to want to do a side project with Python/Java + Claude Code + Cloud(AWS, GCP, Azure) Is there a way to get free or cheap Claude and AWS credits ? I am willing to working on volunteer project.

Thanks

[raw_anon_1111]

You don’t need Claude. I use codex-cli daily with my $20 a month ChatGPT subscription and never approached any limits.

AWS has a real Fred tier now as of 6/2025 where you get a $100 credit in addition to the other free stuff - Lambda up to a certain limit every month, free EC2 hours etc.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2...

But be careful. If you don’t know what you’re doing, AWS can bite you in the ass. What type of resources do you need to spin up on AWS?

[jacAtSea]

More context: I was a 60% Data Engineer and 40% back eng engineer.

The job ads now ask for cloud computing, I did on-perm with similar components but built in house.

Step Functions Glue Athena S3 RDS

Databrick GCP Snowflake

I am looking at ways to 'modernize' 'cloudifly' myself

This is chatgpt suggestions: Step 3: Your FIRST project (this is the breakthrough) Project: “Cloud Data Pipeline” (must-do) What you build: Pull financial data (API) Store in S3 Process with Python Schedule with Airflow Load into warehouse (Redshift or PostgreSQL) Architecture (simple) API → Python → S3 → Airflow → DB → (optional dashboard)

[uberman]

The university I work with offers claude free to students. If you had a class you wanted to take perhaps there might be a similar opportunity

[zane__chen]

I am using GLM. The quota is so generous, but the quatlity, I will say, 80-85% ?

[journal]

am i the only one whose API usage is cheaper than monthly subscription?