Scott Duffy AZ-900 Course Review: Azure Fundamentals on Udemy

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AZ-900 turns up in a lot of AI study plans: it carries Microsoft's name, it is a fundamentals exam, and "Azure" is in the name of Microsoft's AI fundamentals certification too. But it is a cloud exam, and nothing in Microsoft's outline for it is about models, prompts or agents. This review looks at Scott Duffy's course on its own terms first, then at the question that brings most readers of this site to it: whether you need Azure fundamentals before Microsoft's AI exams at all.

What is it?

One Udemy course, bought outright, taught by Scott Duffy with Software Architect.ca listed as a second instructor. It is recorded video in English, 8 hours 45 minutes across 88 lectures in 15 sections, with captions listed in Bulgarian and Czech (both marked auto-generated) and 30 more languages. The page shows it as last updated in September 2026 and currently titles it "Master Microsoft Azure Fundamentals: AZ-900 Exam Prep 2026". Every figure about the course here was read from that page on 25 September 2026, and the full curriculum, every section expanded, on 26 September 2026.

Its "What you'll learn" list has five entries: "Pass the Microsoft AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals test", "Earn the Microsoft Certified Azure Fundamentals badge", "Learn the main concepts of cloud computing", "Understand what services and solutions Azure offers" and "Includes latest changes! Always up-to-date." The first two are outcomes no course can hand you, since only Microsoft's exam awards the credential, and the page states no pass rate. The last is a claim; the dated fact behind it is "Last updated 9/2026".

AZ-900 itself leads to Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals. This site holds no record of the exam's fee, length or pass mark, so none appears here: Microsoft's Azure Fundamentals certification page publishes the current details, and says the price is "based on the country or region in which the exam is proctored".

What you'll actually learn

All fifteen sections, in the course's own titles, as the course page listed them on 26 September 2026.

1. AZ-900 Course
2. AZ-900 - Describe Cloud Computing
3. AZ-900 - Benefits of Cloud Computing
4. AZ-900 - Cloud Service Types
5. AZ-900 - Core Architectural Components of Azure
6. AZ-900 - Azure Compute and Networking Services
7. AZ-900 - Azure Compute Demo
8. AZ-900 - Azure Storage
9. AZ-900 - Identity, Access and Security
10. AZ-900 - Cost Management in Azure
11. AZ-900 - Azure Governance and Compliance
12. AZ-900 - Tools for Managing and Deploying Azure Resources
13. AZ-900 - Monitoring Tools
14. 50 QUESTION PRACTICE TEST
15. AZ-900 - Course Wrapup

Read against Microsoft's AZ-900 study guide (skills measured as of 20 July 2026, read on 25 September 2026), sections two to thirteen match every one of the guide's topics one for one:

• Cloud concepts: cloud computing, the benefits of cloud services and cloud service types each have a section of their own.
• Azure architecture and services: core architectural components, compute and networking, storage, and identity, access and security each have one too, plus a compute demo.
• Azure management and governance: cost management, governance and compliance, tools for managing and deploying resources, and monitoring tools each have one, the last in four lectures on Azure Advisor, Azure Service Health, and Azure Monitor's dashboard and reports.

The last two sections are practice and wrap-up. "50 QUESTION PRACTICE TEST" holds two practice tests, Set 1 and Set 2, and eleven earlier sections end in a quiz. The wrap-up holds the two Role Plays Udemy's "This course includes" box lists, titled "Interview for an Azure IT Administrator Intern Role" and "Cloud Strategy Meeting with a Small Business Owner", and the course resources: study guide, slides and audio.

The lecture titles go a level deeper: the identity section's twelve run from Microsoft Entra ID through conditional access, multi-factor authentication and role-based access control to Zero Trust and Microsoft Defender for Cloud. They are still titles, though: they show the course aims at each of Microsoft's topics, not that each section covers every item Microsoft lists beneath it. None of the fifteen section titles mentions AI, machine learning, Python or Microsoft Foundry. That is right for AZ-900, whose study guide has no AI area at all, and it is the whole question for anyone treating this course as a step towards Microsoft's AI credentials. The one lecture title that mentions AI, "Pass AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals with the Help of AI" in the opening section, names it as a study aid for this exam, not as a subject.

The details: time, level, prerequisites and the certificate

Time. 8 hours 45 minutes across 88 lectures, about six minutes a lecture; 88 is the curriculum header's count, though the per-section counts beneath it add up to 90. At an hour a day the video takes about nine days. Udemy shows no length for the practice-test section, and no question count for either practice test or any of the eleven section quizzes. The opening section has a short article titled "AZ-900 : 21-Day Study Plan", whose contents the course page does not show. Microsoft's study guide links a free Practice Assessment, which is worth sitting whatever you buy.

Level. Udemy labels it Beginner and so do we, because nothing on the page asks for more. One caution the course page does not give: Microsoft's AZ-900 page describes its candidate as a technology professional who "should have skills and experience working with an area of IT", such as infrastructure management, database management or software development. You can take the course without that; the exam assumes a little of it.

Prerequisites. The Requirements, in full: "Excitement to learn Microsoft's constantly growing cloud platform" and "No Azure account or subscription required". No coding is asked for. The "Azure Compute Demo" section is live demos, from creating and connecting to a virtual machine through App Services, Azure Functions and Azure's container services, and its last lecture is "Reminder: How to Delete Azure Resources"; whether you are meant to follow along in an account of your own or simply watch, the page does not say.

Certificate. Udemy's standard certificate of completion; its accreditation was not checked. It is not Microsoft's credential: Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals comes from passing exam AZ-900, which Microsoft's page says is proctored. The course prepares you for that exam; it cannot award the badge its list of outcomes names.

Cost. Bought once, at a price Udemy sets by country, so this page prints no figure: check the one the course page shows you. The exam fee is separate, paid to Microsoft and also set by country or region.

Learner evidence. Master Microsoft Azure Fundamentals: AZ-900 Exam Prep carries 142,525 ratings averaging 4.6 out of 5 from 616,877 learners, as Udemy showed them on 25 September 2026. That is a very large, self-selected sample: it says many learners liked the teaching, and nothing about how many passed AZ-900, a figure the page does not give.

Do you need AZ-900 before Microsoft's AI exams?

No, though some people will get real use from what it teaches. AZ-900 is not a prerequisite for AI-901, and none of the five Microsoft credential pages in the table below mentions AZ-900, as read on 25 September 2026. What they ask for is Azure knowledge, in very different amounts.

Microsoft's AI-901 page says candidates "should be familiar with Azure resources" and "need knowledge of Python coding syntax and programming techniques", and more than half of AI-901's outline is building in Microsoft Foundry, which our Azure AI Fundamentals review breaks down. AZ-900's study guide covers the first: it lists Azure resources and resource groups, subscriptions, the portal and the Azure CLI among its topics. It covers none of the second. So for AI-901 this course supplies one of the two things Microsoft asks for, and not the one that makes AI-901 hard for someone who does not program.

Six AI credentials, five from Microsoft and one from AWS: four Foundational and two Intermediate, three that expect Python and three that expect no coding, each with what its vendor's page asks you to know about Azure and whether this course helps before you start.

Three kinds of reader separate out. One is heading for AI-901 and has never opened the Azure portal: for them this course is a sensible first step, provided it is not the only one, and our AI-901 study plan covers the Python and Foundry work it leaves out. Another is heading for AI-103 or AI-300, whose pages assume you already build on Azure; AZ-900 sits below where either starts.

The third wants a Microsoft AI credential without writing code, and AI-901 is no longer that exam. AB-730 and AB-731 are both no-code, and neither page asks for Azure fundamentals: AB-730 is about using Microsoft 365 Copilot at work, AB-731 about leading AI adoption. For those two this course is a detour. For a proctored AI exam with no code and no tie to Microsoft, this site points to the AWS Certified AI Practitioner, and our AWS-versus-Azure comparison weighs it against Microsoft's entry-level AI exam.

Pros and cons

Who should take it (and who shouldn't)

Take it if Azure is new to you and AZ-900 is the exam you want: the course follows Microsoft's outline and is short enough to finish in a fortnight of evenings. Take it if you are heading for AI-901 and have never worked in Azure, because Microsoft's AI-901 page expects familiarity with Azure resources and the Azure platform is exactly what this course is about. And take it if you work beside cloud teams in an Azure organisation and want to follow the conversation without building on it yourself; our guide for cloud engineers covers what comes next for someone who does.

Skip it if what you want is AI skills or an AI credential: AZ-900 has no AI area, and nine hours on Azure storage, identity and governance will not move you towards either. Skip it if you already work in Azure day to day, since Microsoft's AI-901 and AI-103 study guides are the better use of the time. Skip it if your target is AB-730 or AB-731. And skip it if your employer runs on another cloud; our comparison of AWS, Azure and Google AI certifications is the place to start if you have not chosen one.

How it compares to the alternatives

Five Beginner-level options, from about one hour to about 57 hours of content, three on Udemy and two on DataCamp; four need no coding and one teaches Python.

The like-for-like row is the second. AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner 2026 is Zeal Vora's Udemy course for AWS's cloud fundamentals exam, 27 hours 5 minutes across 210 lectures, about three times this one's length, and one of its twelve recorded sections covers AWS's machine learning services, which nothing in this course's section titles matches. Choose between them by the cloud your employer uses.

The other three fill the gaps this course leaves on the way to an AI credential. AI Fundamentals is a nine-hour DataCamp track with no coding, covering machine learning, large language models, generative AI and AI ethics: the concepts side of AI-901, which AZ-900 never reaches. Introduction to Microsoft Copilot is a one-hour DataCamp course on Copilot in Outlook, Teams, Word, PowerPoint and Excel, the apps AB-730's page names. Both come with a DataCamp subscription, which DataCamp prices by country. 100 Days of Code: The Complete Python Pro Bootcamp is Angela Yu's Udemy course, about 57 hours across 604 lectures, whose twelve recorded days are beginner Python from variables through loops, functions and scope. It teaches the Python AI-901 asks for at far greater length than AI-901 needs; take it only if Python is your gap.

Is it worth it?

For the reader it is built for, yes, on the evidence available. Someone new to Azure who wants AZ-900 gets a short course whose section titles follow Microsoft's outline topic for topic, monitoring tools included, with two practice tests at the end, updated in September 2026 and rated by a very large number of learners. We have not scored it, and Udemy does not say how many questions the practice tests hold, so sit Microsoft's free Practice Assessment as well before you book the exam.

For a reader on the way to an AI credential, it comes down to one question: is Azure itself the gap? If you are heading for AI-901 and have never used Azure, the course covers the Azure part of what Microsoft asks for in under nine hours, and you still need Python and hands-on Foundry work on top. If you already work in Azure, or your target is AB-730, AB-731 or a no-code exam on another cloud, it is time spent on the wrong exam. AZ-900 is a cloud certification, not an AI one, and the course is worth buying for as long as you keep those two apart.

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