Building AWS Study Hub: Why and How I Built a Free AWS Certification Platform

I recently built and launched AWS Study Hub - a free, open-source study platform that pulls together everything you need to prepare for every AWS certification, all in one place. This post covers why I built it, the technology behind it, and how it works under the hood.

Static Site HTML/CSS/JS Python GitHub Actions GitHub Pages Open Source

Why I Built It

If you have ever prepared for an AWS certification, you know the study resources are scattered everywhere. Official Skill Builder courses in one place, exam guides as PDFs somewhere else, the best Udemy instructors on another site, practice exams behind yet another login, and community cheat sheets buried in forum threads. Every time I mentored someone starting their AWS journey, I found myself sending the same list of links over and over.

On top of that, the AWS certification landscape keeps changing. Certifications get retired, new ones launch, and exam versions get refreshed. In 2024 the Data Analytics Specialty was retired in favour of Data Engineer Associate. In 2026 the Machine Learning Specialty gave way to the ML Engineer Associate, and a brand-new Generative AI Developer Professional appeared. Most study sites simply don't keep up.

So I set out to build something with three goals:

• One curated home for every AWS cert - official resources first, best community resources second.
• Always current - reflecting retirements, new certifications, and exam updates as they happen.
• Free and open - no paywalls, no accounts, and open source so anyone can contribute or fork it.

The Technology Stack

I deliberately kept the stack simple. A study reference site does not need a heavy framework, a database, or a build pipeline that takes minutes to run. It needs to be fast, cheap (ideally free) to host, and effortless to maintain.

Layer	Choice	Why
Frontend	Plain HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript	Zero dependencies, instant load, no framework overhead or build step for content
Page generation	Python (build script)	Generates consistent cert pages from a single source of truth
Shared UI	JS-injected navbar and footer	One place to update navigation across every page
Hosting	GitHub Pages	Free, fast, backed by a CDN, custom domain support
Automation	GitHub Actions	Weekly content refresh and automated deployments
Data	A small JSON file	Holds the auto-updated AWS news archive - no database needed

The whole thing is a static site. That means it is essentially free to run, loads almost instantly, and has a tiny attack surface. There is no server to patch and no database to secure.

How It's Built

Content and structure

Each certification has its own page with a consistent layout: an exam overview (duration, question count, passing score, cost), the exam domains and their weightings, key topics, the AWS services you need to know, official resource links, and an interactive study checklist. The checklist state is saved in the browser using localStorage, so learners can track progress without needing an account.

Foundational pages on Linux and networking sit before the AWS content, because those fundamentals make every cert exam significantly easier. The recommended path runs Linux → Networking → Cloud Practitioner → Associate → Professional/Specialty.

Shared components without a framework

Rather than reach for React or a static-site generator, the navbar and footer are injected by a small JavaScript file on every page. This keeps navigation consistent everywhere while avoiding a build step for the UI. It also automatically resolves relative paths so pages work correctly whether they sit at the root or inside the docs/ folder.

The auto-updated AWS news feed

One feature I really wanted was for the platform to stay fresh on its own. A GitHub Actions workflow runs every week, fetches the official AWS What's New RSS feed, and appends any new announcements to a cumulative JSON archive (de-duplicated and sorted newest-first). A News page then reads that JSON in the browser and renders a searchable feed, with each item linking straight to the official AWS source.

# Simplified: the weekly workflow trigger
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 8 * * 0'   # every Sunday at 08:00 UTC
  workflow_dispatch:

# The job fetches the AWS What's New feed, merges new items
# into data/aws-news.json, opens a PR, and auto-merges it.
# A push to main then triggers the deploy workflow.

The result is a self-maintaining news section - the content refreshes weekly with no manual effort.

Deployment

Deployment is handled by a second GitHub Actions workflow. On every push to main, it publishes the site to the gh-pages branch, which GitHub Pages serves over its CDN. Push code, and a minute later it is live. No manual steps, no hosting bills.

Keeping the Certifications Accurate

Because the AWS certification portfolio evolves, I built in a clear tagging system:

What I Learned

• Simple wins. A static site with plain HTML and a sprinkle of JavaScript delivers a fast, maintainable, and free platform. Not every project needs a framework.
• Automate the boring parts. The weekly news workflow means the site stays current without me touching it. Setting that up once pays off every week.
• Design for change. Because AWS certs come and go, building the tagging and content model up front made keeping the site accurate straightforward rather than painful.
• Open source multiplies impact. Anyone can contribute a resource, fix a typo, or add an exam tip - and everyone benefits.

Try It and Contribute

AWS Study Hub is live, free, and open source. Whether you are studying for your first Cloud Practitioner exam or your next Professional certification, I hope it saves you the hours of link-hunting that inspired it in the first place.

Visit AWS Study Hub →

Found something that could be better? Contributions are welcome - the project lives on GitHub.

Links:
AWS Study Hub · GitHub Repository · AWS Certification