Free tools and perks for students
Software, AI tools, API keys and cloud credits that are free for everyone or for students.
Student Packs 4
Mega-bundles that unlock dozens of perks at once.
GitHub Student Developer Pack 👑 Editor's choice
The single best deal for students. One verification unlocks free GitHub Copilot, cloud credits, a free domain and dozens of premium partner offers.
AWS Educate
Free, self-paced cloud training and hands-on labs from Amazon Web Services - no account or card needed.
Microsoft Azure for Students
$100 in Azure credit plus a catalog of always-free cloud services - no credit card required.
Notion for Education
Students and educators get Notion's paid Plus plan free - notes, wikis, databases and project tracking.
AI Tools 8
Assistants & copilots, many free with a school email.
GitHub Copilot 👑 Editor's choice
AI pair-programmer in your editor. Verified students get Copilot Pro free via the GitHub Student Pack.
ChatGPT
OpenAI's chatbot has a solid free tier; watch for periodic student promos on its paid plans during the school year.
Claude
Anthropic's AI assistant for writing, coding and analysis, with a capable free tier anyone can use.
Cursor for Students
The AI-first code editor offers students a free year of Pro - refactor, debug and learn by asking your codebase questions.
Google Colab
Run Python notebooks in the browser with free GPU/TPU time - perfect for data science, ML and class projects.
Google Gemini for Students
Google has offered eligible university students a free year of its premium Gemini plan with expanded AI features and storage.
NotebookLM
Google's free AI research assistant that reasons over your own notes, PDFs and sources.
Perplexity Pro for Students
AI answer engine with cited sources. Perplexity has run campus programs giving students free Pro - check the current offer.
Free APIs & Keys 11
Free LLM, search & infra APIs to build with.
Google AI Studio (Gemini API) 👑 Editor's choice
Generous free tier for the Gemini API - one of the easiest ways to get a powerful, free LLM key for your apps.
Hack Club AI 👑 Editor's choice
Free LLM and image-generation API for teens in Hack Club - grab a key and start building AI projects instantly.
Brave Search API
Independent web-search API with a free tier - handy for building your own search or RAG features.
Cerebras Inference
Extremely fast open-model inference with a free API tier - great when you need speed for free.
Cloudflare Workers AI
Run open models on Cloudflare's edge with a free daily allocation - pairs perfectly with free Workers hosting.
Google Cloud Free Tier
$300 in credits plus always-free products - compute, storage, and AI APIs to build real projects.
Groq
Blazing-fast LLM inference (Llama and more) with a free developer tier and a simple OpenAI-compatible API.
Hack Club Web Search API
Free Brave-powered web search API for Hack Club teens - search the web and find images/videos programmatically.
Hugging Face Inference
Free Inference API and Spaces for thousands of open models - text, image, audio and more.
Mistral AI (La Plateforme)
Free experimentation tier for Mistral's open and frontier models via a clean API.
OpenRouter
One API key for hundreds of models - including a rotating set of completely free ones. Great for prototyping.
Hack Club 10
Free programs, hardware & perks for teens 13-18.
Hack Club 👑 Editor's choice
The world's largest nonprofit network of teen makers - free programs, grants, hardware and a huge Slack community.
Brilliant Premium (via Hack Club)
Free Brilliant Premium student access - interactive courses in math, CS and science - just for being in Hack Club.
Hack Club CDN
50GB of free image and video hosting with permanent links for your websites and projects.
Hack Club Slack
130k+ members: chat, collaborate and get help from tens of thousands of teen makers, plus AMAs with people like Sal Khan.
Hack Club Spaces
All-in-one web IDE to create, host and collaborate, with 500+ supported languages and ready-made templates.
Hack Club Toolbox
A directory of Hack Club's tools, programs and perks for teen hackers - YSWS programs, hosting, AI, search and more.
Hackatime
Hack Club's free coding-time tracker - log hours on your projects to unlock many YSWS hardware/prize programs.
HCB (Fiscal Sponsorship)
Run your hackathon or club like a real 501(c)(3): accept donations and manage money with no paperwork nightmare.
Sprig
Build a tile-based JavaScript game and Hack Club ships you a hardware game console to play it on.
Zoom Pro (via Hack Club)
Run unlimited-length Zoom Pro meetings for free for your Hack Club.
Developer Tools 9
IDEs, editors, domains - everything for shipping code.
JetBrains Student License 👑 Editor's choice
Free access to the entire JetBrains toolbox - IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm, CLion and more - while you're a student.
Carbon
Turn source code into beautiful, shareable images for slides and social posts.
Git
The free, open-source version control system that underpins basically all modern software collaboration.
MongoDB Atlas + Certification
Database credits and a free certification voucher via the Student Pack, plus an always-free Atlas tier for everyone.
Namecheap Free Domain (.me)
A free .me domain for a year plus SSL via the GitHub Student Pack - claim your portfolio URL.
Postman Student Program
Free learning resources, certifications and credits for building and testing APIs.
Regex101
Build, test and debug regular expressions with a live, explained breakdown.
Replit
Code, run and host projects entirely in the browser in dozens of languages - nothing to install.
Visual Studio Code
The free, open-source editor that's become the default for nearly every language, with a massive extension marketplace.
Cloud & Hosting 6
Deploy and run projects on generous free tiers.
Cloudflare Pages
Fast, free static and full-stack hosting on Cloudflare's global network, with unlimited bandwidth.
DigitalOcean Credit
$200 in platform credit via the GitHub Student Pack - spin up real servers, databases and apps.
GitHub Pages
Host a website free directly from a GitHub repo - ideal for portfolios and docs (this site runs on it!).
Netlify
Free hosting for static sites and serverless functions with continuous deploys from GitHub.
Supabase
An open-source Firebase alternative: hosted Postgres, auth, storage and APIs with a usable free tier.
Vercel
Deploy front-end apps from a Git repo in seconds, with a generous free Hobby tier and automatic HTTPS.
Design 23
Graphics, 3D, video and photo tools.
Figma Education 👑 Editor's choice
The industry-standard interface design and prototyping tool, with its paid education plan free for verified students.
Audacity
Free, open-source audio recorder and multi-track editor.
Autodesk Education
Free student access to Fusion 360, AutoCAD, Maya, Revit and more - professional CAD, 3D and animation.
Blender
Free, open-source 3D suite for modeling, animation, rendering and even video editing - fully professional-grade.
Canva
Drag-and-drop graphics for posters, slides and social posts. Free for everyone; Canva for Education is fully free for schools.
CapCut
Free, easy video editor with captions, effects and templates for socials.
Cleanup.pictures
Remove objects, people or text from photos for free with one brush.
Coolors
Generate, save and explore color palettes for your designs in seconds.
DaVinci Resolve
A genuinely professional video editor and color grader, with a free version covering almost everything creators need.
Excalidraw
Free virtual whiteboard for hand-drawn-style diagrams, sketches and wireframes.
Framer
Design and publish a real website for free, no code required.
GIMP
Free, open-source image editor, a powerful Photoshop alternative.
Inkscape
Free, open-source vector graphics editor for logos and illustrations.
Krita
Free, open-source painting and photo-editing app - a strong Photoshop alternative for digital art.
OBS Studio
Free, open-source software for screen recording and live streaming.
Pexels
Free high-quality stock photos and videos you can use almost anywhere.
Photopea
A full Photoshop-style image editor that runs free in your browser and even opens PSD files.
Pixabay
Free photos, vectors, illustrations, music and sound effects under a permissive license.
Pixlr
Free browser-based photo editor with a friendly, Photoshop-lite interface.
remove.bg
Remove the background from any photo automatically in one click.
Tinkercad
Free, beginner-friendly 3D design, electronics and block-coding from Autodesk.
tldraw
A delightful, free infinite canvas for quick diagrams and sketches.
Unsplash
Huge library of high-quality photos free to use in personal, educational and commercial projects.
Files & PDFs 10
PDF tools, converters and file utilities.
iLovePDF 👑 Editor's choice
Every PDF tool you need in one place: merge, split, compress, convert, sign and edit PDFs free in your browser.
Cobalt
Clean, free, ad-free downloader for video and audio from across the web.
FFmpeg
The open-source Swiss-army knife for audio & video - convert, trim and re-encode virtually any media format.
HandBrake
Free, open-source video transcoder for converting almost any video to MP4/MKV - no ads, no watermarks.
Pandoc
The open-source 'universal document converter' - turn Markdown, Word, LaTeX, HTML and EPUB into one another.
PDF24 Tools
Free, privacy-friendly PDF tools online or as a desktop app: convert, compress, edit and more.
Squoosh
Google's open-source image compressor & converter - resize and convert PNG/JPEG/WebP/AVIF right in your browser, no ads and nothing uploaded.
Stirling PDF
A self-hostable, open-source suite of 50+ PDF tools that runs entirely on your own machine.
TinyWow
A huge free toolbox for PDFs, images, video and writing, with no signup and no watermarks.
VERT
Free, open-source file converter that runs entirely in your browser (images, audio, docs) - no ads and no upload to a server.
Productivity 14
Notes, docs, office suites and organization.
Microsoft 365 Education 👑 Editor's choice
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Teams free for students and teachers at eligible schools - just use your school email.
Bitwarden
Free, open-source password manager that syncs across all your devices.
DeepL
A translator that often reads more naturally than the alternatives, with a generous free tier.
draw.io (diagrams.net)
Free diagramming for flowcharts, UML, network and architecture diagrams, saved to your own drive.
Google Slides
Free, collaborative presentations in the browser that auto-save to Google Drive.
LibreOffice
Free, open-source office suite: documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
LinkedIn Learning
Thousands of professional video courses - frequently free through your university or public library card.
Loom
Record your screen and camera to share quick video walkthroughs; free tier.
Miro
Online collaborative whiteboard with a free plan for brainstorming and planning.
Notion
All-in-one workspace for notes, tasks, wikis and databases. Free for personal use, with a free upgrade for students.
Obsidian
Free local-first note-taking that links your ideas into a personal knowledge graph - great for studying.
Overleaf
Collaborative LaTeX editor in the browser - the go-to for typesetting math-heavy papers and problem sets.
Proton
Private, free email, calendar, drive and VPN with end-to-end encryption.
Zotero
Free, open-source reference manager that collects, organizes and cites your research sources.
Learn Anything 17
Courses, lectures & channels to self-study free.
MIT OpenCourseWare 👑 Editor's choice
Free lecture videos, notes, assignments and exams from real MIT courses - learn college-level material at your pace.
3Blue1Brown
Beautiful visual explanations of math and CS - especially linear algebra and calculus - for intuition-first learners.
Anki
Free, powerful spaced-repetition flashcards, beloved by med students and language learners.
Codecademy
Interactive, in-browser lessons that teach coding step by step - a great place to start your coding journey for free.
Coursera
Thousands of courses you can audit for free; financial aid available for certificates.
Desmos Graphing Calculator
Free, powerful online graphing calculator (and a 3D version) to visualize equations and tackle math homework.
edX
University courses from MIT, Harvard and more, free to audit (pay only for an optional certificate).
freeCodeCamp
Free, hands-on coding curriculum with thousands of exercises and free certifications in web dev, data and more.
Harvard CS50
Harvard's famous intro to computer science, free online with lectures, problem sets and an active community.
Khan Academy
Free, structured lessons, quizzes and tests covering nearly every K-12 and early-college subject.
Mathway
Type any math problem and get the answer instantly for free (steps are paid).
Princeton Summer Journalism Program
A free, all-expenses-paid journalism program for high-achieving low-income high-school juniors - one of the few serious free journalism opportunities.
Quizlet
Flashcards and study modes for any subject, with a solid free tier.
Symbolab
Step-by-step math solver for algebra, calculus, trig and more.
The Odin Project
A free, complete full-stack web development curriculum built around real projects and a supportive community.
The Organic Chemistry Tutor
Despite the name, a clear crash course for nearly every STEM subject - chemistry, calculus, physics, stats and more.
Wolfram Alpha
A computational engine for math, science and stats that returns instant answers free.
Research & Papers 9
Free, legal access to academic papers & journals.
arXiv
Open repository of 2M+ free preprints in physics, math, CS and biology - the papers themselves, free and legal to read.
CORE
The world's largest collection of open-access research papers, aggregated from repositories and journals worldwide.
Directory of Open Access Journals
Index of 20,000+ vetted, fully open-access journals - search peer-reviewed articles that are free and legal to read.
Google Scholar
Search across scholarly literature; check the '[PDF]' links on the right for free full-text versions.
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Three years of funding (~$37k/yr stipend + tuition) for early-stage STEM grad students - apply senior year or first/second year of grad school.
OpenAlex
A free, fully open index of 250M+ scholarly works, authors and institutions - an open replacement for paid research databases.
PubMed Central (PMC)
Free full-text archive of millions of biomedical & life-sciences journal articles from the US National Institutes of Health.
Semantic Scholar
AI-powered academic search from the Allen Institute, with free PDFs, citation graphs and TLDR summaries.
Unpaywall
Free browser extension that finds a legal, open-access copy of a paywalled paper, sourced from 50M+ author and repository uploads.
Books & Textbooks 12
Free open textbooks, classics & public-domain libraries.
Internet Archive 👑 Editor's choice
A nonprofit digital library of millions of free books, plus public-domain movies, music, software and the Wayback Machine.
OpenStax 👑 Editor's choice
Free, peer-reviewed college & high-school textbooks (math, science, social science, business) from Rice University - read online or download PDFs.
Bookshare
Free ebook library for students with a reading or print disability.
LibreTexts
The largest open-textbook library - free, remixable texts and homework across dozens of subjects.
MIT Press Open
Free open-access scholarly books from MIT Press.
OER Commons
Searchable library of open educational resources, full courses and lesson materials.
Open Library
The Internet Archive's library: borrow scanned books free with a library-style account, plus millions of catalog records.
Open Textbook Library
1,000+ openly licensed, peer-reviewed textbooks you can read, download and print free, curated by the University of Minnesota.
PhET Simulations
Free interactive math and science simulations from CU Boulder - great for actually seeing concepts work.
Project Gutenberg
75,000+ free public-domain ebooks - the classics, fully legal, in EPUB and Kindle formats.
Standard Ebooks
Public-domain classics carefully reformatted and typeset into beautiful, free EPUBs - volunteer-run and ad-free.
Wikibooks
Wikimedia's collection of free, open-content textbooks and manuals anyone can read and edit.
Test Prep 6
Practice & tutoring for the SAT, ACT and APs.
CrackAP
Free practice tests and review questions for most AP exams, with answer explanations.
CrackSAT
Free SAT practice tests, question banks and study guides, with answer explanations.
Khan Academy SAT Prep
The official, completely free Digital SAT practice course - personalized prep endorsed by College Board.
Official ACT Practice Tests
ACT's own free full-length practice tests (online or printable), plus sample questions in every subject.
Official Digital SAT Practice (Bluebook)
College Board's official Bluebook app with full-length adaptive Digital SAT practice tests, free.
Schoolhouse.world
Free, live peer tutoring (including SAT bootcamps) led by trained student volunteers - on-demand help at no cost.
Lifestyle 6
Music, shopping & streaming student discounts.
Amazon Prime Student
A free 6-month Prime trial for students, then a discounted rate - free shipping, Prime Video and more.
Apple Education Pricing
Discounts on Mac and iPad for students and educators, often with seasonal back-to-school gift-card promos.
Spotify Premium Student
Heavily discounted Premium for students, often bundled with other streaming perks - verify via SheerID.
Student Beans
Another big student-discount network with exclusive codes for tech, clothing, food and entertainment.
UNiDAYS
A hub of verified student discounts across hundreds of brands - tech, fashion, food and software in one place.
YouTube Premium Student
Ad-free YouTube and YouTube Music at a discounted student rate, with verification.
Jobs & Internships 13
Teen-friendly jobs, internships and gigs.
Apprenticeship.gov
The official US finder for paid apprenticeships - earn while you learn a trade, no degree required. A real alternative to college.
Bank of America Student Leaders
Paid summer internship plus a leadership summit for high-school juniors and seniors.
CareerOneStop
US Department of Labor hub for jobs, training and youth career programs.
Cold-Email for Research
A step-by-step guide: find a professor's work on Google Scholar, send a short, specific email, and follow up - with a copy-paste template that gets replies.
Handshake
The main jobs/internships network for college students - many schools post exclusive listings and on-campus recruiting here.
HighSchoolPathway
Student-built directory of competitions, research and opportunities for high schoolers, with how-to-apply notes.
Indeed
Search millions of jobs and internships, including part-time and entry-level roles for teens.
Internships.com
Large searchable database of internships across nearly every field.
Parker Dewey
Short, paid remote micro-internships you can do around school.
Pathways to Science
Searchable database of summer research programs, REUs and STEM opportunities by field and level.
SkillsUSA
Career and technical student org with competitions, training and scholarships across the skilled trades and technical fields.
VolunteerMatch
Find volunteer work to build experience and rack up service hours.
WayUp
Internships and entry-level jobs aimed specifically at students and new grads.
Competitions 9
Hackathons, science fairs and contests to enter.
Congressional App Challenge
Build an app to represent your district; beginner-friendly and nationwide.
DECA
Business, marketing and entrepreneurship competitions for high schoolers.
Devpost
Discover online and in-person hackathons with real prizes, for all skill levels.
FIRST Robotics
Build and compete with robots, backed by a huge scholarship network.
Hack Club Hackathons
A directory of teen-run, teen-friendly hackathons happening around the world.
MAA Math Competitions (AMC)
AMC, AIME and USAMO, the main pathway in competition mathematics.
Major League Hacking
The official student hackathon league, with free events worldwide.
Regeneron ISEF
The world's largest pre-college STEM research fair, with millions in prizes.
Science Olympiad
Team STEM competition spanning biology, chemistry, physics and engineering.
Certifications 7
Free, resume-worthy certificates.
Cisco Networking Academy
Free courses and certificates in networking, Python and cybersecurity.
Google Career Certificates
Job-ready certificates in data analytics, IT, UX and more; financial aid available.
HubSpot Academy
Free certifications in marketing, sales, content and social media.
IBM SkillsBuild
Free courses and digital credentials in AI, cybersecurity and data.
Kaggle Learn
Free, fast micro-courses in Python, machine learning and data science.
Microsoft Learn
Free learning paths and credentials for Azure, AI, data and development.
Udacity Free Courses
Free versions of many of Udacity's tech courses.
College & Apply 12
Fee waivers and tools for applying to college.
Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) 👑 Editor's choice
File the FAFSA to unlock federal grants (Pell), work-study and low-interest loans - the first step for almost any college money.
ACT Fee Waiver
Free ACT test registrations and college application fee waivers if eligible.
BigFuture Scholarships
College Board's no-essay, no-minimum-GPA drawings - complete college-planning steps to enter for monthly $500-$40,000 awards.
College Board Fee Waivers
Free SAT registrations, score sends and college application fee waivers if eligible.
College Scorecard
US government data on college cost, financial aid and graduate outcomes.
Common App
Apply to 1,000+ colleges with a single application.
Common App Fee Waiver
Eligible students can apply to college entirely free, with no application fees.
Fulbright U.S. Student Program
Fully funded grants for graduating seniors and grads to study, research or teach English abroad for a year.
GPA Calculator (Calculator.net)
Flexible weighted/unweighted GPA calculator - add courses, credits and grades with AP/honors weighting and a planning mode.
NACAC Application Fee Waiver
Request college application fee waivers accepted by hundreds of member colleges.
Phi Theta Kappa
Honor society for community-college students - membership unlocks a large pool of transfer scholarships to four-year colleges.
RogerHub Grade Calculator
A clean, ad-light final-grade & GPA calculator students have relied on for years - work out exactly what you need on the final.
International 9
Scholarships and resources for students outside the US.
Chevening (UK)
Fully-funded UK master's scholarships from the UK government, open to students worldwide.
Commonwealth Scholarships
UK-funded scholarships for students from Commonwealth countries.
DAAD (Germany)
Germany's academic exchange service: scholarships and info to study in Germany.
EduCanada
Scholarships and official information for studying in Canada.
EducationUSA
US State Dept network advising international students on studying in the US.
Erasmus+ (EU)
EU funding for study, training and exchange across Europe.
IEFA
Searchable database of international financial aid and scholarships.
Mastercard Foundation Scholars
Full scholarships for young people, primarily from Africa, to attend partner universities.
MEXT (Japan)
Japanese government scholarships and info for studying in Japan.
