Let me put you on to something real quick.
Most of these are completely free, and the ones that aren't come with insane discounts. You can sign up as a student, learn a few things on the side, and unlock all of this with no need to be sitting in a lecture hall.
We all hate paying for subscriptions. Nobody wants to, but somehow we all end up doing it. $10,000+ a year just to use the tools you need? That's genuinely ridiculous. Here's how to avoid most of that.
Zyke started on Heroku's free tier, ran the whole thing there from day one. Just migrated the main infrastructure over to DigitalOcean using the $200 credits from the GitHub Pack. Still keeping Heroku around for lighter, lower compute stuff. Two free tiers, zero wasted credits.
See thread below.
ifiokambrose
8 Comments
Start here: the GitHub Student Developer Pack
This one thing unlocks over 100 tools with a single application. One verification, and you're in. Everything else on this list saves you money on one thing. The GitHub Pack builds your entire dev setup for free. It's not even close.
I study Computer Science @ Uniuyo, they needed a student email, but I used my ID card instead. This site currently runs on Heroku's Free Tier for students, see screenshot.
Dev & IDEs Ideal for: software engineers, CS students, and anyone writing code daily. Cursor Pro (1 year), Copilot, JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm), JetBrains Space Pro, Replit Pro, GitKraken, Postman Student Expert. Most of these come straight through the GitHub Pack.
Cloud & Hosting Ideal for: developers building and deploying apps, backend engineers, and indie hackers. AWS Educate, Azure ($100 credits), Google Cloud, DigitalOcean ($200 via GitHub), Oracle Cloud free tier, Heroku, Netlify, Railway, Cloudflare Pro, Vercel Pro. Zyke runs on Heroku's free tier, so that one hits close to home.
Databases Ideal for: backend developers and anyone building data-driven applications. MongoDB Atlas: $50 credits plus a free certification.
Design Ideal for: UI/UX designers, product designers, architects, and creative students. Figma Education plan, Canva Pro, Sketch (50% off), Autodesk full suite including AutoCAD and Maya (1 year free), Miro, and Blender which is free for everyone anyway.
Learning Ideal for: self-taught developers, career switchers, and students looking to build real skills outside the classroom. Educative (6 months free), LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, edX, Udemy, Pluralsight, IBM SkillsBuild, Meta Blueprint, Microsoft Learn, Google Developer Student Clubs, Hack The Box, TryHackMe, Kaggle, LeetCode, HackerRank, Red Hat Developer, SAP Learning Hub.
Domains & SSL Ideal for: students launching their first portfolio site or personal project. Namecheap free domain + SSL via GitHub, free .me domain, and Let's Encrypt which is free forever regardless.
Productivity Ideal for: students, founders, and anyone trying to stay organized without paying for five different tools. Notion Pro, Microsoft 365 Education, Grammarly EDU, Obsidian, Todoist Pro, Evernote, Linear, ClickUp, Asana, Airtable, Loom. All free or heavily discounted.
Communication Ideal for: teams, study groups, and remote workers who need reliable video and messaging tools. Zoom and Slack both have free Education plans through your university.
Music & Media Ideal for: literally everyone. There is no reason to be on a full price plan. Spotify (~50% off), Apple Music, and YouTube Premium all do student pricing. No excuse to be paying full price.
Deals & Marketplaces Ideal for: students looking to save on hardware, everyday shopping, and lifestyle brands. Amazon Prime (6 months free), Apple Education pricing on Macs and iPads, Samsung Student Store, UNiDAYS (1000+ brands), Student Beans.
AI Tools Ideal for: researchers, developers, and students who want to build with or learn from the latest AI models. Perplexity Pro, Google Gemini via Google One Education, and OpenAI API Credits through partner student programs.
Payments & DevOps Ideal for: student founders, freelancers, and developers shipping real products. Stripe waives fees on your first $1,000 through the GitHub Pack. Plus Nvidia student resources and Intel Developer Zone access.
That's over $10,000 in value every year, and I've barely scratched the surface.
And honestly? You don't even have to be enrolled. Know a student? They can hook you up. Already a student? You could flip these at a discount and make money off the spread. Either way, there's no reason to be paying full price for any of this.
This is genuinely relevant information
Yeah after exams I want to it share it with our course mates so they can sign up at once too
🤧I started reading this because I saw claude logo on the cover photo, but I don't see you mention it in the thread, and I read till the end 😭
Do they have a student plan??? A discount would go a long way rn
Great write up