How Hard Is AZ-104 in 2026? An Honest Difficulty Rating
The Microsoft Azure Administrator exam has a reputation for being trickier than it looks. Here is a straight answer — a difficulty rating, the pass-score facts, what actually makes it tough, and who struggles most.
Ask around and you will hear two very different takes on AZ-104 (Microsoft Azure Administrator). Some call it an easy associate cert; others say it caught them out. The truth sits in between. AZ-104 is not conceptually deep — but it is broad, and it is hands-on, so it punishes anyone who studied only by reading. Here is an honest breakdown.
AZ-104 difficulty rating: 6.0 / 10
On our scale, AZ-104 sits in the "Hard" band — clearly tougher than the AZ-900 fundamentals exam, roughly level with AWS Solutions Architect Associate, and well below the expert-tier and heavy-lab certifications. Here is where it lands:
What actually makes AZ-104 hard
Hands-on, not just concepts
HighQuestions expect you to know real configuration steps — how you actually create a storage account, wire an NSG, or deploy from a template — not just what a service does. Reading alone rarely gets you there.
Breadth across five areas
MediumIdentity and governance, storage, compute, networking, and monitoring. You cannot skip a weak area, and networking (subnets, peering, load balancers) trips up non-network admins.
Case studies that lock
MediumSome case-study sections group several questions and will not let you return once you move past them, so you have to budget time and commit to answers you cannot revisit.
Syntax & question style
MediumExpect PowerShell and Azure CLI syntax recall, plus multi-step scenarios, drag-and-drop ordering, and "select all that apply" items that punish surface-level knowledge.
Who finds AZ-104 hardest?
Harder for you if…
- You have only read about Azure and never configured it
- You come from AWS or GCP and don't know Azure's portal and CLI
- You are weak on networking — subnets, NSGs, peering, load balancers
- You have never touched PowerShell, Azure CLI, or ARM/Bicep
Easier for you if…
- You administer Azure day to day in the portal
- You are comfortable with PowerShell and the Azure CLI
- You already passed AZ-900 and know the core services
- You have a networking or sysadmin background
AZ-104 vs other certifications
Difficulty is relative. Here is roughly how AZ-104 compares to other popular certs on our 10-point scale (estimates — your mileage varies with background):
The honest verdict
AZ-104 is a fair, achievable associate exam — but it is not a memorize-the-glossary test like AZ-900. There is no formal experience requirement to sit it, though Microsoft recommends roughly six months of hands-on Azure administration and familiarity with PowerShell, the CLI, the portal, and ARM or Bicep. The people who fail usually did all their studying by reading and watching videos, then met questions that demanded real configuration steps and multi-step troubleshooting they had never actually performed.
Spend real time in a live or free-tier Azure subscription: create VMs and NSGs, deploy from an ARM or Bicep template, set up a backup vault, wire up a load balancer. Pair that hands-on time with a few hundred practice questions and the 6.0 becomes very passable. On this exam, doing beats reading — preparation and practice, not raw talent, separate a pass from a fail.
Train for AZ-104 the hands-on way
Hundreds of AZ-104 practice questions with detailed explanations, plus timed mocks that mirror the real question styles, in the ExamCert AZ-104 app — the fastest way to turn portal reading into exam-ready recall and pass first time.
How hard is AZ-104: FAQ
How hard is the AZ-104 exam, really?
AZ-104 is a moderately hard associate-level exam, and we rate it about 6 out of 10. It is tougher than it looks because it tests hands-on configuration across a wide surface (identity, governance, storage, compute, networking, and monitoring) rather than pure concepts, and it can include case-study sections that lock once you move past them.
What is the AZ-104 pass rate?
Microsoft does not publish an official pass rate for AZ-104, so any exact percentage you see is an estimate. What is documented is the bar: you need a scaled score of 700 or higher out of 1000 to pass.
How long should I study for AZ-104?
Most candidates spend roughly 80 to 120 hours over six to eight weeks, though it varies with your background. Working Azure admins who use the portal, PowerShell, and the CLI daily need far less; newcomers to cloud need more, especially for networking and ARM or Bicep templates.
Is AZ-104 harder than AWS Solutions Architect Associate?
They are close, and we rate both around 6 out of 10. AZ-104 leans more hands-on and configuration-heavy, with PowerShell and CLI syntax and ARM or Bicep templates, while AWS SAA leans more toward architecture and service-selection scenarios. Neither is dramatically harder; it mostly depends on which cloud you already know.
ExamCert Team — we build exam-prep apps and study resources for 90+ certifications. Difficulty ratings and study-hour estimates are our informed opinion from candidate reports and public data; exam format facts follow Microsoft's official study guide, which does not publish a pass rate.
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