DevOps course involves study of multiple components.
For most of the topics such as Linux, Python, Git, Ansible and Terraform, our lab would suffice. You will also have the automated guided assessments.
For learning the deployment on AWS or other cloud environments, instructor usually suggests using Lab for the various deployments. This helps you learning to deploy on the Cloud such as AWS / GCP. The cost of AWS and GCP will be minimal not even $50 over the course. Usually, most of the Cloud providers have free trials.
For some of these components you need to learn the administration aspects which would require the admin access or root access. Since our cloud based lab is a shared environment, it is not possible to use lab for these topic. For these topics, the instructor will guide you to get the same done on the Cloud.