Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has the most generous permanent free tier of the big clouds. It includes Arm-based "Ampere A1" virtual machines that are big enough to run a personal website, a small database or a development box at no cost. It is also known for signup rejections, capacity shortages and unannounced rule changes, so go in with realistic expectations.
What you get (as of September 2026)
| Resource | Always Free allowance |
|---|---|
| Ampere A1 (Arm) compute | 2 OCPU + 12 GB RAM in total; one VM of 2/12 or two VMs of 1 OCPU each |
| AMD micro VMs | Up to 2 × VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro (1/8 OCPU, 1 GB RAM each) |
| Block storage | 200 GB in total (boot volumes count; each boot volume is at least about 47–50 GB) |
| Outbound data | 10 TB per month |
| Other | Autonomous Database (2 instances), object storage, load balancer, monitoring |
On top of this, a new account gets a one-time trial credit (typically $300 for 30 days). When the trial ends, anything that isn't Always Free is stopped.
Before you sign up
- Use your real identity. Your name, address and card must match. Oracle rejects many signups automatically, and mismatched details, VPN or proxy connections and repeat attempts make rejection more likely.
- Use a real card. Oracle states that it does not accept virtual, prepaid or single-use cards for verification. You'll see a small temporary authorisation hold.
- Choose the home region carefully. It is permanent. Always Free compute can only be created in your home region, and you cannot change it later. For US regions the choices include Ashburn (us-ashburn-1), Phoenix (us-phoenix-1), San Jose (us-sanjose-1) and Chicago (us-chicago-1). Busy regions often run out of free A1 capacity, and smaller regions may be easier.
Step by step
- Go to https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/ and click Start for free.
- Enter your email and country, verify the email, then fill in your name and address exactly as they appear on your card statement.
- Choose your home region (see above).
- Add your card for verification and complete the phone and SMS check.
- Once the account is active, open Compute → Instances → Create instance.
- Under Shape, choose Ampere → VM.Standard.A1.Flex and set 2 OCPU / 12 GB (or 1 / 6 for two VMs). Look for the "Always Free-eligible" label.
- Choose an image (Ubuntu or Oracle Linux), upload your SSH public key and create the instance.
- Open ports in both the VCN security list (or network security group) and the OS firewall. Oracle images ship with strict iptables rules.
- Harden the server as described in Choosing a US VPS.
"Out of capacity" errors
"Out of host capacity" means the region currently has no free A1 hardware available. Your options:
- Try a different availability domain in the same region, if there is one.
- Try again at off-peak times. Capacity opens up as other users delete instances.
- Start with a smaller shape (1 OCPU / 6 GB).
- Upgrading to Pay As You Go usually improves your chances. This also means you can be billed if you create non-free resources, so set a budget alert first.
Avoid running scripts that hammer the API with create requests. They can breach Oracle's terms and get the account flagged.
Idle instance reclamation
Oracle may reclaim idle Always Free instances. Its documentation describes an instance as idle when, over 7 days, the 95th-percentile CPU use is under 20%, network use is under 20%, and (for A1) memory use is under 20%. Oracle emails you first, and reclaimed instances are stopped.
- Run something that actually does work, such as a real website, CI runner or database.
- Pay As You Go accounts are not subject to idle reclamation, according to Oracle.
Pitfalls
- Deleting and recreating an older 4 OCPU / 24 GB instance may fail, because new instances must fit the 2/12 limit.
- Boot volumes over the 200 GB total start to cost money on Pay As You Go accounts.
- Free-tier IPs are datacenter IPs. Streaming and fintech services often treat them as hosting traffic.
- Your account's region list and the console layout change often, so check the "Always Free-eligible" label every time.
FAQ
Is it really free forever? Always Free resources have no end date, but Oracle can change the terms, as it did in 2026.
Why was my signup rejected? Oracle doesn't explain its decisions. Common factors are a card/address mismatch, prepaid or virtual cards, VPN use and previous accounts. Contact Oracle support rather than creating new accounts.
Arm vs x86? Most Linux software runs fine on Arm64 today. A few proprietary binaries still need x86.
