According to Oracle’s official Always Free documentation, Oracle provides cloud resources that remain free for the lifetime of your account, not just for the initial 30-day trial. These benefits apply to eligible Free Tier and paid accounts, within the documented limits. Oracle Docs
1. Always Free resources at a glance
| Category | Resource | Always Free allowance |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | AMD VPS | 2 VMs, 1 GB RAM each |
| ARM Ampere A1 VPS | 2 OCPUs + 12 GB RAM total | |
| Storage | Block storage | 200 GB total, including boot disks |
| Block volume backups | 5 backups | |
| Object storage | 20 GB combined (free-only account) | |
| Object Storage API | 50,000 requests/month | |
| Database | Oracle Autonomous AI Database | 2 databases, 20 GB each |
| MySQL HeatWave | 1 DB system, 50 GB storage + 50 GB backup | |
| Oracle NoSQL | 3 tables, 25 GB each | |
| NoSQL operations | 133 million reads + 133 million writes/month | |
| Networking | Virtual Cloud Networks | 2 VCNs (free-only accounts) |
| Flexible Load Balancer | 1, at 10 Mbps | |
| Network Load Balancer | 1 | |
| Outbound bandwidth | 10 TB/month | |
| Site-to-Site VPN | Up to 50 IPsec connections | |
| Bastion | Free service | |
| Security | Certificates | 150 certificates + 5 certificate authorities |
| Vault secrets | 150 secrets | |
| HSM key versions | 20 versions | |
| Software-protected encryption keys | Free | |
| Monitoring | Monitoring ingestion | 500 million data points |
| Monitoring retrieval | 1 billion data points | |
| Logging | 10 GB/month shared allowance for free-only accounts | |
| APM | 1,000 tracing events + 10 synthetic runs/hour | |
| Dashboards | 100 | |
| Automation | Resource Manager (Terraform) | 100 stacks, 2 concurrent jobs |
| Connector Hub | 2 connectors | |
| Communication | Email Delivery | 3,000 emails/month |
| Notifications | 1 million HTTPS + 1,000 email notifications/month | |
| Management | Fleet Application Management | First 25 managed resources/month |
Source: Oracle OCI Always Free Resources documentation. Some quotas vary by account type, home region and service availability. Oracle Docs
2. Free VPS details
AMD — VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro
2 VMs
1 GB RAM each
1/8 OCPU per VM, burst capability
ARM — VM.Standard.A1.Flex
12 GB
2 OCPUs total
1 or 2 ARM VMs
Example ARM configurations
| Configuration | CPUs | RAM |
|---|---|---|
| 1 ARM server | 2 | 12 GB |
| 2 ARM servers | 1 each | 6 GB each |
Important: Oracle’s currently published page specifies 2 OCPUs and 12 GB RAM for ARM Always Free, rather than the older commonly cited 4 OCPUs and 24 GB. Its monthly allowances are 1,500 OCPU-hours and 9,000 GB-hours. Oracle Docs
3. What you can host for free
| Application | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| WordPress website | ARM VPS |
| Personal or small business website | AMD or ARM VPS |
| Docker applications | ARM VPS |
| Node.js / Python applications | ARM VPS |
| Self-hosted GitHub Actions runner | ARM VPS |
| Small Kubernetes lab (K3s) | ARM VPS |
| Development MySQL database | Free MySQL HeatWave |
| Oracle APEX applications | Autonomous AI Database |
| VPN server | AMD VPS |
| Monitoring stack | ARM VPS, subject to resource limits |
4. Important restrictions
- Lifetime free: There is no fixed expiration date for Always Free resources while the account remains eligible.
- Home region: Always Free compute and block volumes must be deployed in your tenancy’s home region.
- Idle instances: Oracle may reclaim instances that meet its low CPU, network and, for ARM, memory utilization criteria over seven days.
- Capacity: Free VPS instances are not guaranteed to be immediately available. You may encounter an Out of host capacity error.
- Shared storage quota: The 200 GB block storage allowance includes your VM boot disks, not 200 GB extra per VM.
- Billing: Paid accounts can still use Always Free allowances, but usage beyond eligible limits can incur charges.
- Email: Outbound TCP port 25 is blocked by default unless Oracle grants an exemption. Oracle Docs
5. My conclusion
Oracle Always Free is particularly attractive for hosting a small number of Linux servers and applications because it combines free compute, 200 GB block storage and 10 TB monthly outbound data transfer.
For a developer or small startup, the best starting configuration is one ARM VM with 2 OCPUs and 12 GB RAM, assuming that capacity is available. It can host multiple lightweight Docker services while staying within the published compute allowance.
For production hosting, however, plan for backups, monitoring and possible instance reclamation rather than treating the free tier as guaranteed infrastructure.
I’m Rajesh Kumar, a DevOps, SRE, DevSecOps, Cloud, and Platform Engineering expert passionate about sharing practical knowledge, real-world experiences, and industry best practices. I have worked at Cotocus and regularly write about technology, travel, investing, health, product reviews, and digital marketing through my various platforms.
I publish technical articles at DevOps School, travel stories at Holiday Landmark, stock market insights at Stocks Mantra, health and fitness guidance at My Medic Plus, product reviews at TrueReviewNow, and SEO and digital marketing strategies at Wizbrand.
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