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Oracle Cloud Free Tier

Oracle Cloud offers an Always Free tier with notably generous resources — especially the ARM-based Ampere A1 instances. Be warned, though: the ARM instances are in high demand and can be very difficult to provision. You may need to try repeatedly across different times of day or regions before one becomes available.

What you get for free

• AMD (VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro): 1/8 OCPU, 1 GB RAM, up to 2 instances
• ARM (VM.Standard.A1.Flex): up to 4 OCPUs, 24 GB RAM total, up to 4 instances
• 200 GB total block storage
• 10 TB/month outbound data transfer
• Available in your home region only
• Idle instances (<20% CPU/network/memory for 7+ days) may be reclaimed

Setting up your own

1. Create an Oracle Cloud account (credit card required for most users; waived for students/Oracle Academy)
2. Create a VM instance — choose AMD micro or ARM A1 Flex shape
3. Upload your SSH public key during instance creation
4. Assign a free reserved public IP
5. Point your domain's DNS to that IP
6. SSH in, install a web server, configure HTTPS
7. Upload your files — you're live

Further reading

• Oracle Cloud Free Tier overview — official page
• Always Free Resources docs — detailed specs
• Fullmetalbrackets: OCI Free Tier Breakdown — practical walkthrough
• GitHub Gist: Oracle Cloud Free Tier Guide — community step-by-step