Oracle Free Tier

What Makes It FOSS-Friendly

Oracle Cloud Free Tier is the most generous genuinely-free cloud offering available. It includes an always-free ARM-based Ampere instance with 4 OCPU and 24 GB RAM — enough to run a full self-hosted FOSS stack at zero cost. Unlike most free tiers that expire or downsize after 12 months, Oracle's always-free resources genuinely stay free.

For FOSS projects on a tight budget, this is a game-changer. You can run Gitea, Plausible, Vaultwarden, Nextcloud, or a complete Coolify instance without ever seeing a bill. The ARM architecture (Ampere Altra) runs nearly all FOSS software without issue thanks to mature ARM Linux support.

The catch: you are on Oracle's cloud. This is not a community values move — it is a customer acquisition play. Read their terms carefully, understand that free tier resources can be reclaimed if idle, and have an exit plan.

Best Use Cases for FOSS Projects

The always-free ARM instance is powerful enough to host a full FOSS stack. Use it for development environments, community services, or as a secondary deployment target. Pair it with a paid $5/mo VPS from another provider as your primary — the free tier becomes your staging/test environment.

• Self-hosted Git (Gitea/Forgejo) for FOSS projects
• CI/CD runners (Woodpecker, Drone)
• Development and staging environments
• Community chat (Matrix) or wikis
• Privacy analytics (Plausible, Umami)
• VPN or exit node for project contributors

Caveats & Gotchas

Oracle can reclaim "idle" always-free instances. Their definition of idle is opaque — generally, sustained CPU usage below 10% over 7 days triggers a reclamation notice. Run a lightweight keepalive workload if you rely on the free tier.

Account creation is notoriously difficult. Oracle's fraud detection frequently rejects signups, especially from VPNs or non-major-market locations. Once approved, the dashboard is complex and enterprise-oriented.

Pricing Tiers