5-year savings? Easily $4,000+. AWS or GCP bills (especially IPv4 + egress) can destroy your budget before launch.
The default advice is “just use AWS,” but hidden costs add up fast. After auditing alternatives, I found a real cheat code: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Always Free tier.
Everyone knows the basic AMD micro (1 GB RAM). The killer feature is the ARM Ampere A1: Oracle gives 4 OCPU (cores) + 24 GB RAM for free, configurable as 1 beefy VM or up to 4 smaller ones.
Too good to be true? I stress-tested a fresh instance (sysbench, dd, speedtest-cli). Here are raw 2026 numbers from the terminal.
What is the Oracle Cloud Always Free Tier?
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Always Free is a no-time-limit free tier from Oracle’s cloud, distinct from the 12-month free credits offered by AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. The headline resources, available forever at $0/month per account:
- 2 AMD-based VMs (E2.1.Micro): 1/8 OCPU, 1 GB RAM each.
- Up to 4 ARM-based VMs (Ampere A1) sharing a pool of 4 OCPU and 24 GB RAM.
- 200 GB total block volume storage.
- 10 TB of outbound data transfer per month.
- 2 Autonomous Databases, an Object Storage allowance, a free load balancer, and more.
The ARM Ampere A1 quota is the unique selling point: no other major cloud (AWS, Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Vultr) hands you 4 cores and 24 GB of memory at $0 forever.
Benchmarks: AMD micro vs ARM monster
| Metric | AMD micro (free) | ARM Ampere A1 (free) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU (sysbench events/sec) | 626 | 13,436 (0.30 ms latency) | 21x |
| RAM throughput (sysbench) | 7.6 GB/sec | ~59.5 GB/sec | 7.8x |
| Network down (speedtest) | ~50 Mbit/sec | ~1.98 Gbps | ~40x |
| Network up (speedtest) | low | ~1.27 Gbps | huge |
| Disk (block volume NVMe, 50 GB boot) | low | ~55 MB/sec | scales 1 MB/s per GB |
| Free monthly egress | shared | 10 TB |
The CPU gap alone (21x) makes the ARM instance perfect for heavy GitLab CI/CD runners. The 59.5 GB/sec memory throughput means you can run Redis or PostgreSQL fully in-memory without sweating. Disk speed scales roughly linearly with volume size (about 1 MB/s per GB), and the free 200 GB cap is enough for most side projects.
OCI free tier vs AWS, Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Vultr
For the same “small persistent VPS for a side project” need:
| Provider | Free option | Equivalent paid spec | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oracle Cloud (Ampere A1) | 4 OCPU, 24 GB RAM, 200 GB disk, 10 TB egress | n/a | $0 |
| AWS (t4g.medium) | 12-month free tier (t4g.small only, then expires) | 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM + EIP + 1 TB egress | $60-100 |
| Hetzner Cloud (CAX21) | none | 4 vCPU ARM, 8 GB RAM, 80 GB disk, 20 TB | ~$8 |
| DigitalOcean (premium AMD) | none | 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 160 GB disk | ~$48 |
| Vultr (high-performance) | none | 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB disk | ~$40 |
Hetzner is the honest runner-up at ~$8/mo for an 8 GB ARM box, but it cannot match OCI at $0. AWS, DigitalOcean, and Vultr have no permanent free tier.
The hack: bypassing limits and keeping it in 2026
The two biggest pain points everyone hits:
- “Out of capacity” errors when trying to provision an ARM instance.
- Idle reclamation if CPU, memory, or network sit below 20% for 7 days on the pure Always Free tier.
The fix that works reliably:
- Upgrade to Pay As You Go (PAYG). Just attach a card, no upfront payment. You become a “commercial” user, which gets you priority allocation for scarce ARM cores and full immunity from idle shutdowns.
- Stay within Always Free limits (4 OCPU, 24 GB RAM, 200 GB disk, 10 TB egress). The bill stays $0.00/month.
- Set a $1 budget alert and sleep easy.
The AWS math
Equivalent setup on AWS (t4g.medium + static IPv4 + comparable egress) costs $60 to $100+ per month. Over 5 years that is $4,000+ in savings for a single instance, before you count the cost of an Elastic IP and outbound transfer.
FAQ
What is the Oracle Cloud Always Free Tier?
A no-time-limit free tier from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) that includes 2 AMD E2.1.Micro VMs (1 GB RAM each), up to 4 ARM Ampere A1 VMs sharing 4 OCPU and 24 GB RAM, 200 GB of block storage, 10 TB monthly outbound transfer, 2 autonomous databases, a load balancer, and more. Unlike AWS Free Tier (12 months) or Azure Free (12 months), OCI Always Free does not expire.
How do I get an Oracle Cloud free tier account in 2026?
Sign up at cloud.oracle.com with a personal email. Oracle requires a payment card for identity verification, but it is not charged on the Always Free tier. Pick a home region close to your users (Frankfurt, Ashburn, and Phoenix tend to have the most ARM capacity). Verification takes a few minutes to a few hours.
Oracle Cloud free tier vs AWS free tier, which is better in 2026?
OCI Always Free is significantly more generous and does not expire. AWS Free Tier gives 750 hours/month of a t4g.small (2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM) for 12 months only, then bills you. OCI gives you 4 ARM cores and 24 GB RAM forever, plus 200 GB of storage and 10 TB of egress. For long-term side projects, OCI is the clear winner.
Oracle Cloud free tier vs Hetzner, which to pick?
Hetzner has the best paid budget VPS in the market (a CAX21 ARM box with 4 cores, 8 GB RAM, 80 GB disk, 20 TB egress is around $8/mo). If your budget is $0, OCI is the only option. If your budget is $8 and you want a simpler control panel and zero capacity headaches, Hetzner wins. Many indie hackers run both: OCI for free background work, Hetzner for production.
Will Oracle reclaim my free instance if it sits idle?
On the pure Always Free tier, yes. If CPU, memory, and network all stay below 20% for 7 consecutive days, the instance gets reclaimed. The workaround is to upgrade your account to Pay As You Go (no upfront payment, just attach a card). Pay-As-You-Go accounts are not subject to idle reclamation.
Why do I keep getting “out of capacity” errors when provisioning ARM?
ARM Ampere A1 demand exceeds free supply in most regions. Free-tier accounts have the lowest provisioning priority. The reliable fix is the same: upgrade to Pay-As-You-Go (free, just a card). Commercial accounts get priority allocation, and once you have the instance you can stay within Always Free limits and pay $0.
Do I need a credit card to sign up?
Yes. Oracle requires a card for identity verification on both Always Free and Pay-As-You-Go accounts. It is not charged as long as you stay within Always Free limits and avoid paid services. Set a $1 budget alert to catch any accidental over-provisioning.
What is the Ampere A1 architecture?
Ampere Altra is a 64-bit ARMv8.2 server CPU built by Ampere Computing. OCI’s A1 shape lets you slice up to 4 cores from this chip into one or more VMs. It is the same Neoverse N1 core family used in AWS Graviton2 and Azure Cobalt, so most modern software (Node.js, Python, Go, Java, PostgreSQL, Redis, NGINX, Docker, Kubernetes) runs natively on it without changes.
Can I run production workloads on the OCI free tier?
Yes, with caveats. The hardware is real, fast, and stable. The trade-offs: no SLA on free resources, occasional capacity issues in popular regions, and you are sharing a multi-tenant ARM pool. For side projects, MVPs, dev environments, CI runners, personal infrastructure, and indie SaaS in the early stages, it is fine. For revenue-critical production, keep a paid backup instance (Hetzner or a paid OCI box) and use the free tier for staging and tooling.