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There already are tons of options for free VMs. I have 4 Oracle Cloud instances with 4 cores, 24gb RAM and 200gb disks total for this exact same use case. I sup

There already are tons of options for free VMs. I have 4 Oracle Cloud instances with 4 cores, 24gb RAM and 200gb disks total for this exact same use case. I suppose the author prematurely assumed all VPSs are costly or does not want to set up the networking themself.

javajosh 5y ago
I did a google search for "free tier vps" and sure enough, it does seem like the standard is roughly $300 in credit (AWS seems to do it differently). Which is enough for a small vps-like-thing for 5 years, or 4 large instances for a few weeks.
- gzer0 5y ago
  The credit for AWS expires after 1 year. Azure credits expire in 90 days. GCP expire after 30. Whether all used or unused.
  - lostmsu 5y ago
    At least Oracle and GCP have always free instances, that never expire.
- agwa 5y ago
  GCP's $300 credit is in addition to letting you run one free e2-micro instance indefinitely: https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free-tier/ https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free-tier/ "Free Tier: All Google Cloud customers can use select Google Cloud products—like Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, and BigQuery—free of charge, within specified monthly usage limits. When you stay within the Free Tier limits, these resources are not charged against your Free Trial credits or to your Cloud Billing account's payment method after your trial ends."
  - chlorion 5y ago
    I actually use the GCP free tier to run a few small things, it works really well for me! There is a small catch though, getting a static IP for the instance is not free, and your egress traffic starts costing after you reach 1GB outgoing data use in a months time. The cool thing is (afaict), getting a static IP and going over 1GB egress doesn't totally knock you out of the free tier, you just pay for the static IP and any data usage past 1GB. My setup ends up costing me under a dollar per month with a static IP and very light egress usage. The performance of the machine is not great but it's also not terrible consider the cost. I pretty sure you could run a small website and some other services on it no problem.
andwaal 5y ago
Actually WTF, the Oracle always free seems ludacris. I have just moved a couple of my personal projects from DO to Fly because of their amazing free tire, but Oracle's is in a completely different dimention.
- oschvr 5y ago
  What !! Always free ? I'll check it out
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  I have the same reaction. 4 vCPU + 24GB for free, WTF? I wonder what that's costing them.
  - hotpotamus 5y ago
    Yep, I switched and got a buddy over to them as well. As far as what it's costing them, cloud hosting is a high margin business and it gets them on the map I suppose. I'm hesitant to do actual business with Oracle, but if they provide competent commodity cloud hosting for cheaper than the other guys, why not?
  - cosmie 5y ago
    Plus 10TB of outbound bandwidth. That's my favorite part of Oracle's always free tier[1], in comparison to other offerings. [1] https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier_topic-Always_Free_Resources.htm https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier...
- spiffytech 5y ago
  The catch is they're Arm servers, so you'll have to check if that's a match for whatever you want to run.
- thegeekpirate 5y ago
  Be warned that they disable free accounts at random, and support will not respond to you. There's many threads in the subreddit about this, and it also happened to me personally.
Gatsky 5y ago
Any performance benchmarks?

javajosh 5y ago

I did a google search for "free tier vps" and sure enough, it does seem like the standard is roughly $300 in credit (AWS seems to do it differently). Which is enough for a small vps-like-thing for 5 years, or 4 large instances for a few weeks.

gzer0 5y ago
The credit for AWS expires after 1 year. Azure credits expire in 90 days. GCP expire after 30. Whether all used or unused.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  At least Oracle and GCP have always free instances, that never expire.
agwa 5y ago
GCP's $300 credit is in addition to letting you run one free e2-micro instance indefinitely: https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free-tier/ https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free-tier/ "Free Tier: All Google Cloud customers can use select Google Cloud products—like Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, and BigQuery—free of charge, within specified monthly usage limits. When you stay within the Free Tier limits, these resources are not charged against your Free Trial credits or to your Cloud Billing account's payment method after your trial ends."
- chlorion 5y ago
  I actually use the GCP free tier to run a few small things, it works really well for me! There is a small catch though, getting a static IP for the instance is not free, and your egress traffic starts costing after you reach 1GB outgoing data use in a months time. The cool thing is (afaict), getting a static IP and going over 1GB egress doesn't totally knock you out of the free tier, you just pay for the static IP and any data usage past 1GB. My setup ends up costing me under a dollar per month with a static IP and very light egress usage. The performance of the machine is not great but it's also not terrible consider the cost. I pretty sure you could run a small website and some other services on it no problem.

andwaal 5y ago

Actually WTF, the Oracle always free seems ludacris. I have just moved a couple of my personal projects from DO to Fly because of their amazing free tire, but Oracle's is in a completely different dimention.

oschvr 5y ago
What !! Always free ? I'll check it out
systemvoltage 5y ago
I have the same reaction. 4 vCPU + 24GB for free, WTF? I wonder what that's costing them.
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  Yep, I switched and got a buddy over to them as well. As far as what it's costing them, cloud hosting is a high margin business and it gets them on the map I suppose. I'm hesitant to do actual business with Oracle, but if they provide competent commodity cloud hosting for cheaper than the other guys, why not?
- cosmie 5y ago
  Plus 10TB of outbound bandwidth. That's my favorite part of Oracle's always free tier[1], in comparison to other offerings. [1] https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier_topic-Always_Free_Resources.htm https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier...
spiffytech 5y ago
The catch is they're Arm servers, so you'll have to check if that's a match for whatever you want to run.
thegeekpirate 5y ago
Be warned that they disable free accounts at random, and support will not respond to you. There's many threads in the subreddit about this, and it also happened to me personally.

Gatsky 5y ago

Any performance benchmarks?