Last verified: June 30, 2026
Two providers give a genuinely free, always-on VPS in 2026: Oracle Cloud Always Free and the Google Cloud free tier. Oracle is the standout, with 2 Arm Ampere cores and 12GB of RAM always-on at $0 forever (its monthly allowance also lets you run 4 cores for roughly half the month), enough to run containers, a small app, or several self-hosted services on one box. Everything else marketed as a free VPS is a time-limited trial or a credit grant. This guide separates the two free-forever options from the trials, lists the exact specs and the catches, and shows which to use for what.
Comparison at a glance
| Provider | Specs | Duration | Card required | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oracle Cloud Always Free | 2 Arm Ampere cores + 12GB RAM always-on (or 2 AMD micro VMs), 200GB storage, 10TB/mo egress | Always free | Yes | The only real free-forever VPS with usable specs |
| Google Cloud free tier | 1 e2-micro (2 shared vCPU burst, 1GB RAM), 30GB disk | Always free | Yes | A tiny always-on box in the GCP ecosystem |
| AWS Free Tier | New accounts: up to $200 in credits. Legacy: t3.micro, 750 hours/mo | New: 6 months. Legacy: 12 months | Yes | Exploring AWS on credits |
| Azure free | B1S, 750 hours/mo, plus $200 credit | 12 months + 30 days | Yes | Learning Azure for a year |
| Google Cloud trial | $300 credit, any machine type | 90 days | Yes | A short-term larger VPS |
| GitHub Student Pack | DigitalOcean $200, Azure $100, and more | While a student | Varies | Students who want real VPS credit |
Oracle Cloud Always Free
- Specs: The Always Free allowance is 1,500 Ampere A1 (Arm) OCPU-hours and 9,000 GB-hours of memory per month, which works out to 2 OCPUs and 12GB of RAM running always-on, as one VM or split in two. You can instead spend the same budget on up to 4 OCPUs for roughly half the month. Separately you also get 2 AMD-based micro VMs (1/8 OCPU and 1GB RAM each). Plus 200GB of block storage and 10TB of outbound data transfer per month.
- Duration: Always free, no expiry, not a 12-month trial
- Card required: Yes, for identity verification at signup
- How to start: Sign up at oracle.com/cloud/free, create a VM instance, choose the Ampere (Arm) shape
- Catches: In June 2026 Oracle halved the Always Free Arm allowance from 4 OCPU/24GB to 2 OCPU/12GB, so older guides quoting four cores are out of date. Arm capacity in popular regions is sometimes exhausted, returning an "out of host capacity" error, so pick your home region carefully or retry. Oracle can reclaim Always Free compute instances that sit idle, so a truly unused box may be stopped. The signup flow is stricter than most.
- Best for: A real free server. Two Arm cores and 12GB of RAM run Docker, a small web app with a database, a VPN, or a self-hosted tool comfortably.
Oracle Always Free is the answer to "is there a real free VPS" in 2026. Nothing else free comes close on specs. The trade-off is signup friction and the idle-reclamation policy, both manageable if you actually use the box.
Google Cloud free tier
- Specs: One e2-micro instance (2 shared vCPUs that burst, 1GB RAM) with a 30GB standard persistent disk, plus 1GB of egress from North America per month
- Duration: Always free, in the us-west1, us-central1, and us-east1 regions
- Card required: Yes
- How to start: Create an e2-micro in an eligible region from the Google Cloud console
- Catches: 1GB of RAM is tight for anything beyond a small service, the instance must live in one of the three eligible US regions to stay free, and egress beyond 1GB per month is billed. Confirm current limits before relying on them.
- Best for: A small always-on box, a cron runner, a lightweight API, or anyone already standing up other resources in Google Cloud.
AWS Free Tier
- Specs: New accounts (since July 15, 2025) get up to $200 in credits, $100 at signup plus up to $100 more for completing onboarding steps, to spend on any eligible service including EC2. There is no dedicated 750-hour EC2 pool anymore; instance usage just draws down the credit balance, and a broader range of instance types is allowed. Accounts created before that date keep the legacy 750-hours-per-month t3.micro (or t2.micro) allowance.
- Duration: New accounts: 6 months, or until the credits run out. Legacy accounts: 12 months. Not always free either way.
- Card required: Yes
- How to start: Create a Free Plan account, then launch an instance from the EC2 console; usage draws from your credits
- Catches: New-account credits expire after 6 months (or when spent), so plan for the box to become billable. On legacy accounts, going beyond 750 hours or adding a second instance is billed.
- Best for: Exploring AWS on credits for a few months, or a project you know will move to paid (or off AWS) before the credits run out.
Azure free
- Specs: A B1S Linux VM for 750 hours per month for 12 months, alongside a $200 credit usable in the first 30 days on anything
- Duration: 12 months for the VM, 30 days for the credit
- Card required: Yes
- How to start: Create a B1S VM from the Azure portal under the free account
- Catches: Same shape as AWS: the free VM is a 12-month window, and the $200 credit expires fast. After a year the VM bills at standard rates.
- Best for: Learning Azure for a year, or burning the $200 credit on a short-lived larger machine.
Free trials and credits
When you need more than a micro box for a short time, signup credits beat any free tier. Google Cloud gives a $300 credit for 90 days that runs any machine type. DigitalOcean offers $200 over 60 days, Vultr runs promotional credits around $250, and Linode (Akamai) gives $100 for 60 days. These are not free forever, but for a launch, a load test, or a month of real compute they are effectively free and far more powerful than an e2-micro.
Student options
If you are a student, the GitHub Student Developer Pack bundles VPS credit that beats the public free tiers: DigitalOcean ($200), Microsoft Azure ($100), plus assorted hosting and tooling credits, renewable while you remain enrolled. AWS also runs educational credit programs. A verified student email is the only requirement.
Free forever versus free trial: how to choose
If you need a box that stays free indefinitely, there are exactly two real choices: Oracle Always Free (use this unless you specifically need Google's ecosystem) and the Google Cloud e2-micro. If you need power for a short window, use a credit: Google's $300, DigitalOcean's $200, or Vultr's promo. If you are learning a specific cloud, take that provider's 12-month free tier (AWS or Azure) and set a calendar reminder for the expiry. For a hobby server that should never get a bill, Oracle's Arm instance is the clear pick.
What a free VPS will not do
A free VPS is real compute, but it is not a managed product. There is no uptime SLA, so do not put anything you cannot afford to lose a few hours of on it alone. Egress is capped (10TB on Oracle is generous, 1GB on GCP is not), and blowing the cap bills you. Oracle reclaims idle Always Free instances, so an unused box is not guaranteed to stay up. Support is community-level. For a side project, a VPN, a bot, or a staging environment these are fine trade-offs. For revenue-critical production, pair a free box with a cheap dedicated server or a paid VPS as the primary.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a truly free VPS with no time limit in 2026? Yes. Oracle Cloud Always Free and the Google Cloud free tier both run an always-on VPS at $0 with no expiry. Oracle is the most capable, with 2 Arm Ampere cores and 12GB of RAM always-on. Everything else marketed as a free VPS is a time-limited trial or a credit grant.
What is the best free VPS in 2026? Oracle Cloud Always Free. Its Arm Ampere A1 allowance gives 2 cores and 12GB of RAM always-on, 200GB of block storage, and 10TB of monthly egress, free forever. That is enough to run containers, a small production app, or several self-hosted services on one box.
Does a free VPS require a credit card? Usually yes. Oracle, Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure all ask for a card during signup for identity verification. You are not charged for staying within Always Free or free-tier limits, but the card is required to create the account and stops most abuse.
Can I run production on a free VPS? For hobby and light production, yes, especially on Oracle's Arm instances. But free tiers carry no uptime guarantee, have egress caps, and Oracle can reclaim idle Always Free instances. For anything revenue-critical, treat a free VPS as a staging or side-project box, not your only server.
Why is Oracle's free tier so much more generous than AWS or GCP? It is a loss-leader to pull developers onto Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and Oracle's own Arm Ampere hardware is cheap for them to give away. The result is a free allowance (2 cores, 12GB RAM always-on) that dwarfs the 1GB micro instances offered free by AWS and Google.
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Running anything interesting on a free VPS? I keep this list current as providers change their free tiers. Reply if a spec has shifted or a provider belongs on the table.
