Free VPS Tiers: Setting Up AWS, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud Free Instances

Free VPS tiers from major cloud providers let you run small production workloads, development environments, or learning labs at zero cost. This guide walks through the practical setup of the three most generous always-free tiers: Oracle Cloud, AWS Free Tier, and Google Cloud Free Tier. For a broader view of affordable VPS options, compare VPS providers on our comparison table.

Oracle Cloud Free Tier: The Most Generous Always-Free Offer

Oracle Cloud offers two AMD-based micro instances (1 OCPU, 1GB RAM each) and up to 200GB of block storage, all permanently free with no time limit. This is the most generous always-free VPS offering available.

Launching an Oracle Cloud Free Instance

Create an account at cloud.oracle.com (credit card required for verification, no charges)
Navigate to Compute > Instances and click “Create Instance”
Choose “Ampere A1” shape (ARM-based, up to 4 cores / 24GB RAM within free allocation)
Select Ubuntu 22.04 LTS as the OS image
Upload your SSH public key
Click “Create” — ready in under 2 minutes

Connect via SSH:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/oracle_key ubuntu@<instance-public-ip>

# Verify your resources
lscpu
free -h
df -h

Setting Up a Web Server on Oracle Free Tier

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx
sudo systemctl enable --now nginx

# Configure firewall
sudo ufw allow 22/tcp
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp
sudo ufw enable

AWS Free Tier: The t2.micro / t3.micro Standard

AWS offers 750 hours/month of t2.micro or t3.micro (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM) for the first 12 months, plus 30GB of EBS storage and 1TB data transfer. After the first year, you pay standard rates.

# Using AWS CLI
aws ec2 run-instances \
    --image-id ami-0c7217cdde317cfec \
    --instance-type t3.micro \
    --key-name your-key-pair \
    --associate-public-ip-address

SSH in and set up Docker:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/aws_key ec2-user@<public-ip>
sudo dnf update -y && sudo dnf install -y docker
sudo systemctl enable --now docker
sudo usermod -aG docker ec2-user
# Log out and back in, then:
docker run -d -p 80:80 nginx:alpine

The t3.micro is burstable — it accumulates CPU credits during idle periods and spends them during bursts. For sustained CPU workloads, performance drops to 10-20% of a full core once credits are exhausted.

Google Cloud Free Tier: The f1-micro

Google Cloud provides one f1-micro instance (0.2 vCPU, 614MB RAM) in each of three US regions permanently free, plus 30GB of HDD storage. Monthly data transfer is 1GB egress (very limited).

# Using gcloud CLI
gcloud compute instances create free-vps \
    --zone=us-central1-a \
    --machine-type=f1-micro \
    --image-family=ubuntu-2204-lts \
    --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
    --boot-disk-size=30GB \
    --boot-disk-type=pd-standard

# SSH directly via gcloud
gcloud compute ssh free-vps --zone=us-central1-a

Comparing Free Tier Limitations

Provider	vCPUs	RAM	Storage	Transfer	Duration
Oracle Cloud	1-4 OCPU (ARM)	1-24 GB	200 GB	10 TB/mo	Always free
AWS	1 vCPU (burstable)	1 GB	30 GB EBS	1 TB/mo	12 months
Google Cloud	0.2 vCPU	614 MB	30 GB HDD	1 GB egress	Always free

Practical Use Cases

Personal VPN: WireGuard or OpenVPN for secure browsing
Dev/staging: Docker containers for testing CI/CD pipelines
Monitoring server: Uptime Kuma for service monitoring
Personal Git server: Gitea or GitLab CE
DNS resolver: Pi-hole for ad-blocking DNS

For production workloads that exceed free tier limits, consider budget VPS plans from InterServer VPS (plans start at $6/month) or Cloudways managed VPS. Always compare VPS providers on our comparison table to find the best fit for your budget.