Free VPS and cloud server tiers

A VPS gives you a whole virtual machine with root access. The big clouds keep a small always-free machine or give new accounts starter credit. Almost all of them ask for a card to verify you, and going over the free shape is billed, so set a budget alert on day one.

6 options · limits checked 1 Nov 2026 · ranked by free-tier score

6 free vps

  • 1.Google Cloud Free Tier

    Cloud / IaaS

    85

    Google's cloud with one small always-free VM, free Cloud Run usage and a 90-day trial credit.

    Trial credit
    $300 for 90 days
    VM
    1 e2-micro (us-west1, us-central1, us-east1)
    Disk
    30 GB-months standard persistent disk

    The catch: Only 1 GB of outbound traffic per month is free, and the VM must be in one of three US regions.

    Card neededNo end date
    Paid from Usage-based

  • 2.Oracle Cloud Free Tier

    Always-free VPS

    80

    Oracle's cloud with a set of always-free virtual machines and storage, plus a short trial credit.

    Arm VM (A1)
    2 OCPUs + 12 GB RAM total (1,500 OCPU-h / 9,000 GB-h per month)
    AMD micro VMs
    Up to 2, each 1/8 OCPU + 1 GB RAM
    Block storage
    200 GB total (boot + block)

    The catch: Free VMs must be in your home region, Arm capacity is often unavailable, and idle instances can be reclaimed.

    Card neededNo end dateSleeps when idle
    Paid from Usage-based

  • 3.AWS Free Tier

    Cloud credits

    70

    Amazon's cloud gives new accounts credits and a 6-month free plan instead of the old 12-month tier.

    Sign-up credit
    $100
    Extra credit
    Up to $100 more for trying services
    Free plan length
    6 months or until credits run out

    The catch: The free plan account closes after 6 months (or when credits are gone) unless you upgrade to a paid plan.

    Card neededCredits: up to $200, free plan ends after 6 months
    Paid from Usage-based

  • 4.Microsoft Azure Free Account

    Cloud / IaaS

    62

    Microsoft's cloud with a 30-day credit, 12 months of small free VMs and a set of always-free services.

    Credit
    $200 for 30 days
    VMs (12 months)
    750 h/month each of B1s, B2pts v2, B2ats v2
    Managed DB (12 months)
    750 h B1MS PostgreSQL / MySQL, 32 GB storage

    The catch: After 30 days you must switch to pay-as-you-go to keep the 12-month free services, or the account is disabled.

    Card needed12 months (credit: $200 for 30 days)
    Paid from Usage-based

  • 5.DigitalOcean

    Cloud VPS

    Paid

    Simple VPS (Droplets) and App Platform; there is no free VPS, only small always-free extras and sign-up promos.

    Free static sites
    3 on App Platform
    Functions
    90,000 GiB-seconds / month
    Cheapest Droplet
    $4/mo: 1 vCPU, 512 MiB, 10 GiB SSD, 500 GiB transfer

    The catch: There is no free VPS: Droplets are billed from the first hour.

    No free plan
    Paid from $4/mo (Basic Droplet)

  • 6.Vultr

    Cloud VPS

    Paid

    Low-cost hourly-billed VPS in many regions; it has no free plan.

    Cheapest plan
    $2.50/mo - 1 vCPU, 0.5 GB RAM
    Storage
    10 GB
    Bandwidth
    0.5 TB / month

    The catch: Nothing is free: you pay from the first hour.

    No free plan
    Paid from $2.5/mo (Regular Cloud Compute)

Compare them head to head

Free plans in this lane that ended

Still in old tutorials. Do not plan around them.

  1. AWS 12-month Free Tier (legacy)Free tier ended

    For accounts created from mid-July 2025, the old 12-month free tier (e.g. 750 h/month t2/t3.micro) was replaced by up to $200 credits and a 6-month free plan.

Free VPS & Cloud: questions

Is there a genuinely free VPS?

Yes. Oracle Cloud's Always Free tier and Google Cloud's e2-micro are free with no end date, inside their limits. Both need a card for identity checks. Other clouds give time-limited credit instead.

Can a free VPS charge my card?

It can if you create resources outside the free shape, such as a bigger machine, extra storage or traffic over the allowance. Use the provider's budget alerts and stay on the listed free resources.

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