Cloud Free Tiers Compared (2026): AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle

For one always-on small server, Oracle Cloud's Always Free compute costs $0 with no end date: 2 Arm OCPUs and 12 GB of memory for a full month, per Oracle's own docs checked October 10, 2026. Google Cloud's e2-micro also renews free each month, but only in three US regions, and its $300 trial ends at 90 days. AWS gives up to $200 over six months, and Azure gives $200 for 30 days plus a 12-month small VM.

Every vendor figure below was read on the vendor's own page on October 10, 2026, in US dollars. Free tiers change without notice, so check the vendor page before you open an account.

The four free tiers at a glance

Tool pages for the four clouds: AWS, Google Cloud, Azure and Oracle Cloud.

AWS: $200 over six months, then the account closes

New AWS accounts get $100 in credits at signup and can earn up to $100 more by exploring key services. AWS says the account closes on its own six months after you open it, or when the credits run out, whichever comes first. You are not charged unless you convert to a Paid plan, so the real deadline is the six-month window, not the first bill. AWS dates this model to July 15, 2025, when new customers began receiving the larger credit, according to its S3 pricing page.

The always-free list is real but narrower than the headline. AWS says 30 or more services stay free within monthly limits on both plans. Lambda is the clearest example, with 1 million requests and 400,000 GB-seconds of compute every month. The free page does not name an always-free virtual machine, so an AWS server draws on the credit until the account closes. That is the trap for anyone who plans a permanent server on AWS credits.

Google Cloud: a 90-day trial, then one e2-micro

The trial lasts 90 days, and Google does not bill usage during it. If you upgrade early, you keep the unused credit until day 90 and the Free Tier carries on. If you do nothing, or spend the credit first, the trial billing account closes and all of its projects and resources are stopped. A trial server stops with the account, not at the end of a month, so move anything you need onto an upgraded billing account before day 90.

The lasting benefit is the Free Tier, and it is narrower. You get one non-preemptible e2-micro VM a month in us-west1 (Oregon), us-central1 (Iowa) or us-east1 (South Carolina), with 30 GB-months of standard disk and 1 GB of outbound data from North America. Google counts hours across all your e2-micro instances against the hours in the month, so one VM running all month stays free. Cloud Storage adds 5 GB-months of US regional storage, 5,000 Class A and 50,000 Class B operations, and 100 GB of egress. Cloud Run adds 2 million requests a month.

Azure: a 30-day credit, then 12 months of a small VM

Azure gives a credit to use within 30 days, and the clock is what bites. If you want to keep going, move to pay-as-you-go before the window closes. Azure says that without the move, your account and services are disabled until you upgrade. The list that matters for a server is the 12-month one: 750 hours each of B1s, B2pts v2 (Arm) and B2ats v2 (AMD) burstable VMs, for new customers. Azure Functions adds 1 million requests a month as an always-free item.

Always-free services keep their monthly amounts after the first year. The 12-month list does not, so an Azure VM that you keep running past month 12 starts billing at the pay-as-you-go rate.

Oracle Cloud: the free server with no end date

Oracle's trial credit lasts 30 days or until it is used up, whichever comes first, and covers all eligible services. Always Free is a separate allowance with no time limit, as long as the account stays in use. After the trial, Always Free keeps running, and after an upgrade Oracle bills only for usage above the free amounts.

Compute is what matters for a server. Oracle's Always Free docs give every tenancy 1,500 OCPU-hours and 9,000 GB-hours of Arm Ampere A1 compute each month, and say that equals 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of memory. Older guides quote 4 Arm cores and 24 GB, but the current docs give 2 OCPUs and 12 GB. The other option is up to two VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro AMD instances, which can only be created in one availability domain.

Every tenancy also gets 200 GB of block storage with five volume backups, 20 GB of combined object and archive storage once the trial has ended, and one Flexible Load Balancer at 10 Mbps.

Does one server fit the free limits?

Take the common case: one server that runs all month, which is 730 hours. The table shows whether it fits the free allowance without any payment.

Oracle leaves 40 OCPU-hours and 240 GB-hours to spare. Going above 2 OCPUs and 12 GB for the whole month uses up the allowance, so a bigger VM is billed. Azure leaves 20 hours of headroom. After Azure's 12 months, a B1s on pay-as-you-go Linux in East US costs $0.0104 an hour, or $7.59 for 730 hours. Windows in the same region is $0.014 an hour, or $10.22 for the month. These rates come from Microsoft's retail prices API.

Which free VPS can you keep?

For a free server with no end date, Oracle's Always Free compute is the strongest option. It fits a full month of 2 OCPUs and 12 GB, and the allowance does not expire while the account stays in good standing. Google's e2-micro also renews each month, but it is one small VM in three regions, and it lives inside a billing account that stops if the trial closes without an upgrade.

Azure's VM is free for a year, which suits a learning project or a test server. AWS's free page names no always-free VM, so a server there runs on credit. Pick Oracle for a permanent server, Google if you already run on Google Cloud and can live with the region limit, and Azure for a one-year trial. For the paid VPS that follows a free year, compare the best VPS hosting for developers, Hetzner and DigitalOcean.

Free plans are not free servers

Devshot data: of the 198 hosting and deployment tools Toolradar ranks, 142 (72%) have a free plan, per its hosting and deployment ranking, updated October 2026. A free plan is not the same as a server you can keep running. The four clouds above cap different things first: credit, time, hours or requests. For the platform layer on top of a server, see Vercel pricing, Supabase pricing, cheaper Vercel alternatives and best serverless platforms.

Gotchas with exact figures

• AWS: the account closes at six months or when the credits run out, whichever comes first.
• Google Cloud: the trial closes at day 90 and its projects and resources stop. The e2-micro is free in us-west1, us-central1 and us-east1 only.
• Azure: the account is disabled if you do not move to pay-as-you-go within 30 days. The 12-month VM list ends at month 12, and a B1s costs $7.59 a month after that in East US.
• Oracle: Oracle may place a temporary authorization hold on your card. An account left idle for 30 days or more can become eligible for suspension or termination.
• Oracle Arm: the allowance covers 2 OCPUs and 12 GB for a full month. Going above that size uses more than the monthly cap.

Once a free tier ends, storage and transfer are the next bill. The object storage pricing comparison shows what S3-style buckets cost once the free egress runs out, and best Postgres hosting covers the managed database side.

How we checked the numbers

Each vendor figure comes from the vendor's own page, read on October 10, 2026: AWS Free Tier, AWS Lambda pricing, AWS S3 pricing, Google Cloud free program with its free features doc, Azure free account, Oracle Cloud Free Tier and Oracle's Always Free resources doc. The scenario uses 730 hours, the average month, and Oracle's own equivalence of 2 OCPUs and 12 GB. The Azure rates come from Microsoft's retail prices API for East US, consumption pricing. Free tiers change, so re-check the vendor page before you sign up.

FAQ

Which cloud has the best free tier in 2026?

For a permanent small server, Oracle Cloud. Its Always Free Arm compute gives 1,500 OCPU-hours and 9,000 GB-hours a month, which covers 2 OCPUs and 12 GB for a full 730-hour month with no end date. Google's e2-micro also renews monthly, but only in three US regions.

Is the AWS free tier actually free?

Partly. New accounts get the signup credit plus a bonus for exploring key services, within six months at most. The account closes at six months or when the credit runs out, whichever comes first. The always-free services stay free within monthly limits on both plans, and Lambda gives 1 million requests and 400,000 GB-seconds a month.

Is there a free VPS that does not expire?

Oracle's Always Free compute has no time limit: up to two AMD micro instances, or the Arm allowance of 2 OCPUs and 12 GB. Google's e2-micro renews monthly in us-west1, us-central1 or us-east1 while the account stays open. Azure's free VM runs for 12 months only.

What does an Azure VM cost after the free 12 months?

A B1s costs $0.0104 an hour on pay-as-you-go Linux in East US, which is $7.59 for a 730-hour month. The same VM on Windows costs $0.014 an hour, or $10.22 a month.

Does Google Cloud charge after the trial?

Not during the trial. If you upgrade, the Free Tier carries on and you pay only for usage beyond it. If you do nothing before day 90, or spend the credit first, the trial billing account closes and its projects and resources stop.

Cite this: Devshot, "Cloud Free Tiers Compared (2026): AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle", October 2026.

Free tiers move on each vendor's schedule, not ours. Devshot's daily brief flags the pricing changes developers act on. Subscribe at devshot.co.

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