Calls Oracle's always-free tier absurdly generous (200GB storage, up to 2 VMs) but notes idle instances can be reclaimed and Ampere ARM capacity is hard to get.
75signal
201reviewsi
A score out of 100. Negative and mixed reviews take points off, and so does having only a few reviews, so a handful of glowing reviews can’t beat a product many people like.
52% Positive12%36% Negative
Generous free tier for small servers, but free instances can be hard to get or vanish unannounced.
What customers love, and what they don’tWhat customers noticed
Customer reviews (201)
Add your reviewShowing 59 reviews mentioning good free plan Show all
Runs Gatus on the Oracle free tier, connected to their home network over Tailscale for off-site monitoring.
Switched to PAYG and instantly got a free-tier ARM VM after weeks of failed attempts on the plain free signup; has run it ever since, mostly as a RustDesk server.
Three years on Oracle's free tier hosting Uptime Kuma and beszel; paid the refundable verification so servers aren't deleted.
Three years on Oracle's Always Free Arm instance with no gotchas, though they had to upgrade to a paid account to provision.
Two years with 4 free ARM and x86 instances and no problems, though speed from Vancouver to Toronto isn't great.
Has kept free-tier Arm for years on a paid account, though the account sat in trial limbo for a month after adding a card.
Added free Oracle nodes to a home Nomad cluster over WireGuard for extra compute at no cost.
Free VMs are usually unavailable and, when granted, are randomly removed without clear reasons.
Has used Oracle's free ARM VM for a couple of years and finds it very stable.
Five years on Oracle free tier with no issues or downtime.
After converting to PAYG, runs a free Ampere instance with 4 vCPU, 24 GB RAM, a 50 GB boot disk and block volume.
Calls the free compute the best offer available, used for over five years and paid exactly $0.
Has run a 4-core, 20GB RAM, 100GB free instance 24/7 since 2022, first for a modded Minecraft server and now as a fixed-IP reverse proxy.
Has hosted a Minecraft server on the free tier for about three years without ever being charged.
Six months on the free tier, works great and never charged; uses it as a WireGuard endpoint behind CGNAT.
Hosts game servers and a website on one Oracle free instance without using 50% of its power and no charges.
Runs 2 Debian VMs on Oracle's free tier for years without problems.
Oracle shut down their idle free instance for low usage; a stress daemon keeps it running.
Running 5 free VMs on Oracle for 4 years without a bill.
Uses Oracle's free VM for Tailscale VPN and occasional heavy tasks with no catches.
Minecraft server, WireGuard and proxy on Oracle's free tier for over 4 years with no problems.
Runs Immich on Oracle's free tier and calls it excellent, though paid storage pricing is high enough that they look for alternatives.
On PAYG but within free limits, so $0 a month and no fighting for capacity.
Runs availability monitoring and jumphost apps on Oracle Cloud's free tier with no issues despite restrictive networking.
Free Oracle ARM VPS running about 70 containers for a year without hassle.
Followed a guide to run a small Kubernetes cluster on Oracle Cloud's free tier and says it has run smoothly since.
Free Oracle VPS works for IPv4 termination with WireGuard behind CGNAT.
Got a free Ampere instance last week in the Sydney data center.
Runs home monitoring on always-free cloud tiers and says it removes a lot of stress and uncertainty.
Running for years, even after the registration card expired, still not paying.
Converting to PAYG got them an Ampere instance immediately, free as long as they stay within limits.
Eight months on a 100GB, 24GB RAM free instance without ever being asked for a card.
Runs Immich on a single ARM core and 6GB RAM, which is overkill and works well.
They run two web servers and a database on Oracle Cloud at no cost and mention it offers a budget setting to prevent runaway bills.
Long-time personal server on PAYG using only free-tier resources, never charged, with Tailscale and Cloudflare tunnels.
They run two free-tier instances with uptime-kuma, no expenses for 2 years and no random termination.
They have used the Oracle free tier for over 18 months without problems, while keeping backups because it is free.
Half a year on Oracle's free Ampere A1 running 4 Next.js apps with pm2, works great.
Runs cron scripts and test web apps on Oracle's always-free VPS at no cost, but would not trust it with anything critical since Oracle reclaims low-activity instances.
Uses the free instance as an off-site sync target for Proxmox Backup Server backups, aware it could vanish at any point.
Runs the free tier with slight over-provisioning to pay about 1 euro a month so Oracle will not delete them as a free user.
Two micro servers on Oracle Cloud always-free tier run WireGuard and a small web server for zero cost.
On PAYG with a tiny positive bill (about 14 cents a month) so resources are kept; working for years.
They run free-tier x86 VMs on Oracle Cloud for folding at home, and those have been running for over a year.
An Amazon engineer uses Oracle's always-free 24GB VM for personal projects, running several small web services and a libsql DB container on one instance.
Upgraded to the paid account but stays within free limits and has not paid a penny.
Oracle deleted everything on their free tier without notice 11 months after signing up.
Runs Docker and Uptime Kuma on the free 4-core, 24GB ARM machine and has never had Uptime Kuma knocked out.
After upgrading to PAYG they used only always-free resources for almost a year, charged just 0.0025 euro once for a backup restore attempt.
Common questions about Oracle Cloud
What do customers say about Oracle Cloud?
Most customers run small servers on its generous free tier and report stable, trouble-free use, some for years. The main risk is that free instances can be hard to obtain, flagged idle or removed without warning. It suits hobby projects, not anything critical.
Is Oracle Cloud worth it?
Of the 120 reviews with a clear verdict, 53% are positive, 12% mixed and 36% negative. The praise mentioned most is reliable. The most common complaint is poor support.
What do people like about Oracle Cloud?
The praise reviewers mention most: reliable (51 reviews), good free plan (36 reviews) and great value (7 reviews). For example: Two x86 free-tier instances more than five years old run 24/7, plus an Ampere one added about six months ago.
What are the most common complaints about Oracle Cloud?
The complaints reviewers mention most: poor support (13 reviews), slow (5 reviews) and surprise bill (3 reviews). For example: Their account, even on PAYG, was closed with no warning and support was too convoluted to recover the servers.
What does the signal score of 75 mean?
It's how well reviewed Oracle Cloud is, out of 100. Negative and mixed reviews take points off, and so does having only a few reviews: a service needs plenty of them, compared with the most-reviewed services here, to reach the high 80s and 90s. It's worked out from reviews only, needs at least 5 of them, and updates as new ones come in.
What are the specs of Oracle Cloud?
Category: Cloud platform. Free plan: Yes.
Where do these Oracle Cloud reviews come from?
201 are quotes from Reddit, each linked to the original. Customer reviews are checked for spam before they appear. Every review, written here or quoted, is read as positive, mixed or negative.
