Hosts a WordPress site on Oracle PAYG using only free-tier resources, with weekly boot volume backups.
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 77 reviews mentioning reliable Show all
Left a free ARM instance idle for over a year after a Minecraft server and it was never terminated.
More than a year on the free tier, never charged and rock solid, though they now keep serious off-site backups.
Free-tier availability was very low, then the account was closed without explanation and took a week of fighting support to reactivate.
Has run a free-tier VM with a Minecraft server and side projects for about two years without issues, apart from a Next.js exploit that planted a crypto miner.
Free ARM VPS that ran for a couple of years was suddenly shut down and only an upgrade would restore access.
Three years on Oracle's free tier hosting Uptime Kuma and beszel; paid the refundable verification so servers aren't deleted.
Very stable Oracle Ampere instances for 2+ years after converting to pay-as-you-go; better than Google's free tier.
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.
Uptime Kuma worked for over a year on a free VM, then requests started timing out and they moved providers.
A two-year-old account and VM were deleted right after asking support to change their home address, with no termination email.
Had a Minecraft server instance deleted within three months despite daily use and PAYG, and a replacement lasted under two weeks.
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.
A free ARM instance has idled for three years, used only for the occasional VPN, without being terminated.
Uses an OCI instance with Pangolin tunneling to their home network and says it works flawlessly.
Two x86 free-tier instances more than five years old run 24/7, plus an Ampere one added about six months ago.
Same Ubuntu install on the free instance for almost four years, upgraded from 22.04 to 24.04 LTS, pretty solid.
Rock solid for four years after converting to PAYG, advising picking a home region with Ampere availability.
Has hosted a Minecraft server on the free tier for about three years without ever being charged.
Runs Pangolin and Netbird on it for a year and a half with no problems.
Two free servers split the resources, no issues for a few years, only about 8 cents a month for S3 overage.
The free instance works, but it was shut down once for being idle and getting it back took a while.
Rock solid for a few years, amazing if the workload runs on ARM.
More than six months on the free tier and solid.
About five years on the free tier with no issues.
Over a year using it as a TCP proxy to a home Traefik via Tailscale with few issues; getting an instance is the hard part.
From New Zealand, uses the Australian region for non-streaming workloads and a CGNAT workaround, and it works fantastically.
Runs 2 Debian VMs on Oracle's free tier for years without problems.
Their Always Free VM was deleted while they were on vacation with no explanation.
Oracle deleted their free instance without warning and the IPv6 setup is a convoluted 20-step process.
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.
Finds OCI very good in the Sydney and Melbourne regions, with adequate tooling and support.
Converted the free instance to pay-as-you-go three years ago; about $1.10 a month and no issues at all.
Their always-free Oracle Cloud account hosting a Minecraft server was deleted without warning, even after upgrading to pay-as-you-go.
Four years on a PAYG free-tier instance with no issues; runs Minecraft and a reverse proxy.
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.
With a couple of free accounts built a distributed K3s cluster over Tailscale with Gluster replication that worked flawlessly.
Hosts a website and a Tailscale exit node on two small free-tier VMs in Germany, running for years.
Runs a custom Debian Trixie image on the free ARM instance and calls it rock solid on minimal resources.
Oracle deleted their account for no stated reason.
Runs a Caddy and WireGuard reverse proxy on the Oracle free VPS to share Jellyfin from behind CGNAT; the stream is stable and they are happy.
Their account was banned after trying to upgrade to pay-as-you-go.
Oracle removed them from PAYG, claiming they only ran a Minecraft server.
Years on the 4-core 24GB ARM free instance running Immich with no issues.
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.
