alt Hacker NewsI’m mostly fine with this. Their free teir was crazy generous. 24GB of ram for free is a lot. They were a very popular host for free Minecraft servers because of it.
Their communication about this change has been pretty awful. It began with a silent change to the docs a month or so back, and a lot of people worrying that they would suddenly be charged. It looks like there’s actually a date associated with the change now at least. This article mentions an email that went out? I haven’t gotten any such email. I’ve already reduced my instances to within the upcoming limit, so maybe that’s why? I don’t know.
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Yep still an excellent free tier. The storage (200G?) and transfer (10TB I think still!?) haven't changed, and also you still get 2 free AMD64 1G VMs, so all in all, still awesome. I know people have complained about OCI/Oracle in general and shenanigans by Oracle re: their free tier instances, but my 2 instances (one A1 which I have downsized to within new limits, and one AMD) have been humming along for years and years with no issues..
This is the email I received yesterday.
I think them downsizing the free tier is perfectly fine. Giving two weeks’ notice before terminating instances is not. But since this is Oracle, I always assumed they’d do something villainy someday, so it’s a bit whatever.
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Hello,
We're writing to let you know about an important update regarding Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Always Free compute.
The Always Free compute limits have been updated. If your tenancy is currently using Always Free compute resources above the new limits, you must reduce your usage by August 18, 2026.
Beginning on August 18, 2026, Oracle will begin enforcing the updated Always Free compute limits. Compute instances that exceed the Always Free entitlement will be automatically terminated.
Current Always Free compute limits
If your tenancy is already within these limits, no action is required.Your tenancy and other Always Free services will remain available. If compute instances are terminated because they exceed the Always Free entitlement, you can launch new Always Free compute instances within the current limits at any time.
You can review the current Always Free limits and manage your compute resources in the OCI Console.
For more information, see:
Thank you for using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Team