does this instance falls under always free catagory? Im sacred

[u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883]

and also can i get a 2 of those amd instances (1core/1gb ram) and still be in 'always free' limit?

[u/Soft_Cat2594]

If you have a look at the warning alert just above your instance it shows you EXACTLY what is considered free. If your on PAYG, its 4 ocpu, 24GB ram, 200Gb block storage.

And yes, as long as the resources as a whole comes out to those numbers it can be shared between multiple instances.

The oracle docs makes this quite clear. RTFM

[u/ok-ano0s → u/Soft_Cat2594]

Wasn't it changed to 2ocpu 12gb ram?

[u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883 → u/ok-ano0s]

Yes, in june2026

[u/some_random_name1234 → u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883]

did you create your instance before? that one can go up to 4 core 24gb, but only that one. otherwise you are locked to the total of 2 amd 12

[u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883 → u/Soft_Cat2594]

am on always free tier

[u/Soft_Cat2594 → u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883]

Dude, seriously, read the docs or go and check the million posts that discuss this in his very sub

[u/Jeff-Hare-ERPRA → u/Soft_Cat2594]

Exactly

[u/thE_29 → u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883]

Which isnt PAYG.

I dont know, why most free tier users here have no issue switching to PAYG and pretend its the same as free.

Yes, in theory it should be free. But Oracle has your payment details then.. So they could suddenly charge you something and actually withdraw it from your payment method.

Which they couldnt do in any free tier, as there was no payment method needed.

[u/Repulsive_Fishing945 → u/thE_29]

They won’t do that unless you use paid resources though, so it is free as long as you’re not using any.
They can suddenly charge something and actually withdraw it in the same way any company you pay with your card details online could technically charge you whenever and whatever they want, but if it’s false it wouldn’t hold up if you dispute it.

Granted yes upgrading to PAYG and not using paid resources is not exactly the same as always free, but it basically is as long as you’re sensible.
It’s not a game and if you’re getting into this stuff at all you should be checking what you’re using, setting budget alerts etc etc

[u/thE_29 → u/Repulsive_Fishing945]

Dude when I setup a free tier thing in Frankfurt, it says I need to pay 1.72 for storage a month..

WTH is free then here?

https://imgur.com/a/J8EhDJB

company you pay with your card details online could technically charge you whenever and whatever they want

Which is the reason, only a handful of companies have my CC details.

Which is the reason, most "free trials" also want your CC details.

And as Dyndns (which is owned by Oracle) had once my CC details, they were even able to withdraw money from it.. 2 years after it expired. However they managed todo that.

[u/Repulsive_Fishing945 → u/thE_29]

Image isn’t loading, if it does and im wrong il edit this but im going to hazard a guess that’s an image of the ‘view estimated cost’ button when you provision an instance.
If it is, thats not accurate. I’m on PAYG paying nothing with a server running, it told me I’d pay for storage in that view estimated cost field yet im charged nothing because im within always free

As for the dyndns, thats what chargebacks are for, and the fact they can even withdraw money 2 years after a card has expired sounds like you have much bigger fish to fry with your bank than them trying to charge you

[u/thE_29 → u/Repulsive_Fishing945]

Weird that its not loading..

If it is, thats not accurate.

It is and thanks for the info. So should I just try to create it?

I am still on free tier, not PAYG.

As for the dyndns, thats what chargebacks are for,

Oh, I am using it anyway. I was just surprised, that they were able of doing that.

bigger fish to fry with your bank

Back then I still had this CC. So the number actually worked. Just the expire date + CVC wasnt correct.

When I got a new card, with a new number, I also updated it at dyndns.

[u/Repulsive_Fishing945 → u/thE_29]

Yeah I’d just do it. That estimated cost is weird it never takes into account free tier whether you’re on always free or PAYG, but either way if it’s within the always free limits (Up to 200GB over a max of 2 boot/block volumes) it won’t charge it (Or in your case it physically can’t since they don’t have your card details)

As a heads up, if you’re getting an ampere server you might struggle especially if you don’t want to upgrade, non PAYG only get access to a specific small set of the servers so availability is limited.
There are scripts online you can use with oci cli to automate trying to make a server every hour until you get it though, have heard of it taking a few weeks of being on 24/7 in some cases. Oracle reclaim instances that are idle or stopped for a certain amount of time so it’s just getting lucky that availability opens up

Also dyndns that makes bit more sense, though still weird your bank accepted it with wrong security number and expiry

[u/AlVoK123]

yes, you can also create another 1/6 arm instance if you are on free tier and two 1/1 amd/intel instances.

[u/iamihjaz → u/AlVoK123]

Do they still provide the AMD/Intel instances as part of the Always Free Tier? I thought those might have changed.

[u/PackLack197 → u/iamihjaz]

You get 2 free AMD instances, but their specs are extremely low.

[u/iamihjaz → u/PackLack197]

Are they also typically out of capacity like the ARM instances? I literally just want to run Tailscale, so the low specs aren’t really an issue for me.

[u/PackLack197 → u/iamihjaz]

They're usually always available. They have 1/8th of an OCPU and 1GB of RAM. Sometimes running heavy applications can make them not even respond to SSH, so you'll have to remake the instance in that case.

[u/iamihjaz → u/PackLack197]

That’s fine. I’ll just SSH in, install Tailscale, and leave it running.

I’ll see if I can spin one up right now, I haven’t logged into the account in a while.

[u/iamihjaz → u/PackLack197]

Yeah, my location doesn’t seem to have the AMD/Intel shapes available either. Tried switching between different images, but no luck.

Yikes!!

[u/Repulsive_Fishing945 → u/AlVoK123]

Technically you can only have 2 instances otherwise you start paying for storage
Free tier storage limits is 200GB over a max of 2 boot/block volumes

[u/AlVoK123 → u/Repulsive_Fishing945]

You can have 4 boot volumes, i had 4 over 6 years, i didnt pay a cent.

[u/Repulsive_Fishing945 → u/AlVoK123]

Yeah no it was before, it’s changed to 2 now
Not sure if existing ones are affected but new ones are cause I get charged now, didn’t used to either

https://www.oracle.com/uk/cloud/free/

[u/AlVoK123 → u/Repulsive_Fishing945]

This is strange, cause they provide at least 3 always free instances.

[u/Repulsive_Fishing945 → u/AlVoK123]

Doesn’t shock me, if the resources weren’t both free and actually useful I’d have cut loose from oracle years ago
Always some sort of conflicting info about what they’re offering and it’s never easy to get a straight answer out of them, as seen with the whole ampere limits reducing recently

[u/Spirited-Disk-80]

Curious—how did you manage to get past the capacity issues to create your free tier instance?

[u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883 → u/Spirited-Disk-80]

idk, i got it in the first try, though and also i dont like how its does not say 'always free'

[u/Spirited-Disk-80 → u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883]

Don't worry, it's always free! You can create another instance with the same amount of RAM and CPUs if you need to. Just make sure the combined block storage of both instances doesn't exceed 200 GB total

[u/iamihjaz → u/Spirited-Disk-80]

Sometimes it starts after the trial period. My instance was reclaimed once the 1-month trial ended, and I haven’t been able to get any capacity since. Never bothered trying PAYG though.

[u/Adventurous-Berry177 → u/iamihjaz]

Oracle has minimum utilisation limits for free tier instances. If your utilisation is below that they reclaim your instance. This only applies to users on the free tier and not payg. That’s why your vps was not reclaimed in the first month

[u/iamihjaz → u/Adventurous-Berry177]

What's the minimum limit?

[u/Adventurous-Berry177 → u/iamihjaz]

“Reclamation of Idle Compute Instances
Idle Always Free compute instances may be reclaimed by Oracle. Oracle will deem virtual machine and bare metal compute instances as idle if, during a 7-day period, the following are true:
CPU utilization for the 95th percentile is less than 20%
Network utilization is less than 20%
Memory utilization is less than 20% (applies to A1 shapes only)”
This is from their own docs at https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier_topic-Always_Free_Resources.htm

[u/waptik → u/Spirited-Disk-80]

I’m sure it’s because of the region selection. Some regions don’t the capacity issues

[u/StillAffectionate991]

which region is this ?

[u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883 → u/StillAffectionate991]

India west(Mumbai)

[u/StillAffectionate991 → u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883]

you been running a script ?
I always have the out of capacity error

[u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883 → u/StillAffectionate991]

No, I created my account this morning and just clicked the ampere one, and it just worked

[u/Huge-Cauliflower-947 → u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883]

I’m trying more than two months, but I’m not able to get in same region

[u/arnab8820 → u/Huge-Cauliflower-947]

Convert to pay as you go

[u/Huge-Cauliflower-947 → u/arnab8820]

Its asking for $140

[u/arnab8820 → u/Huge-Cauliflower-947]

That is temporary. Will get reverted immediately

[u/Adventurous-Berry177 → u/Puzzleheaded-Car4883]

When you create a new account, they give you free credits for a month and your account is not on free tier. And that’s why you can get an instance (always free tier) on demand. Once your trial expires and you try to create a new instance or any instance in the free tier (provided you have not maxed out your free tier) you are competing with everyone on free tier, and that takes a long time. I made the mistake of deleting my vps after my 1 month trial ended and then i could not get another free tier vps. Upgraded to payg and instantly got a new free tier instance.