Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
Oracle's public cloud platform offering an Always Free tier with usable Arm-based VMs, plus competitive pay-as-you-go pricing across 40+ global regions.
Pricing Plans
| Plan | Price/mo | CPU | RAM | Storage | Bandwidth | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Always Free AMD VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro | $0.00 | 1/8 OCPU (AMD) | 1GB | 45GB Boot Volume | 480Mbps | 2 instances free forever |
| Always Free Arm A1.Flex (shared) | $0.00 | Up to 4 Arm cores (Ampere Altra) | Up to 24GB | 200GB Block Volume | 480Mbps | 4 Arm OCPUs + 24GB RAM shared across instances, free forever |
| A1.Flex (pay-as-you-go) | $3.00 | 1 OCPU (Arm) | 6GB | 50GB Block Volume | 480Mbps | $0.01/OCPU-hr + $0.0015/GB-hr RAM |
| E4.Flex (pay-as-you-go) | $12.00 | 1 OCPU (AMD Rome) | 16GB | 50GB Block Volume | 1Gbps |
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About Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is Oracle’s public cloud platform, competing with AWS, Azure, and GCP. It is particularly notable for its Always Free tier, which includes, permanently and without time limits, 2 AMD-based micro VMs and up to 4 Arm Ampere A1 Compute OCPUs + 24GB RAM. This free tier is far more generous than most competitors and has attracted a large hobbyist user base.
Pricing
The Always Free tier provides 2 AMD VMs (1/8 OCPU, 1GB RAM each) and a combined pool of 4 Arm OCPU + 24GB RAM that can be divided into up to 4 instances, permanently free. For paid compute, Arm A1.Flex costs $0.01/OCPU-hr + $0.0015/GB RAM-hr, making a 1 OCPU + 6GB instance about $3/mo. Block storage is $0.0255/GB-month for performance tiers.
Service Details
OCI provides a well-designed web console and CLI (oci). Features include VCN (Virtual Cloud Network), Security Lists, Object Storage (10GB free), Always Free Autonomous Database (20GB), and more. ARM-based Ampere A1 compute delivers strong performance per dollar. 99.95% SLA for single-instance compute. Multiple compliance certifications. OCI’s network performance is generally strong with high throughput. Sign-up requires a credit card for verification, but free tier charges nothing.
Available in: 40+ regions across North America, South America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific
Learn More
For more information about Oracle Cloud, visit their website at https://www.oracle.com/cloud/