Always-free cloud servers and free credits for new accounts, checked against official provider pages.
Last verified: 2026-10-02. Some links are referral links; we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Forever
Forever
| Provider | Free credit | Valid for | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | $100 + up to $100 credit | 6 months | $100 credit at sign-up and up to $100 more for completing onboarding activities. Free tier eligible EC2: t3.micro, t3.small, t4g.micro, t4g.small, c7i-flex.large, m7i-flex.large. The free plan ends after 6 months or when credits run out, whichever comes first | Claim →Source |
| Google Cloud | $300 credit | 90 days | $300 welcome credit for most Google Cloud products. Credit expires after 90 days | Claim →Source |
| Microsoft Azure | $200 credit + 12 months of B-series VMs | 30 days credit, 12 months VMs | $200 credit for the first 30 days. 750 hours per month of B1s, B2pts v2 (Arm), and B2ats v2 (AMD) VMs for 12 months. Unused credit is lost after 30 days; move to pay-as-you-go to keep 12-month services | Claim →Source |
| Akamai (Linode) | $100 credit | 60 days | $100 credit for Compute, Object Storage, Block Storage, and NodeBalancers. GPU plans are excluded | Claim →Source |
| Vultr | Promotional credit | 30 days | Credit amount depends on the active promotion (usually $50-$300). Check the amount on the promotion page before signing up | Claim →Source |
| DigitalOcean | $5 credit | 90 days | $5 signup credit applied automatically, no promo code needed. The referral page still advertises $200 for 60 days, but the official docs (verified 15 Jul 2026) list $5 for 90 days for all new accounts, including referrals | Claim →Source |
Every major provider above asks for a credit card or another payment method to verify your identity and prevent abuse, even for always-free tiers. Services that promise a free VPS without any verification usually come with severe limits, short lifetimes, or security risks. Prepaid and virtual cards are often rejected, especially by Oracle Cloud and Google Cloud, so use a regular debit or credit card. If you cannot add one, a low-cost plan below that accepts PayPal or other payment methods is the realistic alternative.
| Provider | Plan | vCPU | RAM | Disk | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostup | VPS Nano | 1 | 2 GB | 25 GB | $2.89/mo | Details |
| Hostup | VPS XS | 2 | 4 GB | 50 GB | $4.48/mo | Details |
| Vultr | vc2-1c-1gb | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB | $5.00/mo | Details |
| Netcup | VPS 500 G12 | 2 | 4 GB | 128 GB | $5.59/mo | Details |
| DigitalOcean | s-1vcpu-1gb | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB | $6.00/mo | Details |
| Vultr | vhf-1c-1gb | 1 | 1 GB | 32 GB | $6.00/mo | Details |
| Vultr | vhp-1c-1gb-amd | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB | $6.00/mo | Details |
| Vultr | vhp-1c-1gb-intel | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB | $6.00/mo | Details |
| Contabo | Storage Vps 10 SSD | 2 | 4 GB | — | $6.20/mo | Details |
| Contabo | Cloud Vps Core 4 SSD | 4 | 8 GB | — | $6.20/mo | Details |
Details links may be referral links; we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
For a server that stays free, Oracle Cloud Always Free is the most generous option: an Arm instance with 2 OCPU and 12 GB RAM plus 200 GB of storage. Google Cloud's e2-micro is smaller but very stable if you can use a US region. Free credits from AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Akamai, Vultr, and DigitalOcean are better for testing larger servers for a limited time.
Not from the major providers: all of them ask for a card or another payment method to verify your identity, even for always-free tiers. Offers that need no verification at all are usually unreliable or unsafe.
Oracle may reclaim Always Free instances that stay idle for 7 days, meaning CPU, network, and (for Arm) memory use below 20%. Keep a real workload running on it.
It depends on the provider: some pause your resources, others start charging your card. Set billing alerts and delete servers you no longer need before the trial ends.
Free tiers are fine for learning, bots, and small personal projects. For production, a paid VPS from a few dollars a month gives you guaranteed resources and support.