Free VPS hosting
Free VPS hosting: real free tiers vs trials
Durable free VM allowances, kept apart from signup credits and trials. Every offer below is tied to a provider with current VPS data.
What counts as free
What qualifies
Free VPS offers, with the paid plan you would move to
A provider is listed only when its free offer can run or pay for a virtual machine and we also track its paid VPS plans. Free static hosting does not count as a free VPS just because the same company sells virtual machines.
Ongoing allowance
Durable free VM offers
Durable means the VM allowance does not end on a signup-credit deadline. It does not mean unlimited capacity, guaranteed stock, no reclamation, or zero charges outside the allowance.
Durable free VM allowance
Google Cloud
Free Tier and $300 Free Trial
- Duration
- Always Free allocation is perpetual; $300 trial credit expires after 90 days.
- Payment method
- Card required
- Idle shutdown
- We have not confirmed this yet
- First limit
- The 1 GB monthly outbound allowance is exceeded by a 10 GB reference workload.
- Cheapest paid VPS
- e2-micro at $6.11 a month
Durable free VM allowance
Oracle Cloud
Always Free compute
- Duration
- Always Free resources are perpetual; trial credit is $300 for 30 days.
- Payment method
- Card required
- Idle shutdown
- We have not confirmed this yet
- First limit
- For a quiet app, idle reclamation risk arrives after seven days below all published thresholds.
- Cheapest paid VPS
- No current paid VPS price
Trials and promotional balances
A temporary credit is not free VPS hosting
These offers can be useful for a migration test, demo, or evaluation. They are separated because the VM becomes billable or stops when the credit or trial boundary arrives.
Temporary VPS credit
Akamai Cloud
$100 promotional credit
- Expiry
- Credits expire during a specified trial period, but the current offer does not publish the duration.
- Payment method
- Card required
- Idle shutdown
- We have not confirmed this yet
- First limit
- The trial-period deadline is likely to arrive before a $5 Nanode consumes $100, but the current duration is unpublished.
- Cheapest paid VPS
- Nanode 1GB at $5.00 a month
Akamai does not say how long the $100 credit lasts.
Temporary VPS credit
Amazon Web Services
AWS Free Plan
- Expiry
- Free Plan lasts up to 6 months with $100 signup credit and up to $100 earnable credit.
- Payment method
- Card required
- Idle shutdown
- We have not confirmed this yet
- First limit
- The fixed six-month deadline arrives even if credit remains.
- Cheapest paid VPS
- t4g.nano at $3.07 a month
Time-limited VPS trial
Kamatera
30-day free trial
- Expiry
- $100 credit expires after 30 days.
- Payment method
- Card required
- Idle shutdown
- We have not confirmed this yet
- First limit
- The 30-day deadline arrives before one $4 Basic server consumes $100.
- Cheapest paid VPS
- Basic at $4.00 a month
Time-limited VPS trial
Microsoft Azure
Azure free account
- Expiry
- $200 credit expires after 30 days; selected services remain free for 12 months after upgrade.
- Payment method
- Card required
- Idle shutdown
- We have not confirmed this yet
- First limit
- The 30-day credit deadline arrives even if credit remains.
- Cheapest paid VPS
- B1s at $7.59 a month
No-card VPS check
Every free VPS offer here needs a card
Every source-qualified VM offer above currently records a card requirement. A missing or unclear card field would be shown as unknown; it would not be promoted into this answer. Account, identity, region, and capacity checks can still apply after a card is accepted.