The emergence of free cloud servers from major providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure has opened up free hosting possibilities like never before. With these free cloud server offers, you can now launch cloud-hosted apps, sites, and workloads at no cost.
But are free cloud servers really worth it compared to low-cost paid alternatives? Or do the limitations outweigh the benefits?
In this comprehensive guide, we dive deep into the burgeoning world of free cloud servers and identify scenarios where they make sense versus when you may need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Topics covered include:
- Overview of Free Cloud Servers
- Major Providers Offering Free Cloud Servers
- Resources Included in Free Tiers
- Benefits and Use Cases
- Limitations to Watch Out For
- Paid Alternatives to Upgrade To
- Free Cloud Server Tips
- FAQs About Free Cloud Servers
Let’s explore the ins and outs of leveraging free cloud servers for your apps and workloads.
Contents
Overview of Free Cloud Servers
First, what exactly constitutes a free cloud server? Free cloud servers provide users with free tier access to basic virtual machine instances on major public cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
These free cloud server offerings provide a limited amount of the following resources per month:
- Compute cores
- RAM
- SSD storage
- Outbound data transfer
- Operating system images
In most cases, free cloud servers are available for 12 months before expiring. They are designed to allow developers, students, and smaller apps to benefit from cloud infrastructure at no cost to get started.
The catch is that free cloud servers come with relatively tight resource constraints. But for lightweight apps and experimentation, they offer enough to run real workloads.
Now let’s look at the specific offerings from the top cloud providers.
Major Providers Offering Free Cloud Servers
The major public cloud platforms each offer their own take on free virtual machine instances:
AWS Free Tier
The AWS free tier includes 750 hours per month of their t2. micro EC2 instance which provides:
- 1 vCPU
- 1 GiB of RAM
- 30 GB of storage
- 15 GB of outbound data transfer
It also offers lower resource instances of their Always Free options that never expire.
Google Cloud Free Tier
Google Cloud offers an Always Free f1-micro instance with:
- 1 non-preemptable vCPU
- 0.6 GB of memory
- 30 GB of standard persistent disk
Preemptable instances with more cores are also available when free capacity exists.
Microsoft Azure Free Tier
Microsoft Azure provides the following free B1S Linux or Windows instance:
- 1 vCPU
- 1 GiB of memory
- 30 GB of storage
- 250 compute hours per month
Oracle Cloud Free Tier
Oracle Cloud’s Always Free tier includes an Ampere A1 Compute instance with:
- 1 CPU core
- 1 GB of memory
- 50 GB of block volume storage
IBM Cloud Free Tier
IBM Cloud offers a free t2.micro instance with:
- 1 vCPU
- 2 GB of memory
- 40 GB of storage
It expires after 30 days but can be renewed monthly.
These offerings allow running modest workloads within the bounds of the limited resources allocated in the free tiers.
| Provider | vCPUs | Memory | Storage | Data Transfer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | 1 | 1 GB | 30 GB | 15 GB |
| Google Cloud | 1 | 0.6 GB | 30 GB | 1 GB |
| Azure | 1 | 1 GB | 30 GB | 5 GB |
| Oracle Cloud | 1 | 1 GB | 50 GB | 10 GB |
| IBM Cloud | 1 | 2 GB | 40 GB | N/A |
This table summarizes the typical vCPU, memory, storage and data transfer resources allotted in each providers’ free cloud server offering. The resources are very comparable across providers.
Resources Included in Free Tiers
In addition to the base compute resources outlined above, free cloud servers often come with additional capabilities:
- Operating system images (Linux or Windows)
- Managed databases like MySQL or PostgreSQL
- Serverless computing resources
- Cloud monitoring and logging
- VPN connectivity
- Content delivery network bandwidth
- Load balancing capabilities
- Automated backups
- Cloud SDK and CLI access
- SSH key management
- OAuth access controls
These ancillary services expand what can be accomplished within the limits of free cloud servers. They provide opportunities to experiment with cloud-native capabilities using the complimentary tiers.
Benefits and Use Cases
So what are the advantages of leveraging these free cloud servers, and what use cases are they suitable for?
Learning Cloud Skills
The free-tier servers provide a risk-free way for developers and students to start learning cloud skills without incurring any monetary costs. Skills like provisioning cloud VMs, storage, networking, and monitoring can be practiced hands-on.
Developing and Testing
Free cloud servers enable building, deploying, and testing lightweight applications, microservices, and containers without paying a dime. This allows iterating quickly.
Hosting Personal Websites
For very low-traffic personal websites and blogs, free cloud servers can potentially provide enough resources to host the site continuously for free.
Trying SaaS Products
Many SaaS products like databases and monitoring tools offer free tiers. Free cloud servers allow you to test out integrating multiple SaaS products together.
Running Open Source Apps
Open-source web apps and tools that have low resource footprints can potentially run on free cloud servers indefinitely at no cost.
Short-Term Projects
For short-lived projects like hackathons or temporary staging environments, free cloud servers provide transient resources.
Disaster Recovery
Free cloud servers can serve as a budget-friendly offsite location for replicating or backing up critical data.
Spikes in Traffic
While not for sustained use, free cloud servers may be able to help temporarily absorb large spikes in traffic that exceed regular app capacity.
Limitations to Watch Out For
While free cloud servers enable some useful applications, they do come with substantial limitations to consider:
Very Limited Resources
The CPU, memory, storage, and bandwidth allotments may only suffice for the most basic workloads with very low traffic. Their capacity would get saturated rapidly at scale.
Periodic Shutdowns
Once compute hour limits are exceeded in a month, free cloud servers may be forcibly shut down or become unusable until hours reset.
No SLAs or Support
Free tiers do not come with service-level agreements or technical support. Reliability is not guaranteed.
Demographics Restrictions
Some free tier offers like Azure are only for students and startups, excluding many from eligibility.
Expiration of Offers
Most free servers expire after 12 months, requiring migration to a paid tier to avoid service shutdowns.
Reduced Functionality
Many advanced cloud services like auto-scaling, load balancing, and clustering are not included in the free tier.
No Customization
Options for memory, storage, and configuration adjustments are very limited with free cloud servers.
While great for testing concepts, free servers lack the resources and reliability required for most production apps. Their constrained capacity and ephemeral nature impose challenges.
Paid Alternatives to Upgrade To
Once you outgrow the capabilities and limits of free cloud servers, what are the paid alternatives to upgrade to? Here are some of the best options:
AWS Lightsail Instance
- 1 vCPU, 1 GB memory, 50 GB SSD storage
- 2 TB data transfer
- Starting at $3.50/month
Azure B1 Basic Tier
- 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 10 GB storage
- $0.01/hour (~$5-10/month)
GCP e2-micro Instance
- 2 vCPUs, 1 GB memory, 10 GB SSD storage
- ~$10/month
Vultr Compute Instance
- 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 25 GB SSD storage
- $3.50/month
Linode Nanode Instance
- 1 vCPU, 1GB memory, 25 GB storage
- 1 TB transfer, starting at $5/month
These low-cost paid options provide more reliability and resources to host real workloads for just a few dollars more per month. Paid support options are also available.
Free Cloud Server Tips
If you do leverage free cloud servers, here are some best practices:
- Monitor usage closely before limits are exceeded
- Scale back usage once about 80% of quotas are reached
- Have a backup plan to migrate once the 12 months expire
- Review options to set spending limits to avoid surprise overage charges
- Take advantage of any Always Free options with less capacity but no expiration
- Use for temporary workloads rather than business critical apps
- Develop applications to gracefully handle free tier resource exhaustion
- Combine with other free cloud services like databases to maximize value
Careful management and monitoring is key to avoiding the hard limitations of free offers turning into availability risks.
FAQs About Free Cloud Servers
Q: Are free cloud servers really free?
A: Yes, most free tiers from major cloud platforms provide 12 months of basic cloud server resources at no cost. But limitations do apply.
Q: Can I run a website on free cloud servers?
A: For very low-traffic sites, it may be possible. But limitations and reliability issues make free cloud servers risky for production sites.
Q: What happens after the 12 month free period?
A: Most free cloud servers will expire and require migrating to a paid tier to avoid shutdowns after 12 months. Some providers have “always free” options with fewer resources.
Q: Is data transfer free?
A: A limited amount of outbound data transfer is included, usually 15-30GB/month. After that overage charges may apply.
Q: Can I upgrade or customize free cloud server instances?
A: There is minimal ability to modify resources like CPU and RAM. For full customization, a paid tier is required.
Conclusion
Free cloud servers from AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure provide a valuable starting point to experience the benefits of cloud computing first-hand without any financial investment.
Ideal for testing concepts and hosting very lightweight workloads, free cloud servers enable innovative experimentation. However, their severe resource constraints and transient nature make them challenging to host production applications.
For most real-world use cases beyond the most basic, opting for an affordable paid cloud server will offer the uptime, storage, bandwidth, and support required. Think of free cloud servers as a great entry ramp to cloud learning rather than a long-term hosting strategy. Approach with both openness to the possibilities and awareness of their sharp limitations.
Used strategically, free cloud servers can provide immense educational value and enable the creation of modest applications at zero cost. As part of a comprehensive cloud strategy, they offer pockets of resources to tap into for non-critical workloads. With careful management, free tiers can certainly be worthwhile for the selectively strategic developer or organization.