Cloud Free Tiers and Trial Credits Compared
What each of the ten platforms actually gives you for nothing, how long it lasts, and what happens when it ends.
Free tiers are the most misread part of cloud pricing. They fall into two very different categories, and confusing them is how people end up with an unexpected bill. A trial credit is a fixed amount of money with an expiry date. An always-free allowance is a standing set of resources that does not expire. Only one platform on this list offers a substantial amount of the second kind.
Check the current terms before you commit. Provider pricing, credits and free tier rules change, sometimes at short notice. Everything in these tables is drawn from the providers’ own published terms at the time of writing and is here to narrow your shortlist, not to replace the provider’s pricing page. Each row links to the official source.
What each platform offers
| Provider | What you get | Card required | Worth knowing | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kamatera | 30-day trial worth up to $100, one server, 1TB traffic | Yes | Does not convert to a free tier. Unusual billing activity can trigger a refundable deposit | Official terms |
| AWS | Up to $200 in credits for six months on new accounts | Yes | Replaces the former twelve-month free tier. Credits are non-transferable between accounts | Official terms |
| Hetzner | None | Varies | No trial credit. Verification may require an advance payment instead | Official terms |
| Oracle Cloud | Always Free: ARM compute up to 4 OCPUs and 24GB RAM, two AMD micro instances, plus storage. $300 in trial credits | Yes | Always Free resources do not expire. A $1 authorisation may appear and is refunded | Official terms |
| Azure | $200 credit for 30 days, plus twelve months of free access to popular services | Yes | Hybrid capability through Azure Arc is a distinguishing feature | Official terms |
| IBM Cloud | $200 credit for 30 days, plus more than 50 products with Lite plans | Yes | Smaller community and fewer third-party resources than the larger platforms | Official terms |
| Linode | $100 credit for new users | Yes | Now part of Akamai; the core product has remained stable | Official terms |
| Google Cloud | $300 credit for 90 days, plus an always-free e2-micro instance | Yes | The platform has a reputation for discontinuing services, which matters for long-term planning | Official terms |
| OVHcloud | None | Yes | No trial credit; the appeal is sustained low pricing rather than an introductory offer | Official terms |
| DigitalOcean | None advertised as a standing free tier | Yes | Per-second billing makes short experiments cheap without a trial credit | Official terms |
Trial credits expire, and that is the point
Free tiers are designed for evaluation, not for running production workloads indefinitely. AWS’s free plan for new accounts lasts six months or until credits are exhausted. Azure’s $200 credit lasts 30 days. Google Cloud’s $300 credit lasts 90 days. Each is generous enough to build and test something real, and each ends. Plan the transition to paid usage before you start, and budget accordingly.
The practical failure mode is not the expiry itself but the surprise. Set a billing alert on the day you create the account, not the day the credit runs out.
Oracle’s Always Free tier is the genuine exception
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offers the only standing allowance on this list substantial enough to run something permanently: ARM compute up to 4 OCPUs and 24GB of RAM, two AMD micro instances, and an allotment of storage, none of which expires. For ARM-compatible workloads the price-performance is excellent. The trade-off is Oracle’s registration process, which is the strictest of the ten and blocks a meaningful share of applicants before they reach the console.
Platforms with no free tier are not automatically worse
Hetzner, OVHcloud and DigitalOcean offer no standing free allowance, and for sustained workloads that is often irrelevant. Hetzner’s appeal is that its ordinary paid pricing undercuts most competitors’ discounted pricing. DigitalOcean bills per second from $4 per month, which makes a two-hour experiment cost cents without any credit at all. A trial credit is worth most when you are evaluating; sustained low pricing is worth more when you are running.
A credit card is almost always required
Nine of the ten platforms require a credit card or equivalent payment method even for free usage, because the card is the identity check rather than a charge. Oracle places a $1 authorisation that is refunded immediately. Hetzner is the partial exception: it may accept a government ID document instead, though it can also require an advance payment.
What happens when you exceed the limits
You are charged at the platform’s standard rates. There is no grace period and no automatic cut-off on most platforms. Set up billing alerts and monitor usage: this single step prevents the overwhelming majority of unpleasant cloud billing stories.
Still weighing your options?
Put the providers side by side on the measures that decide the choice: pricing model, service breadth, support, data residency and verification.