Oracle Cloud has an "Always Free" tier that gives you a small Linux server with no time limit. It is enough to keep a Telegram bot, a small website or an AI agent like OpenClaw running all day. This guide shows the real limits as of October 2026 and the setup steps.
What you need
An Oracle Cloud Free Tier account: sign up at oracle.com/cloud/free. You also get US$300 of trial credit for 30 days.
A credit card for verification. Oracle says the card is to confirm your identity. It does not accept virtual, single-use, prepaid or PIN debit cards (Free Tier FAQ). Indian users report that RuPay cards get declined and Visa or Mastercard credit cards work best, with a small hold of about ₹100 that is reversed (DEV Community guide).
An SSH client. It is built into macOS, Linux and Windows 10/11 terminals.
What "Always Free" includes today
From Oracle's Always Free Resources page:
Ampere A1 (Arm) compute: 1,500 OCPU hours and 9,000 GB hours a month. That works out to 2 OCPUs and 12 GB RAM in total, as one VM or split into two.
Two AMD micro VMs with 1 GB RAM each.
200 GB of block and boot storage in total, plus 5 backups.
10 TB of outbound data transfer a month.
Two Autonomous Databases (1 OCPU and 20 GB each), plus one MySQL HeatWave system and a NoSQL allowance.
Many older guides still say 4 OCPUs and 24 GB RAM. Oracle halved that in June 2026 without a public announcement (InfoQ, Linuxiac).
Step by step
Sign up and pick your home region carefully. You can't change it later, and free servers must be created there. Indian users usually pick Mumbai or Hyderabad. The DEV Community guide reports that Mumbai has lower latency but Hyderabad more often has free Arm capacity.
Create the server. Go to Compute, then Instances, then Create instance. Choose an Ubuntu image and the shape VM.Standard.A1.Flex with 2 OCPUs and 12 GB memory. Upload or generate an SSH key and save the private key. If you see "Out of host capacity", try another availability domain or try again later.
Keep the firewall tight. Leave only port 22 (SSH) open in the security list. Don't open other ports unless your bot really needs them.
Log in and update the system. Replace the key path and IP with yours:
ssh -i ~/.ssh/oracle_key ubuntu@YOUR_SERVER_IP
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -yInstall your agent or bot. For OpenClaw, the official installer sets up Node.js and walks you through onboarding:
curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bashOpenClaw needs Node.js 24.16 or newer, and the installer adds Node 24 if it is missing. Its install page doesn't say anything specific about Arm Linux servers, so test it on your VM before you rely on it.
Keep your own bot running after you log out. For a Python or Node bot, create a systemd service. Save this as
/etc/systemd/system/mybot.service, changing the paths and command:
[Unit]
Description=My bot
After=network-online.target
[Service]
User=ubuntu
WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu/mybot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /home/ubuntu/mybot/bot.py
Restart=always
EnvironmentFile=/home/ubuntu/mybot/.env
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.targetThen start it:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now mybot
sudo systemctl status mybotKeep API keys in the
.envfile, never in your code, and runchmod 600 .env.
Good to know
Idle servers can be taken back. Oracle may reclaim a free instance if, over 7 days, CPU (95th percentile), network and memory use all stay below 20%. A quiet bot can hit this. Community guides say upgrading to Pay As You Go avoids it and helps with capacity, but Oracle's page doesn't spell this out.
Upgrading has a cost risk. Always Free resources stay free after you upgrade, but anything beyond the limits is billed. Set a budget alert first.
Inactive accounts can be closed. Oracle says accounts left idle for 30 days or more may be suspended or terminated.
Email ports are blocked. Outbound port 25 is closed unless you request an exemption.
Support is limited. Free users rely on community forums.
Run an agent safely. An AI agent with server access can run commands. Give it its own API keys with spending limits, and don't expose its dashboard to the internet.
Sources
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