Oracle Cloud Free Tier vs Hetzner Cloud
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Oracle Cloud Free Tier and Hetzner Cloud.
Quick Verdict
4.0/5
Oracle Cloud Free Tier
0 reviews
4.4/5
Hetzner Cloud
0 reviews
Hetzner Cloud is rated higher (4.4 vs 4.0). Oracle's perpetual Always Free tier offers 2 AMD micro VMs plus a 2 OCPU/12 GB Ampere A1 allocation (halved from 4/24 in July 2026), 200 GB block storage, two 20 GB Autonomous Databases, 10 GB object storage and 10 TB egress/month; a card is required for identity verification at signup. German cloud provider offering the best price-to-performance ratio in the market. CX22 (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM, 40GB NVMe) costs €4.35/month. Loved by European developers for fast NVMe, generous bandwidth, a
Oracle Cloud Free Tier Always-free compute, database, and storage for development and testing | Hetzner Cloud Affordable VPS hosting with fast deployment and transparent pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.0 (0 reviews) | 4.4 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | free | paid |
| Starting price | Free✓ | From $5.99/mo |
| Best for | Developers, students, and side projects that want always-on cloud infrastructure — including real Arm compute and managed databases — at zero cost, without a time limit | Developers and small teams who want unmanaged Linux infrastructure at the lowest cost per unit of compute, especially for European workloads with data-residency requirements, dev/test environments, CI runners, and price-sensitive production web apps. |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 2 vCPU | 2 vCPU |
| RAM | 12 GB✓ | 4 GB |
| Storage | 200 GB✓ | 40 GB |
| Bandwidth | 10 TB/mo | 20 TB/mo✓ |
| SLA uptime | — | 99.9% |
| Data-center count | 50✓ | 6 |
| €/vCPU/mo | €0.00✓ | €3.00 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | €0.00✓ | €1.50 |
| Performance | ||
| CPU score (sysbench) | — | 4,820 |
| Disk read (fio) | — | 2,100 MB/s |
| Disk IOPS (4K random) | — | 42,000 |
| Network out | — | 1 Gbps |
| Latency (TTFB) | — | 18 ms |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | 50+ regions across 28 countries (NA, SA, EU, MEA, APAC) | GermanyFinlandUnited StatesSingapore |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierapi accessus datacentereu datacenterapac datacenterarm processors | hourly billingnvme storageipv6ddos protectionbackups includedsnapshotseu datacenterus datacentergdpr compliantterraform providerapi access |
| Visit Oracle Cloud Free Tier → | Visit Hetzner Cloud → | |
Oracle Cloud Free Tier
Pros
- + Unmatched perpetual free resources: A1 Arm compute, 200 GB block storage, two managed Autonomous Databases, 10 TB egress/month
- + Real hyperscaler underneath: 50+ regions, full VCN networking, S3-compatible object storage, Terraform-based provisioning
- + 30-day $300 trial to exercise paid services (including GPUs) with no automatic charges afterwards
- + No expiry on Always Free resources — unlike competitors' 12-month credit-style free tiers
Cons
- - Free-tier terms are changeable without notice — Oracle halved the A1 allowance in July 2026 with no announcement
- - No SLA and no Oracle Support for Always Free accounts; community forums only
- - Credit/debit card required for identity verification at signup for most users
- - Free-shape capacity in popular regions is often out of stock; OCI console/IAM complexity applies in full
Hetzner Cloud
Pros
- + Best CPU-per-euro in our 2026-04-01 benchmark run: the CX22 outperformed plans costing up to six times as much
- + Strong NVMe throughput: 2,100-2,400 MB/s sequential reads and 42,000-48,000 random 4K IOPS in our tests
- + Transparent hourly billing with a monthly price cap and no setup fees or contracts
- + Six cloud locations with owned, ISO 27001-certified EU data centers and GDPR-compliant processing
- + At least 20 TB included transfer at EU locations, plus free DDoS mitigation for all customers
- + Mature automation: REST API, Terraform provider, official Go/Python libraries, cloud firewalls and private networks
Cons
- - Backups and snapshots are paid add-ons rather than plan inclusions, which erodes the headline price advantage
- - Email-only support with no phone option and no managed tier for cloud customers
- - Entry plans use shared vCPUs and Hetzner offers no bandwidth guarantee (typical 300-500 Mbit/s stated by Hetzner)
- - No supported Windows installs and a smaller managed-ecosystem than larger providers
- - Default resource limits on new accounts require a support ticket to raise; cost-optimized stock is periodically unavailable
- - Object storage only available in the three European locations
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