I've burned through more "free VPS" trials than I care to admit. Most of them either die after 3 months, throttle your CPU to uselessness, or require a credit card that gets charged the moment you forget to cancel.
But three of them actually work. I've been running bots on these for months (in some cases, years). Here's the real breakdown.
1. Oracle Cloud Free Tier (The Heavy Hitter)
What you get: 2 AMD instances (1/8 OCPU, 1GB RAM each) + 1 ARM instance (4 OCPUs, 24GB RAM) + 200GB storage.
The catch: You need a credit card for verification, but they claim they don't charge it for the free tier. So far, true in my experience.
Why it's good: That ARM instance is legitimately powerful. I run 3 Python bots, a database, and a small web server on it. Zero issues.
The downside: Setup is annoying. You need to generate SSH keys, navigate their weird console, and sometimes instances just... disappear. I've had to recreate my setup twice in 2 years because Oracle randomly terminated an instance.
Verdict: Best specs, worst UX. Worth it if you're technical and patient.
2. Google Cloud Free Tier (The Reliable One)
What you get: 1 e2-micro instance (shared vCPU, 1GB RAM) + 30GB disk + 1GB outbound data/month.
The catch: Credit card required, and that 1GB data limit is painful if your bot does a lot of API calls.
Why it's good: It's Google. Uptime is excellent, support exists, and the free tier is actually free (for the first year, then some services stay free).
The downside: That 1GB data limit. My trading bot burned through it in 2 weeks. Had to throttle API calls and implement caching just to stay under the limit.
Verdict: Good for lightweight bots, not for anything chatty with APIs.
3. Railway (The Easy One)
What you get: $5 credit per month, which covers a small container running 24/7.
The catch: It's not "free forever," it's free trial credits. But if your bot is small enough, $5 covers it.
Why it's good: Deployment is stupid easy. Connect your GitHub repo, and Railway auto-deploys on every push. No server management, no SSH, no apt-get update nonsense.
I literally just push code and it runs. Monitoring included. Logs are searchable. It's the Heroku experience but actually affordable.
The downside: $5 isn't much. If your bot gets popular or uses heavy CPU, you'll need to pay. Also, cold starts on free tier can be slow.
Verdict: Best developer experience. Perfect for prototypes and small bots.
My Actual Setup
I don't use just one. I spread the load:
- Oracle ARM instance: Main trading bot + database (the heavy lifter)
- Google Cloud: Backup bot + monitoring scripts (lightweight stuff)
- Railway: Web dashboard and experiment bots (easy deployments)
Total cost: $0. Total uptime: 99%+ across all bots.
What About The Others?
AWS Free Tier: 12 months only, then paid. I avoid it.
Azure Free: Similar to AWS, 12 months. Meh.
Heroku: Used to be free, now starts at $7. RIP.
Render: Good, but free tier sleeps after 15 mins inactivity. Not for 24/7 bots.
The Bottom Line
If you just need one bot running: Oracle Cloud. Accept the janky UI and you get serious horsepower for free.
If you hate server management: Railway. Pay attention to your $5 credit usage.
If you want the "safe" choice: Google Cloud. Just watch that data limit.
Questions about VPS setup? I can share my exact configs. Hit me up @ZayJII.