This is the first FreeTierWatch alert. The deal: we only email when a free tier actually changes. No weekly filler. This is exactly that kind of email.

The finding

Oracle Cloud’s Always Free ARM allowance — famous as “4 OCPUs + 24 GB RAM, free forever” — is now officially half that.

Oracle’s current Always Free documentation specifies 1,500 OCPU-hours and 9,000 GB-hours per month for Ampere A1 instances. Run continuously, that’s 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of RAM. The 4/24 number that virtually every tutorial, Reddit thread, and YouTube video cites is gone from the docs.

What this means if you have (or want) a free Oracle VM

• New signups: plan for 2 OCPU / 12 GB. Still the most powerful free tier anywhere, by a wide margin.