The number of virtual machines (VMs) you can run with the free tier storage varies depending on the cloud provider. Here's a breakdown for some major providers:
- Oracle Cloud: You have a total of 200 GB of free storage. Each VM requires a minimum of 50 GB for its boot volume. Therefore, you can run up to four VMs with the free tier storage, assuming each VM uses the minimum 50 GB boot volume[1][2][4].
- Google Cloud Platform: The free tier includes a limit of 30 GB of storage for Compute Engine. You can share this storage across multiple VMs, but you cannot exceed the total limit of 30 GB for free usage. For example, you could have two VMs with 10 GB each or one VM with 30 GB, but not two VMs with 30 GB each[5].
- Amazon Web Services (AWS): The free tier for EC2 instances does not directly limit the number of VMs by storage but by instance hours. You get 750 hours of free usage for micro instances per month. This means you can run multiple instances, but the total usage time is capped[6].
- Azure: Azure's free tier allows you to deploy two B1S VMs (one Windows, one Linux) and run them for up to 750 hours for free. This does not directly relate to storage limits but rather to the number of hours you can run the VMs[8].
Citations:
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/oraclecloud/comments/zqk3ky/how_much_space_i_can_use_with_free_tier/
[2] https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/175155/how-many-vms-can-i-create-using-oracle-cloud-free-tier
[3] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63186893/google-cloud-platform-free-tier-limits-from-compute-engine
[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/oraclecloud/comments/16ls9kv/can_i_create_three_vms_being_free_tier/
[5] https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Infrastructure-Compute-Storage/Sharing-storage-limit-on-Google-Cloud-Free-Tier-among-VMs/m-p/683390
[6] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19042025/amazon-ec2-free-tier-how-many-instances-can-i-run
[7] https://docs.oracle.com/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier_topic-Always_Free_Resources.htm
[8] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1191439/azure-free-tier