Article URL: https://www.cnelecar.com/blog/oracle-always-free-arm-limits-cut-2026/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49183750 Points: 86 # Comments: 63

If you’re running any Ampere A1 ARM instance larger than 2 OCPUs or 12 GB of RAM — or more than one of them — you need to act before August 18, 2026, or Oracle will terminate the excess automatically. Your two free x86 instances are untouched. You probably got the email this week. Oracle is quietly cutting its “Always Free” ARM allowance in half, and the deadline is real. “Beginning on August 18, 2026, Oracle will begin enforcing the updated Always Free compute limits. Compute instances that exceed the Always Free entitlement will be automatically terminated.” “Current Always Free compute limits: Up to 2 Ampere A1 OCPUs. Up to 12 GB of memory.” Here’s what changed, what it means for your tenancy, and the exact move to make depending on what you’re running today. The ARM side of Always Free used to be generous: 4 OCPUs and 24 GB of RAM, usable as one large instance or split into two. As of August 18, 2026, it’s exactly half. One thing that trips people up: the ARM limit is a tenancy-wide pool, not per instance. You get 2 OCPUs and 12 GB total to divide however you like — one 2/12 instance, or two 1/6 instances — but the sum can’t go over. And it’s separate from the two always-free x86 instances, which keep their own allowance. Oracle doesn’t say in the email, and we won’t pretend to know. The likely story is capacity and abuse management on a tier that was famously too good to last. What matters more than the motive is the math: if you’re over the new pool, something has to give by the deadline.