I'd like to really really caution people about Oracle Free Tier.

They've been known to suddenly ban free tier users, with no explanation or recourse. Happened to me and many others. I had a lemmy instance on it, hadn't started my backup plan yet cause I was dumb, and Oracle just emailed me that my "trial was over", server immediately shut down, and support stonewalled me.

Couldn't even get my data. So if you want to try it, make sure you have a backup plan and a plan on what to do if they pull the plug.

Some have been using it for years, though. Just be ready.

Oracle a company to actively avoid doing business with or realying on in any way.

Spend the $5 for a commodity VPS from literally any standard vendor. I suggest Vultr.

Searx NG worked well for me. I currently have Matrix running on another, set up with the ansible docker repo. Actually trying to set lemmy up on another.

I converted to pay as you go so they would open up the smtp ports so I could use postmoogle with Matrix but i still only use the always free shapes and still havent incurred a charge in roughly 6 months

I use my Oracle free tier for Tor Snowflake. It was a service I didn’t really want to run myself and not something I ever need to connect to so if Oracle suddenly shuts down my server for any reason then it’s no loss for me. In the meantime it provides value for people in countries with harsh internet censorship, so I’m happy to just set it up and leave it.