The cloud services market features a variety of free trials and promotional credits designed to attract new users. These offers allow potential customers to test platforms without initial financial commitment. The structure of these offers varies significantly by provider, ranging from short-term trial periods requiring no credit card to substantial credits spread over multiple months. Understanding the specific terms, eligibility requirements, and redemption processes is essential for consumers seeking to maximize these opportunities.
Cloudways Free Trials and Discounts
Cloudways, a managed cloud hosting platform, offers several promotional avenues for new users and agencies. The primary method for testing the service is a 3-day free trial. A notable feature of this trial is that it does not require a credit card to start, reducing the barrier to entry for users wishing to explore the platform’s capabilities. During the trial period, users can utilize the Digital Ocean cloud backend. While exploring the trial account, users may encounter popups offering a discount of 30% for the first six months of service.
In addition to the trial, Cloudways provides various discount codes and freebies associated with their hosting plans. These are often distributed through specific promotional campaigns or partnerships. For instance, a 30% discount on all hosting plans for the first three months is available for specific reader groups. This discount applies to all plans and allows users to deploy applications on five different Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud providers, including Digital Ocean, Linode, Vultr, AWS, and Google Cloud. The plans include features such as 24/7 support, unlimited applications, a staging environment, free SSL certificates, a dedicated firewall, and automated backups.
Other limited-time offers mentioned include a 30% discount for the first five months plus 15 free migrations, a 40% holiday discount for four months plus up to 30 free migrations, and a 25% discount on Cloudways Autonomous plans for the first three months. Users should note that specific offers, such as the holiday discount and Halloween sale, may have expired.
Free Astra Pro Bundle
A specific freebie offered with Cloudways hosting is the Astra Pro Bundle, a collection of customizable WordPress themes. This bundle is provided free of charge when purchasing Cloudways hosting. Users can utilize the 3-day free trial to test both Cloudways and the Astra Pro features.
Agency and Business Offers
Cloudways provides a specialized offer for online agencies and businesses. Interested parties must fill out a form on the designated offer page. Upon submission, promo code details are delivered via email. This channel is distinct from general consumer promotions and is tailored for organizational clients.
Cloudways Freebies and Credits
Beyond themes and discounts, Cloudways offers several utility freebies with its hosting plans: - Free Astra membership for one year. - Gmail SMTP free add-on. - Free Object Cache Pro (available starting from the $22/month plan). - Free website migration. - Free SSL.
Additionally, users opting for the Digital Ocean cloud server with Cloudways may be eligible for $100 in free credits. The platform also advertises a "Free Account" for new users to try cloud hosting plans and features completely free.
Cloudways Datacenter Locations
For users concerned with latency and data residency, Cloudways datacenters are available in New York, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Frankfurt, London, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney, and Toronto.
OVHcloud Storage Trial
OVHcloud offers a specific promotion focused on cloud storage needs. The offer provides US$200 in free cloud credits. The process to claim these credits involves three steps: creating a first Public Cloud instance with the free credits, deploying a storage solution, and leveraging a full ecosystem of services to build a data strategy.
OVHcloud emphasizes the versatility of their storage solutions for various use cases, including big data, AI and analytics, video streaming, log file storage, development of native applications, and backup and restore operations. The platform cites benchmarks comparing Object Storage solutions for backup, websites, and video streaming scenarios.
Major Cloud Provider Free Tiers
Comparison of free tier offers from major cloud providers reveals distinct structures for credit allocation and service availability.
IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud offers a Pay-as-you-go account structure for new users. The free account includes access to over 50 products with a free tier. Users receive credit for their first USD 200 of apps and services, valid for 30 days. Beyond the initial credit, IBM offers access to over 40 "always-free" products via a Lite plan, including IBM Watson APIs. These Lite plan products never expire and cannot be charged for, regardless of usage duration. IBM Cloud also promotes predictable pricing for cloud storage, with rates as low as USD 12/TB per month for bundled storage, retrieval, API calls, and egress.
Azure
Microsoft Azure provides a US$200 credit valid for 30 days. This credit can be used to try any Azure product. Additionally, Azure offers popular services free for 12 months and over 54 other services that are free always.
Google Cloud
Google Cloud’s free tier includes specific compute resources, such as a Compute VM with 0.25 vCPU and 1 GB of RAM (available only in specific regions: us-west1, us-central1, and us-east1). It also includes 30 GB of standard persistent disk. Network egress is limited to 1 GB in the premium tier (excluding China and Australia) and 200 GB in the standard tier to any region.
AWS (Amazon Web Services)
The AWS Free Tier includes specific services such as Amazon DynamoDB, offering 25 GB of storage, and AWS Lambda, offering 1 million free requests per month. Amazon SNS is also included with 1 million publishes.
Other Providers
A comparison of cloud free tiers lists numerous other providers, including Azure, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, DigitalOcean, Hetzner Cloud, Render, Netlify, JFrog, Salesforce, OpenShift, Linode, Container Hosting Service, Cloudflare, Tencent Cloud, Vercel, and Zeabur. This indicates a broad market availability of free tier options beyond the major players.
General Cloud Freebie Resources
Community-driven resources exist to curate free offers for specific groups. These resources categorize freebies for Nonprofits, Open Source Projects, Startups, Education (Students & Schools), and Communities. The "Cloud Study Network" is cited as a global tech community that shares knowledge and resources.
Consumer Tips for Cloud Offers
When engaging with cloud freebies and trials, consumers should verify the specific terms of each offer. For example, while some trials like Cloudways require no credit card, others may require a payment method on file for verification, with billing only commencing if the user chooses to continue after the trial. Additionally, users should monitor the expiration dates of credits (e.g., the 30-day validity of the IBM $200 credit) and the duration of free tiers (e.g., Azure's 12-month free services).
For users looking to save money on hosting, specific tips include starting with minimum CPU and Memory servers backed by providers like Digital Ocean or Linode, tracking CPU and Memory usage to vertically scale only when utilization crosses 80%, and avoiding overprovisioning storage when using AWS or Google Cloud-backed hosting.
Conclusion
The landscape of cloud service freebies and vouchers is diverse, offering options ranging from no-credit-card-required short trials to substantial monetary credits valid for 30 days. Cloudways provides a unique 3-day trial and various discounts, while OVHcloud offers specific storage credits. Major providers like IBM, Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS offer structured free tiers that include credits and always-free products. Consumers are encouraged to review the eligibility requirements and expiration terms of each offer carefully to select the best option for their needs.