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Why don't people use Google Cloud's "Always Free Tier" as a small VPS?
I keep reading people offering VPSs with like 256 MB of RAM, and I can't really understand what's the disadvantage of using the "Always Free Tier" of Google Cloud Platform.
Google lets you create an f1-micro instance for free with 0,6 GB of RAM, 30 GB of storage and 5 GB of snapshot.
Why don't people use this? The only disadvantage I'm aware of is the outrageous cost of bandwidth. Is it the risk of getting charges for a DDoS attack or something like that?
I'm currently using GCP to host a small website. I'm using Cloudflare and I've blocked all the connections to the instance except for those coming from Cloudflare's IPs.
Is this too risky?
Comments
Please come back after a year and tell us how it went.
I'm sure lots of us would jump on this idea if it was 100% 'safe'.
I've been using it for almost two years now.
Will Google happily scan/track/expose your VPS, as they do for everything else?
What do you mean?
Nice.
But somehow, I have more peace of mind with 12Eur/yr arubacloud (legacy) than a big behemoth corp sending bill collectors to every corner of the planet.
Hey, you don't need to be rude, I'm here to ask for help, I know I'm missing something, that's why I'm asking to a community I know is very knowledgeable.
There is nothing like free in Business. You either pay money or you pay with data
Yeah, I get your point (I have Aruba Cloud as well btw).
But let's say I configure GCP's firewall to drop all the requests not coming from my IPs. Can it still go wrong? How?
The way you are using it is the correct way to get around the limitations. You are using it for a static site with Cloudflare's free CDN actually serving the pages to users.
Some of the reasons more people don't use it:
(1) A lot of people don't even know about Google's free tier.
(2) They don't know how to do what you did - It's a VPS solution and that requires you to set up everything yourself (and in addition there's a google-specific way of doing things learning curve on top of the basic VPS).
(3) It's a solution primarily for static sites due to the high cost of bandwidth.
(4) Many people prefer a managed shared hosting solution with an easy to use (cPanel, Direct Admin) interface that includes easy to manage email. These solutions can be under $10/year from low end providers (there are even a few alternative free shared hosting providers for small sites).
(5) It's google and many people feel google already knows too much about them and what they do.
That might be a valid point if you want to use it strictly as a VPS, but in my case I'm hosting a website so all the data is already public.
But anyway you could argue that for any provider. How can I know that I'm not already paying with data even with the paid providers?
Great reply, thanks!
No one mentioned it's US only? C'mon...
I was under the impression that Google's free VM was like Aws (first year only)
I was wrong.
Because people like you who know about it and set it up like you do, think it's not worth their time.
If you look at my post history I have a genius idea like you are right now. But now, I have more vps than I need. I don't need some free crappy 256mb vps in the middle of USA with outrageous bandwidth cost when I have idling Singapore 2gb of ram for $10 a year from last bf. Also I have 2 Windows VPS from virmach again, idling for $20 / year each.
People like us who knows the gist of Google free plan and have the knowledge to set it up so it won't go over the limit, the chance are have other much better idling vps.
Tbh. IMHO. $2 / year vps is way better than Google free tier.
It's not US only, I'm European.
Nope: https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free-tier
So basically it's not worth the hassle because you can have great paid VPSs for dirt cheap, got it.
Well, it's incredibly simple to set it up though, if someone is interested I could make a guide.
Anyway you're right: I have 3 other paid VPSs now, but GCP was my first.
Let me add:
(6) Although it is "free" google requires you to add a credit card (this is how they prevent people from abusing the free service by creating multiple accounts). One never knows when one will do something wrong and end up with an inadvertant bill - it's easy add something that google charges for (when looking at the services you are using it isn't necessarily clear what is free and what isn't).
just to put condom over LAN port? maybe hetzner works better
It has a limitation of 1GB bandwidth /m. What can you do with 1GB? Even my 4G plan has more than that.
Yeah, that's the main weakness unfortunately!
I currently use it to host a small website and an instance of Pi-hole.
The website is pretty light (it's a Wordpress blog) and gets just a few dozens of human visitors daily, so it currently uses about 250 MB of data per month, while sitting behind Cloudflare (having Australia and China blocked of course, since all that traffic is paid).
I still have to test Pi-hole, so I don't know how much resources it will use, but I don't think it will use much bandwidth.
Anyway, in the first year Google gives you a bonus of $300 to test the service, and even after that you can't be billed unless you explicitly opt in.
What do people use very small VPSs for usually?
Because i don't want one day to wake up with a severe debt.
You're not getting $300 to "test the service". You're getting $300 to give you enough time to build your project against their (non-standard) infrastructure, so that when the $300 is up, it's prohibitively expensive to switch away from them (in terms of time cost) and you'll bite the bullet and stick with them despite them charging you through the nose.
There's a reason why you only get 'free credit' from providers with custom APIs / infrastructure / etc., and not from providers who run off-the-shelf management software in standardized environments. It's a hook to lock you into their ecosystem.
You're probably right, but I just use it as a small VPS to either run Wordpress or Ubuntu to have something to play with. It's just to have fun and learn, really.
"If The service is free, then you are the product" --said by someone I forgot
Generally its correct, if its free - you pay with it with your privacy.
But this is Google. They offer the free one, so they can hook people on their paid ones. They can afford it, and they do it. I wouldn't go as far as saying that they are like Free VPNs for example, where you are the product.
The server locations.
Honestly i was interested when it was first launched, but then... small VM with 1gb bandwidths never was interesting enough for me to go through all the stuff that is required to get it - from registration to adding credit card and working with their custom UI.
Combined with the risk of potentially stupid bills if something goes wrong.... small <$10/year LES container always seemed like better alternative. With such price it may as well be called free, there are much more sane resource limits (like at least 100-300GB BW), multiple locations and no risk of unexpected bills.
It is not fun to get stuck for a year with a ticking bomb where you only get 1GB per month, and incur insane charges if you do something wrong and consume more. About the only thing to learn here is various tricks and workarounds to try avoiding the charges. And you can never be at peace because there's no way to 100% guarantee that. That's not fun either. With cheap NAT VPSes available for as low as $3-4/year, it's a no-brainer to go with those instead. As a bonus you can host your website in a simpler way and without relying on CloudFlare (which is a privacy nightmare of its own).
$2/year...
https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/158532/guess-whos-back-2-year-vps-pennsylvania-canada-germany-bulgaria-finland/p1
And there's also Neoon's free NanoKVM project...
https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/156440/nanokvm-free-nat-kvm-multiple-locations/p1