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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Yes, according to project author Ashish Sinha, the Free Tier edition of OCI Sandbox Factory can be installed on Always Free OCI resources without attaching a payment method to the tenancy. That does not mean you can necessarily create a new Oracle Cloud account without a card: Oracle says most users need a credit card to sign up. The announcement describes a Free Tier configuration, not an independently tested installation.
What the Free Tier edition is
OCI Sandbox Factory is a Terraform-based provisioner for disposable development environments. In Ashish Sinha’s announcement, a user describes a sandbox in chat, the factory provisions supported resources in the user’s Oracle Cloud tenancy, and a lifecycle process removes the sandbox when its time expires. The Free Tier edition is an alternate deployment configuration intended to use Always Free resources rather than the broader set of services in the project’s paid-account design.
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Sinha says the installation begins by selecting Edition: free on the install form and deploying one OCI Resource Manager stack in the tenancy’s home region. He estimates the installation takes about 15 minutes; that is his estimate, not a measured result. See the project announcement and follow-up comment.
What it says it can provision
Data and storage
The author describes an Always Free Autonomous Database 23ai with REST enabled and in-database document search, along with NoSQL tables and Object Storage buckets.
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Applications on an Arm worker
Rather than using Container Instances, the Free Tier edition runs containerized applications on an Always Free Arm VM. The announcement names the worker shape as VM.Standard.A1.Flex with 2 OCPU and 12 GB of memory. Example workloads include Grafana, React and FastAPI starters, Streamlit, an MCP server, a user-provided container image, or an application pulled from a Git repository.
Optional Gemini integration
Sinha says the assistant can call the Google Gemini API if the user supplies a free key from AI Studio. The key is not required for the one-click starters or the form. Gemini API access is a separate Google service, not an Always Free OCI resource.
What the Free Tier edition leaves out
The author says this edition declines Kafka (Streaming with Apache Kafka), Functions, Data Flow (Spark and Iceberg), Data Catalog, Queue, API Gateway, extra Container Instances, paid database tiers, and Select AI. Applications run on the worker VM over plain HTTP instead of using API Gateway and additional Container Instances. These are the project’s stated edition boundaries, not an independent audit of every OCI entitlement.
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Available capacity can also get in the way: Sinha warns that shared capacity may prevent an Arm VM or database from provisioning. A Free Tier eligibility label does not guarantee that a requested resource will be available in the selected region.
Database and cleanup limits
Under the author’s described design, the tenancy’s two-database allowance includes the factory’s control database. A database sandbox uses a schema inside that control database, rather than creating a separate Autonomous Database for each sandbox. Sinha says this approach permits one database sandbox at a time.
The follow-up comment describes a default sandbox TTL of 3 days and a validated maximum of 30 days. When a sandbox expires, a reaper deletes its stack. That lifecycle is separate from Oracle’s account-level idle policy: Oracle says accounts inactive for at least 30 days may be considered abandoned and become eligible for suspension or termination.
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Sinha describes four project-level safeguards: the edition determines which services the stack builds; the worker shape is validated; compartment quotas can impose server-side resource caps; and expiration tags let the reaper delete a sandbox stack after its TTL.
Quota setup defaults to off. The author says users need to confirm the quota names and enable the feature, so quota enforcement should not be assumed to be active on a fresh installation. A monthly compartment budget with threshold and forecast alerts is also mentioned, but Sinha explicitly says it is not a hard spending stop.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Does “no card” mean Oracle signup is card-free?
No such signup guarantee is established by the project announcement. Oracle’s OCI Free Tier documentation says, “For security purposes, most users need a mobile phone number and a credit card to create an account.” Oracle says the card is not charged unless the account is upgraded. The project’s claim concerns installing its Free Tier edition on Always Free resources without a payment method attached; it does not establish that a person without an existing OCI account can open one without providing card details.
Oracle also distinguishes its limited trial from Always Free services. Its current documentation describes $300 in trial credits available for up to 30 days, while stating that existing Always Free resources remain available after the trial ends. Those trial credits are Oracle’s offer, not a project budget or a claim that Sandbox Factory has no possible cost exposure.
Before you install
- Check Oracle’s current signup requirements if you do not already have an OCI account; most users are asked for a phone number and card.
- Choose the home region carefully. Oracle says Always Free Autonomous AI Databases and compute instances can be provisioned only in that region.
- Expect capacity constraints: Oracle lists capacity limits for Always Free services, and the project author specifically warns that VM or database provisioning can fail when shared capacity is unavailable.
- Review which services the Free Tier edition excludes and whether the worker-VM approach suits your application.
- If you need quota-based caps, verify the quota names and explicitly enable the project’s quota setup rather than assuming it is on by default.
Oracle’s Free Tier page and FAQ list categories such as Ampere A1 compute, Object Storage, Autonomous databases, and Resource Manager, subject to limitations. Oracle also says only one free trial or Always Free account is permitted per person. These are Oracle account and service policies; they are not a guarantee that every resource in the factory’s configuration will provision successfully.
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