How to Get a Forever Free Website in 2025 (And Why You Might Want Someone Else to Do It)

If you’re a small business owner, the words “forever free website” sound like music. And yes — in 2025, there’s still a way to host a real website with zero ongoing cost using Oracle Cloud’s “Always Free” tier.

But here’s the thing: it’s not a drag-and-drop solution. You’ll need to set up a Linux server, configure web services, manage DNS, install SSL, and maintain everything yourself. If you’re up for the challenge — great! This guide will walk you through every major step.

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🔧 What You’ll Need

Before we begin, here’s what you’ll need to complete this:

• A computer with SSH installed (Windows 10+ or Mac/Linux)
• A domain name (you can register one through us or another registrar)
• Patience and a bit of technical confidence
• A Credit / Debit card with £80 available (Don’t worry! You will not be charged)

We’ll be using:

• Oracle Cloud’s Always Free Compute
• Ubuntu Linux 22.04 LTS
• Apache2 Web Server
• Let’s Encrypt for HTTPS
• WordPress

Step 1: Sign Up for Oracle Cloud Free Tier

Go to cloud.oracle.com/free and sign up. You’ll need:

• An email address
• A valid credit card with £80 availble (you won’t be charged if you stay in the free tier)
• A mobile phone for verification

After verifying your details, you’ll be taken into the Oracle Cloud console. This part can be overwhelming — Oracle is designed for enterprise IT, not beginners.

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Step 2: Launch a Virtual Machine (VM)

From the Oracle dashboard:

1. Go to Compute > Instances
2. Click Create Instance
3. Name your instance (e.g., “my-website”)
4. Choose an image: Ubuntu 22.04
5. Under “Shape,” choose VM.Standard.A1.Flex (1 OCPU, 1GB RAM — free tier)
6. Generate or upload an SSH key pair

Example to generate on Mac/Linux:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048

Wait for the instance to be “Running” and note your Public IP address.

Step 3: Connect to Your Server via SSH

Open your terminal and connect:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/your_private_key ubuntu@your_public_ip

You’re now logged into your completely free virtual server!

Step 4: Install Apache Web Server

sudo apt update
sudo apt install apache2 -y

Add these rules to your firewall

sudo iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT

Go to your Oracle Cloud Console

Navigate to Networking > Virtual Cloud Networks

Select the VCN your instance is part of

Under Security Lists, click the one assigned to your subnet

Add two new Ingress Rules:

• Source CIDR: 0.0.0.0/0
• IP Protocol: TCP
• Destination Port Range: 80 (for HTTP)
• Repeat with port 443 (for HTTPS)

Visit http://your_public_ip to check your web server is working.

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Step 5: Point Your Domain to the Server

At your domain registrar, add an A record:

• Name: @
• Value: your Oracle server’s public IP
• TTL: 300 seconds

Give it up to an hour to propagate.

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Step 6: Secure Your Free Website with HTTPS (Let’s Encrypt)

Install Certbot:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache -y

Then run:

sudo certbot --apache

Follow prompts to choose your domain and set up automatic SSL renewal.

Test renewal:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

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Step 7: Install WordPress Manually

sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql mysql-server -y
sudo mysql_secure_installation

Create your WordPress database:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Inside MySQL:

CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO 'wpuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'strongpassword';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Download and install WordPress:

cd /var/www/html
sudo wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
sudo tar -xzvf latest.tar.gz
sudo mv wordpress/* .
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html

Visit http://yourdomain.com to complete the setup.

Step 8: Maintain and Monitor Your Free Website

You’re live — congrats! But now you’ll need to:

• Update Ubuntu and Apache regularly
• Renew SSL certificates every 3 months
• Manually back up your site
• Secure your database and monitor load

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The Free Website Dream — and Reality

Yes, it’s totally possible to host your site for free in 2025. But for most small business owners, your time is better spent on customers, products, and revenue — not Linux commands.

Further more, the Oracle free tier resources are not the most powerful of servers. Whilst it is true that you can host a fully working website, it will not grow with your business and customers will find the website slow to load as more people visit. You are likely to quickly outgrow the website and will need to upgrade to a paid service.

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• Your own domain
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• Secure, fast WordPress hosting
• Ongoing updates and support

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