The $0/Month Tech Stack That Runs All My Production Projects
I run six production projects. A crypto data API handling paid requests from trading bots in Singapore. A Telegram game with 79 users. A prediction market bot that trades 24/7. A flight compensation checker. Two more tools. The monthly hosting bill for all of them combined: $0.
That's not a trial period or a startup credit. It's four permanently free services that, together, cover compute, networking, deployment, and security for everything a solo builder needs to ship real products.
The Four Services
The stack has four components. Each one handles a different layer, and each one has a free tier generous enough to run actual production workloads — not toy demos.
Oracle Cloud Always Free (compute). A virtual private server with 4 ARM CPUs and 24 GB of RAM. No expiration date. No credit consumption. Always free as long as the account stays active. This is where all my backend code runs — API servers, Telegram bots, background data collectors, scheduled jobs. I've been running it for over three months with zero unplanned downtime.
Cloudflare (networking + security). Free tier covers DNS management, SSL certificates, CDN caching, and a web application firewall. Every domain I own points to Cloudflare. SSL gets handled automatically — no certificates to generate, install, or renew. The WAF blocks hundreds of automated attack attempts per day without me configuring anything.
Cloudflare Pages (frontend deployment). Connect a GitHub repo, set a build command, and every push to main deploys globally in 90 seconds. Free tier includes unlimited sites, unlimited bandwidth, and preview URLs for every branch. My Telegram game frontend, static tool sites, and several other projects all deploy through Pages.
GitHub (version control + automation). Free repos, free GitHub Actions for CI/CD, free collaboration tools. Every project lives in a GitHub repo. Pushes to main trigger automatic deployments — either to Cloudflare Pages for frontends or via GitHub Actions SSH for backends on Oracle.
How They Fit Together
The four services aren't independent tools. They form a pipeline where each one feeds into the next:
The critical connection is between Cloudflare and Oracle. Cloudflare handles SSL so the Oracle server doesn't need its own certificate. Cloudflare's WAF filters malicious traffic before it reaches Oracle. Cloudflare's CDN caches static responses so Oracle handles less load. The VPS does the compute; Cloudflare does everything around it.
What's Actually Running on This Stack
This isn't theoretical. Here's what I'm running right now on a single Oracle ARM instance:
Ten gigabytes of RAM used out of twenty-four available. CPU barely above idle most of the time. The server has enough headroom to add several more services before any resource limit becomes an issue.
The Catch (There's Always One)
Nothing is truly free without trade-offs. Here's what you give up with this stack compared to paying for hosting:
Oracle Cloud setup is confusing. The VCN (Virtual Cloud Network) security list blocks all incoming traffic by default, including standard web ports. Your service will run fine locally but be unreachable from the internet until you manually open the ingress ports. I spent an entire afternoon on this the first time. The fix is two rules in the security list dashboard — ports 80 and 443 with source 0.0.0.0/0 — but finding that answer took longer than it should have.
Oracle Cloud signup can be rejected. Some accounts get denied without explanation during the signup process. If this happens, try again with a different email and payment method. The credit card is for verification only — it won't be charged on the Always Free tier.
ARM means occasional compatibility issues. Oracle's free instance is ARM-based, not x86. Python, Node.js, and most modern tools run natively. But some older libraries or Docker images only have x86 builds. I've hit this twice in three months — both times the fix was choosing an ARM-compatible alternative.
No managed databases. Oracle's free tier doesn't include a managed database service. I run SQLite and PostgreSQL directly on the VPS. This works fine for solo projects but means I manage my own backups (a cron job that copies the database file every six hours).
Cloudflare Pages is frontend only. It deploys static sites and single-page apps. Backend services need the Oracle VPS. The deployment paths for frontend and backend are separate, which adds a small amount of complexity compared to an all-in-one platform.
The Setup Order That Saves Time
If you're starting from scratch, this order avoids backtracking:
Step 1: Cloudflare. Sign up, add your domain, update nameservers at your registrar. This propagates in under an hour. Do this first because every other piece assumes Cloudflare is handling DNS and SSL.
Step 2: GitHub. Create a repo for your project. Even if you have nothing to deploy yet, having the repo ready means Cloudflare Pages can connect to it immediately.
Step 3: Cloudflare Pages. Connect to your GitHub repo, specify the build command, deploy. Your frontend is now live with automatic deploys on every push.
Step 4: Oracle Cloud. Sign up, create an ARM compute instance, configure the VCN security list (open ports 80 and 443), SSH in, install your dependencies, deploy your backend. Point a Cloudflare DNS A record at the Oracle instance's public IP.
Steps 1-3 take under an hour total. Step 4 takes a few hours the first time, mostly spent on VCN configuration and initial server setup. After the first project, each additional project reuses the same Oracle instance and takes minutes to deploy.
When to Outgrow This Stack
This stack stops being the right choice when one of these happens: your project needs more than 24 GB of RAM, you need multi-region deployment for latency-sensitive applications, you need managed database failover, or your revenue justifies paying for operational convenience over cost savings.
For most solo projects — including everything I run today — none of those conditions apply. The stack handles real users, real traffic, and real payments without any of the resource limits becoming a bottleneck.
The right time to upgrade isn't when you can afford it. It's when the problem you're solving requires it. Until then, the $0 stack does more than you'd expect.
More guides in this series cover specific parts of this stack in depth — Claude Code workflows, deployment automation, API cost optimization. If you're building something solo and have questions about the setup, drop them in the comments.
If you're setting up this stack, these guides cover each piece in detail:
- Claude Code for Non-Developers: What It's Actually Like
- Oracle Cloud Always Free ARM Instance: Setup Guide
- Cloudflare Free Tier: Everything You Can Do Without Paying
- Building a Full-Stack App with Claude Code in One Day
Disclaimer: This blog documents practical workflows based on personal experience. Nothing here is financial, legal, or professional advice.
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