I work on Aplite, a managed OpenClaw host. It is one of the seven options below. The terms of the other six come from their own pages, read on 19 October 2026, and the links go there.
"Free OpenClaw hosting" means four different things depending on who is selling it: a machine you already own, a cloud free tier where you install everything yourself, a managed plan with no end date, or free hosting with the tokens billed from the first reply. Two bills decide whether $0 is really $0. An agent that works around the clock needs a machine that stays on, and it needs model tokens for every reply. Each of the seven ways below covers one bill, both, or one of them for a while.
The seven, in one table
| # | Way | What is free | Card at sign-up | Your API key | Free ends |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Your own machine, local model | everything | no | no | never |
| 2 | Oracle Cloud Always Free | a VM: 2 Arm OCPUs, 12 GB, or two 1 GB micro VMs | yes, plus a phone number | yes, or a local model | never; idle VMs can be reclaimed |
| 3 | Google Cloud free tier | one e2-micro, 1 GB, 30 GB disk | yes | yes | never |
| 4 | AWS Free Tier | $100 in credits, up to $200 | the page does not say | yes | 6 months, or when the credits run out |
| 5 | Railway, official template | a $5 credit | no | yes | 30 days |
| 6 | A managed free plan: Aplite, Agent37 | hosting, one agent, a starter credit | no | no on Aplite; on Agent37 after $0.20 of the default model | never; both sleep between uses |
| 7 | Free hosting, metered tokens: Runware, Ampere | the instance | no | no | hosting never; tokens from the first reply |
1. Your own machine, with a local model
The only way where neither bill exists. Install Ollama, pull a model, run openclaw onboard and pick Ollama, then Local only:
ollama pull gemma4
openclaw onboard
The key field is a formality for local hosts: the Ollama setup page says loopback URLs "do not need a real bearer token" and "any value works". openclaw gateway install keeps the gateway running after you log out.
Two limits. The upstream FAQ answers "Is a local model okay for casual chats?" with "Usually not": small or quantized models truncate context and raise prompt-injection risk, and the managed llama.cpp recipe has an 8 GiB memory floor. And the machine is the uptime: sleep, OS updates and network drops are your outages. Right for a desktop with 16 GB or more and an agent that works while you are at the desk. The step-by-step, with every command checked on OpenClaw 2026.9.8, is in OpenClaw hosting for free.
2. Oracle Cloud Always Free
The most machine anyone gives away: 2 Arm OCPUs and 12 GB of memory, or two 1 GB micro instances, and 200 GB of block storage, with no end date. Sign-up takes a card and a phone number; "Your credit card will not be charged unless you upgrade your account." You create the VM, open the firewall, run the installer, bring a key or a local model, as in the upstream Oracle guide.
Two things end the fun. "Out of host capacity" when creating the Arm shape, sometimes for weeks. And instances that sit idle for 7 days may be reclaimed. Older guides still quote 4 OCPUs and 24 GB; that allowance was halved.
3. Google Cloud free tier
One e2-micro in us-west1, us-central1 or us-east1 with 30 GB of disk, behind a payment method, no end date. 1 GB of memory is exactly the floor the OpenClaw FAQ names, not its recommendation: capped at 1 GB, the 2026.9.8 gateway settles at about 740 MB resident a minute after start and logs memory pressure: level=warning. It runs; it does not run a browser tool next to it. The $300 welcome credit lasts 90 days and is a different thing from the always-free micro.
4. AWS Free Tier
AWS replaced its always-free micro instance with credits: $100 on sign-up, up to $200 for completing tasks. The page says the account "closes on its own 6 months after you open it or when your credits run out, whichever comes first". So this is a six-month test, not a home. Your key, your install, any region.
5. Railway, with the official template
The OpenClaw docs have a Railway install page and a one-click template that asks only for a gateway token. Railway gives a $5 credit for 30 days with no card; after that the Hobby plan is $5 a month and includes $5 of usage, billed per second beyond it. What you get is a container, not a VM: the volume, the environment variables, updates and openclaw backup create are yours. Regions: two in the US, Amsterdam, Singapore. Models are your own key. Right for someone who wants a month of testing without touching Linux.
6. A managed free plan
Two hosts have a plan with no end date at $0 and no card. Both sleep between uses.
Aplite Free (the one I work on) is one agent, the full markdown workspace, approvals for every file change, Telegram from a bot token, budget models from the catalog and 300 welcome credits that do not expire. No API key: models run through one metered account, 1 credit = 1¢, and bringing your own key is not supported. The workspace stops after 6 hours idle and starts again when you open it, usually under a minute, and the Telegram bot answers only while it is awake. No scheduled routines on Free; Pro is $20 a month. Servers in Germany, EU company.
Agent37 Free is one agent on 1 vCPU and 4 GB, no card, with a task board and a web terminal. It sleeps after 15 minutes idle, and the model is yours after "$0.20 of the default model to start"; Plus at $9.99 bundles free models.
BetterClaw names a Free plan in its FAQ without listing its limits.
7. Free hosting, metered tokens
Runware charges nothing for the instance: compute, storage and networking "included at zero charge", "no payment required to deploy", one instance per account during the beta. Every reply draws on a wallet at per-token rates, which a business email starts at $2. An instance unused for 5 days is suspended until you redeploy it, data kept. EU and US residency. Honest and cheap for a bot that talks a few times a day; the wallet is the plan.
Ampere is harder to read. The FAQ says "Free hosting during beta, $10 in AI credits included" and no card; the plan table on the same page lists the entry tier as "Free" at $1 a month with 5,000 credits and a button that reads "Start for $1". Take whichever the sign-up form shows you.
Trials are not free plans
Several hosts show up in "free OpenClaw hosting" lists with a trial. A trial is the paid product for a few days: OneClickClaw gives 7 days on a real server in Denmark against a Google account, then deletes the server unless you add a payment method (€14.99/mo after); Flux gives new users the first week, then $5.49/mo; RapidClaw counts 5 messages, then $29/mo; OpenClaw Launch gives 30 minutes; ClawHosters 48 hours with a card on file; ClawTrust 5 days. KiloClaw appears in most lists, but on 19 October every kilo.ai/kiloclaw address redirected to the Kilo Code homepage, so there was nothing to verify.
How to pick
- $0 forever, and you have a 16 GB desktop: way 1. Tokens cost nothing and the agent works while the machine does.
- A real server for $0 and you can install: way 2. Way 3 if you accept 1 GB and a US region.
- A month of testing, no card, no Linux: way 5 for a container you control, way 6 for no install at all.
- A bot that answers a few times a day, no server, no key: way 6 or way 7. Both sleep or suspend when idle; that is the price.
- Always-on with nothing to maintain: none of the seven. The cheapest paid lines, from $4.99 on a 24-month term to $29 with model credits included, are in Managed OpenClaw hosting compared, 18 hosts in one table.
The longer version of this table, 15 hosts and tiers with who takes a card for a plan that never charges it and which trials end by deleting the server, is on OpenClaw hosting with a free plan and no credit card. If the question is the key rather than the server, Can you use OpenClaw without an API key? walks through the subscription logins and the free keys.
Aplite is an independent service and is not affiliated with the OpenClaw project. Prices on this page move; the date they were read is in the first line.
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