☁️ How to Host Your Side Projects for $0: The Ultimate GCP Free Tier Guide

🛠️ Step-by-Step Setup ## Prerequisites ## Step 1: Machine Configuration ## Step 2: OS and Storage (Crucial!) ## Step 3: Data Protection & Observability ## Step 4: Networking ## 📊 Quick Reference: The "Golden Config" Decision Table ## ✅ Verification ## 🔮 What's Next? How-to guide for configuring regions, disk types, and network tiers to build a forever-free Linux server. Hello, Dev Community! 👋 I'm excited to kick off a new series where I’ll be building an AI-Powered News & Insight App. But before we dive into "Vibe Coding," LLMs, and Python scripts, we need a home for our application. While tools like Vercel and Replit are fantastic, sometimes you just need a raw Linux server (VM) to have full control over your environment—whether it's for hosting a Docker container, running a cron job, or just experimenting with Linux. In this article, I’ll walk you through how to provision a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Compute Engine instance that stays within the "Always Free" tier limits. I'll share exactly which settings to tweak to avoid those surprise bills! 💸 Navigate to Compute Engine > Create an instance. The "Always Free" tier has strict requirements regarding location and hardware. This is where many people accidentally incur costs. By default, GCP might select a "Balanced" disk, which is not free. We need to strip away the paid add-ons. Finally, let's configure traffic and network pricing. Here is a summary of the choices I made versus the defaults, to help you understand why we configured it this way. Before hitting "Create," look at the Monthly Estimate on the right side of the screen. It should look remarkably clean, listing only: If you see anything else (like "Snapshot schedule" or "Ops Agent"), go back and double-check the steps above. Once verified, click Create! 🚀 Congratulations! You now have a running Linux server in the cloud for $0/month. I will be using this VM as the foundation for my upcoming side projects, specifically the AI News & Insight App I mentioned earlier. In the next few posts, I'll be sharing how I: Stay tuned for the next part of this series! If you have any tips for optimizing free-tier VMs, let me know in the comments below! 👇 Templates let you quickly answer FAQs or store snippets for re-use. Are you sure you want to hide this comment? It will become hidden in your post, but will still be visible via the comment's permalink. Hide child comments as well For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse - A Google Cloud Platform account with billing enabled, but it won't incurred cost because it's covered by free tier quota. - Region: Select us-west1, us-east1, or us-central1. My Choice: I picked us-west1 (Oregon) because it is physically nearer to my location in Asia compared to the other free options, offering slightly better latency. - My Choice: I picked us-west1 (Oregon) because it is physically nearer to my location in Asia compared to the other free options, offering slightly better latency. - Machine Type: Select e2-micro (2 vCPU, 1 core, 1 GB memory). Note: This is a shared-core machine, perfect for low-traffic apps or development environments. - Note: This is a shared-core machine, perfect for low-traffic apps or development environments. - My Choice: I picked us-west1 (Oregon) because it is physically nearer to my location in Asia compared to the other free options, offering slightly better latency. - Note: This is a shared-core machine, perfect for low-traffic apps or development environments. - Click Change under "Boot disk". - Boot disk type: Change this to Standard persistent disk. - Size: Set this to 30 GB. Why? You get 30GB of Standard persistent disk usage per month for free. - Why? You get 30GB of Standard persistent disk usage per month for free. - Why? You get 30GB of Standard persistent disk usage per month for free. - Backups: In the "Data protection" section, select No backups. Backups and snapshots cost extra. - Observability: In the "Observability" section, uncheck "Install Ops Agent". Reason: The Ops Agent consumes precious RAM. On a 1GB e2-micro instance, we need every megabyte for our application. - Reason: The Ops Agent consumes precious RAM. On a 1GB e2-micro instance, we need every megabyte for our application. - Reason: The Ops Agent consumes precious RAM. On a 1GB e2-micro instance, we need every megabyte for our application. - Firewall: Check Allow HTTP traffic and Allow HTTPS traffic so we can access our web apps later. - Network Interface: Expand the "Network interfaces" section and click on nic0. - Network Service Tier: Change this from Premium to Standard. Pro Tip: Premium tier routes traffic over Google's global backbone (faster but costlier). Standard tier uses the public internet (free/cheaper for low usage). - Pro Tip: Premium tier routes traffic over Google's global backbone (faster but costlier). Standard tier uses the public internet (free/cheaper for low usage). - Pro Tip: Premium tier routes traffic over Google's global backbone (faster but costlier). Standard tier uses the public internet (free/cheaper for low usage). - 2 vCPU + 1 GB memory - 30 GB standard persistent disk - Set up the environment on this VM. - Use "Vibe Coding" tools to generate the application code. - Deploy the app to this very server.