Neither Akamai Cloud nor DigitalOcean has an ongoing free tier. Akamai Cloud offers a credit grant that runs out ("Credits"); DigitalOcean offers a credit grant that runs out ("Credits").
A verdict here is not a fixed property of the vendor. A one-off pricing event demotes a vendor while its recorded date falls in the last 180 days and then lapses on its own, with nothing about the vendor having changed; a standing condition — a free tier withdrawn and not restored, a product retired — does not lapse with time. A badge carrying a date states the record it rests on; a badge with no date rests on no record in force.
Akamai Cloud, formerly Linode: a new user who signs up through a referral link gets a $100, 60-day credit, applied once a valid payment method is on the account. Shared CPU plans start with the Nanode 1 GB at $5/mo in most regions (1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 25 GB of storage, 1 TB transfer); the next plan, 2 GB RAM, is $12/mo.
New accounts get a $5 signup credit, applied automatically to the first team and expiring 90 days after signup; a payment method is required before creating resources. Basic Droplets from $4/mo (1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, 10 GB SSD). Per-second billing (min 60s or $0.01). App Platform: 3 free static sites (1 GiB outbound/mo each). Functions: 90,000 GiB-seconds/mo free. Spaces: 250 GB + 1 TB transfer for $5/mo. Managed databases start at $15/mo (not free). No perpetual free compute tier
As of 2026-05-13, DigitalOcean's startup credits exclude Dedicated and Serverless Inference, third-party AI models, Paperspace Machines, Cloudways and Bare Metal GPUs as well as GPU Droplets and H100 GPU products, the two exclusions its page stated before. The page also now puts the monthly credit limit at $10,000; its April capture mentioned a monthly limit without an amount. Source ↗
reducedeffective 2026-04-07medium impact
DigitalOcean's new-account credit fell from $200 for 60 days to $5 for 90 days. Its pricing page changed between the Internet Archive's 2026-04-05 and 2026-04-07 captures. The $200 offer page (try.digitalocean.com/freetrialoffer/) was still up on 2026-05-15 and now redirects to the homepage. Source ↗
increasedeffective 2026-01-01medium impact
Droplets moved from hourly to per-second billing (with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher) Source ↗
increasedeffective 2025-01-22medium impact
Hatch startup program expanded to up to $100K compute credits plus up to 3 months free H100 GPU access for AI/ML startups Source ↗
Watch Both Vendors for Pricing Changes
We do not push notifications. Every change we record is readable the moment it lands, and the JSON answer carries an ETag — send it back as If-None-Match and an unchanged answer costs one 304.