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Oracle Cloud Free Tier Limits for a 24/7 YouTube Livestream

A 5 Mbps continuous stream is estimated to use 1.62 TB of outbound transfer in 30 days—well below Oracle’s 10 TB allowance, but not proof of VM uptime.

By DocumentaryTube Team 5 min read
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Yes, Oracle Cloud’s Always Free outbound-transfer allowance is large enough on paper for one 24/7 YouTube stream at ordinary ingest bitrates—but that does not mean a Free Tier VM is guaranteed to run it continuously. Oracle documents 10 TB per month of outbound data transfer. A constant 5 Mbps stream would use an estimated 1.62 TB over a 30-day month, before overhead and other traffic. Compute capacity, account limits, home-region availability and possible idle-instance reclamation are separate constraints.

What Oracle Free Tier includes for a continuous stream

Oracle’s Always Free resources include 10 TB per month of outbound data transfer. Oracle describes the allowance as part of Always Free resources, shared with other outbound workloads rather than reserved for a YouTube stream. The free resources are available in the tenancy’s home region for the life of the account, subject to the applicable limits and conditions. See Oracle’s Always Free Resources documentation.

Compute is capped as well. Oracle documents up to two VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro instances and an Ampere A1 Always Free allowance of the first 1,500 OCPU hours and 9,000 GB-hours per month—equivalent, for Always Free tenancies, to 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of memory. These figures are not a promise that a particular configuration is available in your account or can sustain a specific stream. Always Free compute must be created in the home region, and host capacity and account limits can affect provisioning.

Oracle’s service limits are pricing-model- and tenancy-dependent. The current console reflects the resources your tenancy is signed up for, so inspect Limits, Quotas and Usage in the Oracle Cloud Console before planning around a headline allowance. Oracle’s Limits by Service reference was updated September 11, 2026.

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Estimate outbound transfer for your bitrate

For a constant-rate stream, the estimate is bitrate in megabits per second Ă— 30 days Ă— 24 hours Ă— 3,600 seconds Ă· 8, then converted from megabytes to decimal terabytes. The figures below are calculations, not usage figures published by Oracle. They assume a 30-day uninterrupted stream with no protocol overhead, bitrate variation, reconnects or other outbound traffic.

Constant bitrate Estimated transfer in 30 days Approximate share of 10 TB
1 Mbps 324 GB 3.2%
4 Mbps 1.296 TB 13.0%
5 Mbps 1.62 TB 16.2%
6 Mbps 1.944 TB 19.4%
10 Mbps 3.24 TB 32.4%

Use the actual encoder bitrate, and leave headroom for variable traffic and other workloads. For a single stream at the listed rates, egress is well below Oracle’s documented monthly allowance. That calculation says nothing about whether a VM can keep the encoder process, network connection and YouTube ingest stable over time.

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Choose YouTube encoder settings before estimating

YouTube’s recommended bitrate depends on resolution, frame rate and codec. For H.264, its guidance includes 4 Mbps for 720p at 30 fps, 6 Mbps for 720p at 60 fps, and 5 Mbps for 1080p at 30 fps. At the latter setting, the calculated 30-day outbound use is about 1.62 TB under the assumptions above. Check the current YouTube encoder settings, bitrates and resolutions for the complete recommendations and select settings appropriate to your content and source.

  • Protocol: YouTube supports RTMP/RTMPS ingest.
  • Video: YouTube lists H.264, H.265 and AV1, up to 60 fps; match the encoder settings to the selected codec and source.
  • Rate and keyframes: Use constant bitrate (CBR). YouTube recommends a two-second keyframe interval and says it should not exceed four seconds.
  • Audio: YouTube lists AAC or MP3.
  • Stream health: Test the upload bitrate and monitor YouTube’s stream health rather than treating the configured bitrate as proof of a stable connection.

For a YouTube channel to livestream, it must be eligible and verified, with no livestream restrictions in the prior 90 days. YouTube also sets channel-level concurrent-stream limits; these are separate from Oracle’s compute or transfer quotas. Review YouTube’s live-streaming eligibility guidance and its encoder setup instructions.

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Why the free transfer allowance does not guarantee 24/7 uptime

A continuous stream depends on more than egress. The VM must have enough sustained compute capacity for the chosen workload, the tenancy must have the applicable limits and regional capacity, and the process must recover from failures. The available Oracle and YouTube documentation does not establish that a specific Always Free instance shape will encode a particular resolution or maintain an uninterrupted broadcast. There is no controlled performance comparison in the cited material that would support such a guarantee.

Oracle also says idle Always Free compute instances may be reclaimed. Its documented idle test looks at a seven-day period: CPU utilization below 20% at the 95th percentile and network utilization below 20%; for Ampere A1, memory utilization below 20% is also included. A low-activity or static stream may be relevant, but Oracle’s documentation does not determine how a particular workload will be classified. Do not treat an Always Free VM as an uptime commitment.

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Practical checks before you rely on an Oracle VM

  1. Check the tenancy first: In the Oracle Cloud Console, review Limits, Quotas and Usage for the home region and the instance resources you intend to create. Confirm capacity in that region rather than assuming a general Free Tier listing applies to your account.
  2. Calculate transfer: Estimate from the encoder’s actual bitrate using the table or formula above. Include traffic from other workloads and allow room for overhead and reconnects.
  3. Confirm YouTube readiness: Verify channel eligibility and prepare the stream in YouTube Studio. Keep the stream key private; anyone with access to it may be able to broadcast to your channel.
  4. Configure and test the encoder: Use a supported ingest protocol and codec, CBR, YouTube’s recommended keyframe interval, and suitable audio. Test the upload bitrate and watch YouTube’s stream-health indicators before depending on the stream.
  5. Plan for interruption: Decide how the encoder will restart after a process or VM failure, and how you will notice a dropped stream. Oracle’s free allowance itself does not provide a YouTube-specific restart or continuity guarantee.
  6. Check content rights and channel policies: A technically valid stream does not make the content permissible. Use footage and audio you have rights to broadcast, and review YouTube’s copyright and monetization policies, including rules that may apply to repetitive or reused material.

Or let it run in the cloud

If your goal is to keep uploaded videos playing on YouTube, StreamNeo is an alternative to managing an Oracle VM and encoder process. Upload a recording or build a playlist, add your YouTube stream key once, and go live; StreamNeo loops the videos from its cloud. Nothing has to stay on at home, uploads stream as made up to 4K 60fps at one flat price per slot, and automatic recovery is included if YouTube drops the stream. The first day is free with no card. The monthly option is $9.99 per month. StreamNeo is for YouTube streams of uploaded videos, not camera broadcasts. Learn more at StreamNeo, or start the free day.

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