Run OpenClaw 24×7 for Free: A Practical Guide Using Free Cloud VPS

✨ Introduction

Deploying OpenClaw — the open-source AI assistant that runs autonomously — typically requires a server that stays online around the clock. While paid VPS hosting is straightforward, you don’t necessarily need to spend money if you leverage free cloud hosting plans smartly.

In this blog post, we’ll walk you through:

1. Smart use of free VPS/VM providers and tricks for always-on hosting.

2. A comparison of popular free cloud providers.

3. Step-by-step setup on a Linux VPS, including Node.js≥22, swap setup, and environment configuration to prevent OOM install failures.

This guide assumes you’re targeting Debian or Ubuntu Linux, the most common bases for reliably running OpenClaw in production-like environments.

🌐 Why Use Free VPS/VM Hosting for OpenClaw

OpenClaw is designed to run continuously as a service — this requires an always-on Linux machine (a VPS or VM) as your gateway host. According to the official documentation, the VPS runs the OpenClaw gateway and holds the persistent state and workspace that your instance uses to handle jobs and remote nodes. (OpenClaw)

But always-on hosting doesn’t have to cost money if you’re clever about choice of provider and configuration.

☁️ Free VPS Providers Comparison

Here’s a look at several cloud platforms that offer free tiers you can use to host OpenClaw:

How These Free Offers Work

• Google Cloud Free Tier gives you 1 always-free e2-micro VM per month as long as you deploy it in one of the supported regions (e.g., us-west1, us-central1, us-east1) and stay within networking/disk limits. (Google Cloud)

• Oracle Cloud Always Free truly remains free forever as long as the instance stays within the always-free resource limits — up to a significant amount of compute compared to other free tiers. (Oracle Docs)

⚠️ Community feedback warns that free Oracle VMs can sometimes be reclaimed or terminated without notice. Backups and automation are recommended. (Reddit)

🛠 Choosing Your OS: Debian/Ubuntu

For compatibility and long-term stability, Debian or Ubuntu LTS versions (e.g., Ubuntu 24.04 or Debian 12) are ideal.

Why?

• Strong ecosystem support for Node.js.

• Large community documentation and tooling.

• Predictable kernel and package updates.

Debian/Ubuntu also work well with swap and memory settings we’ll introduce next.

🚀 Step-by-Step Setup

Below is a baselined setup to deploy OpenClaw on Debian/Ubuntu on a free VPS.

### 💻 1. Provision VPS/VM

1. Create your free account on Google Cloud or Oracle Cloud.

2. Create a new VM instance with:

   • Ubuntu Server 24.04 or Debian 12

   • Minimum disk: 30 GB

   • Network: Allow SSH

   • (Optional) set hostname to openclaw

### 💾 2. Prepare Server Environment

SSH into your new server:

ssh [email protected]
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

### 💡 3. Setup Swap (Important for small RAM)

Most free VMs only have ~1 GB of RAM; to avoid build and install issues:

sudo fallocate -l 4G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

This gives your system 4 GB of swap and helps Node builds succeed.

### ⚙️ 4. Install Node.js ≥22

OpenClaw benefits from recent Node versions. Use NodeSource installer:

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_22.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs build-essential

To ensure OpenClaw installation doesn’t fail due to memory limits, configure Node’s max old space size:

export NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=2048"
echo 'export NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=2048"' >> ~/.bashrc

This sets Node’s heap to 2 GB — often necessary on low-RAM VMs to avoid process OOMs during install.

### 📦 5. Install OpenClaw

Follow the official OpenClaw install steps:

# For example (replace with latest from OpenClaw docs)
sudo npm install -g openclaw
openclaw setup

Log files will show any runtime errors:

openclaw logs --follow

(Replace exact commands with the current docs if they change.) (OpenClaw)

🔄 Keeping Your Instance Alive 24×7

Some free tiers, especially Google e2-micro, are designed for low usage. To make your VPS less idle:

• Enable modest CPU usage by running light cron tasks or heartbeat scripts.

• Use monitoring tools like Uptime Kuma to avoid auto-suspend on idle.

(Community reports suggest Oracle Cloud may mark idle machines unused and reclaim them — keep utilization above nominal thresholds.) (Reddit)

📌 Conclusion & Tips

Deploying OpenClaw for free 24×7 is feasible with careful provider choice and the right setup. Here’s the quick takeaway:

• Oracle Cloud Always Free is the most powerful free option but can be flaky on availability. (Oracle Docs)

• Google Cloud Free Tier offers reliable free servers if deployed correctly. (Google Cloud)

• Small VMs need swap and Node environment tuning to install and run OpenClaw successfully.

• Always automate backups and store your config/state outside the free VM.

With this plan and these tricks in your toolkit, you’ll have a self-hosted OpenClaw running 24×7 — at zero monthly cost.