Oracle recently reduced the Always Free Ampere A1 Flex allowance. To avoid extra charges or account issues, the safest approach is to manually downgrade your existing instance. This guide shows how to change a 4 OCPU / 24 GB RAM instance to 2 OCPU / 12 GB RAM.
The process does not delete your data. You only need to stop the instance, edit the shape resources, and start it again.
Step 1: stop the instance
Before changing hardware resources, the instance must be stopped.
- In the instance list, click the three-dot menu on the right side of the instance, then choose Stop.
- Wait until the state changes from running to Stopped.
Step 2: open the details page
- After the instance is fully stopped, click the instance name, such as
instance-20260212-2020, to open the details page.
Step 3: enter edit mode
- On the details page, find the More actions menu on the right.
- Open the menu and choose Edit.
Step 4: adjust CPU and memory
On the Edit instance screen, change these values:
- Set Number of OCPUs to
2. - Set Amount of memory (GB) to
12. - Confirm both values, then click Save changes.
Step 5: confirm the new resources and start the instance
- Return to the instance list and confirm that OCPU count is
2and Memory (GB) is12. - Finally, open the three-dot menu again and choose Start.
After the instance finishes booting, your Oracle Cloud server will be downgraded to the updated free-tier-friendly configuration.