Always Free Oracle APEX Application Development

B Always Free Oracle APEX Application Development

This section describes configuration differences, restrictions, and additional details for Always Free Oracle APEX Application Development (Always Free APEX Service).

You have the option to create a limited number of Always Free APEX Services that do not consume cloud credits. Always Free APEX Service can be created in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure accounts that are in a trial period, have paying status, or are always free. This section describes configuration differences, restrictions, and additional details for Always Free APEX Service.

These are the services you can use for an unlimited time:

Two free services based on Oracle Autonomous database.
Two Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute VMs; Block, Object, and Archive Storage; Load Balancer and data egress; Monitoring and Notifications.

See Oracle Cloud Free Tier to start for free.

Resource Restrictions for Always Free APEX Service

The Always Free option provides databases that have CPU and storage included and you are never billed for an Always Free APEX Service instance until the instance is upgraded to a paid Autonomous Database.
Maximum of approximately 20 GB Exadata storage per database (you may see more than this).
Maximum of 30 simultaneous database sessions.
Maximum of 2 Always Free Autonomous Database instances per Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy. The Always Free Autonomous Database workload types are: Data Warehouse, Transaction Processing, JSON Database, and APEX Service. If you create 2 Always Free instances, they can be the same or different Autonomous Database workload types.
The HTTP interface for Always Free APEX Service is rate limited to restrict the number of simultaneous service users. Approximately 3-6 simultaneous users can be supported across all of the APEX, Oracle REST Data Services, and Database Actions running on your Always Free Autonomous Databases. Additional simultaneous users beyond that may result in users encountering HTTP errors such as HTTP status code 429. Note this restriction is specific to the Always Free version of Always Free APEX Service.

This HTTP interface rate limit applies only for the Always Free version of APEX Service.
Note:
- Always Free APEX Service cannot be scaled manually or automatically beyond the fixed resource restrictions described above.
- The Maximum of 30 simultaneous database sessions limit for Always Free allows you to work with Always Free APEX Service; however, if your usage includes many simultaneous users then you can exceed these limits, resulting in errors. To avoid such errors, obtain more resources by upgrading to paid service. See Upgrade to Oracle Autonomous Database.
- Always Free APEX Service cannot be provisioned as a private endpoint and cannot reside within a Virtual Cloud Network (VCN). For information on private access and private endpoints, see Configuring Network Access with Private Endpoints in Using Oracle Autonomous Database Serverless.

Supported Oracle Database Version

The available Database versions for Always Free Oracle APEX Application Development are: Oracle Database 19c or Oracle Database 23ai.

Regional Availability for Always Free APEX Service

Always Free APEX Service is available worldwide in most Oracle Cloud Infrastructure data regions. See Data Regions Services available in all cloud regions for more details on where Always Free databases are supported.
When you sign up for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle creates a tenancy and designates a home data region for the tenancy that you specify. You can create an instance of Always Free APEX Service only in this home data region. You cannot create an instance in other data regions that you later subscribe the tenancy to. See The Home Region for more information.

Note:
Oracle Autonomous Database 23ai Free is available in the following regions: Ashburn, Phoenix, Frankfurt, and London. To take advantage of new APEX capabilities available with Oracle Database 23ai (for example, Server-side JavaScript), your tenancy must have a home region of one of those regions, and you must provision your APEX Service in your home region.

Backup Functionality and Always Free APEX Service

Always Free APEX Service includes the ability to backup applications within a workspace as described in Managing Application Backups in Oracle APEX App Builder User’s Guide.

Always Free APEX Service does not support full backups to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure object storage.
Always Free APEX Service does not support restoring from full database backups.

See Backing Up and Restoring Autonomous Database in Using Oracle Autonomous Database Serverlessfor more information.

Inactivity Monitoring and Database Stoppage

If your Always Free APEX Service is persistently inactive, this is detected and handled as follows:

After being inactive for 7 days, the instance will automatically stop, preserving its stored data. Inactivity measurements leading up to 7 days are based on database connections. Successfully making a HTTPS connection resets these measurements to zero.
An instance that is automatically or manually stopped and stays inactive for 90 days cumulatively may be reclaimed and permanently deleted. Inactivity measurements leading up to 90 days are based on the instance being inactive or in the stopped state. Starting a stopped instance resets these measurements to zero.

Start Always Free APEX Service by clicking the Start button on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console. Start a stopped Always Free APEX Service instance before 90 days to avoid losing access to its data.

When you start Always Free APEX Service from the stopped state, you need to wait about 5 minutes before attempting to connect to an APEX application or to an Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) endpoint. If you attempt to connect before the background APEX and ORDS startup completes, then you may see HTTP error messages.
In Always Free APEX Service the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console shows banner alerts prior to automatic stop and permanent delete operations occurring. If you subscribe to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Alerts and Notifications, you also will receive email notifications.