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Stable Free VPS for Open Source Developers
msatt
Member, Host Rep
What a great Christmas present !!!!
Thanks to Alexhost
They have very kindly extended their Moldova server until 31st January 2027
We still have space available for a free VPS for Open Source Developers.
Community comments have been positive but people were concerned about longevity. Well I (msatt) have spent my own money providing our US server for a year and with Alexhost's very kind extension FOSSVPS is really worth using. After all what have you got to lose?
Our uptime is better than 99.9% and (so far) has only been affected by our rebuilding systems to use Proxmox.
FOSSVPS is entirely community driven, we want Open Source to continue to grow and want you to support our very generous sponsors by raising awareness of their generous donations.
Absolutely FREE, no catches, no credits, no price bumps.
Server locations and end dates are always on our website at https://fossvps.org and are currently :-
- Moldova Chisinau courtesy of Alexhost till 31th January 2027
- US Buffalo Courtesy of MSATT till 22nd November 2026
- UK Fareham courtesy of Onlyservers till 25th January 2026
- Romania Bucharest courtesy of Hosteroid till 6th March 2026
Rules for a free VPS
Free and open source software developers only.
White hat only
Not for commercial use
No service level agreement but we are good.
Don't be a dick rules
No excessive high cpu, disk or bandwidth
If you would like a VPS, just complete this form asking what you are developing and preferably some links to your previous developments.
Warnings
- Multiple registrations will get you banned
- Good reputation on this forum (no history, no server - sorry)
- Failing to accept the verification email will lock you out from re-applying
- Email address (purely for admin emails), don't make a request if you wish to be anonymous
Acceptance will give you 2 VCPU, 4GiB Ram, 64GiB hdd and provide NAT + IPv6 /96 access with either Ubuntu, Debian or Alpine in your preferred location.
We are genuinely doing this to help you so please no abuse as it messes it up for everyone.
Comments
@msatt can we apply for one VPS for:
https://github.com/Hosteroid/domain-monitor
Actually I can see logic in that - you would certainly be accepted and welcome.
Suggest not requesting Bucharest
Hey, in the past, I am the one that said, I will setup one instance hosting the domain monitor for you @Hosteroid. Do you still want me to set it up for you or, you would like to do it yourself.
P/S: Sorry, I have just remembered when seeing your post.
This actually sucks to request free server for your project when you have 8 locations and actively selling servers.
I want to complete the form, but the ssl cert has been revoked. I know beggars can't be choosers but would you check that? Even if i dared, I wouldn't trust to put any kind of info in a website without at least a SSL cert up and running. Hell, SSL cert or not, it's difficult to trust in any kind of website that ask for your info nowadays.
Hey @Yahome, are you talking about the Registration form? If yes, from my side, I do see that website/webpage do have SSL Cert (Yes, it's let's encrypt), Or are you not seeing "Let's Encrypt" as a credible certificate?
I do understand your concerns, but I or we think that our form is asking for just minimal information for reviewing/justificating process. We think our form does not affecting our customers/applicants' privacy that much. We want to hear back from you to improve our service.
Best regards,
ShayNeeo
FOSSVPS Supporter
@Yahome I have checked and the certificate looks fine.
Unfortunately (reading our conditions) you would not qualify - sorry
Joined December 21 Visits 3
Hi,
It's good to see people doing things like this.
I have been releasing some open source projects this year and to be honest i'd rather pay a tenner of a yearly server to just to squash everything on there and use free hosting such as github pages or cloudflare pages for anything static.
Out of interest what do people actually use this for? As most of them only last a year or so you can't really use it to host anything.
I think this will be really beneficial to whom doing open source projects and need something to support it. I'll leave the VPS to people who actually need it.
Merry Christmas
It's okay, maybe I'll have better luck nex time! Thanks anyways for your kindness, not many people do this.
It tells me there's actually a cert but it has been revoked, weird. This is a little extract of it:
"https://fossvps.org/dev/form1.html
Peer’s Certificate has been revoked.
HTTP Strict Transport Security: false
HTTP Public Key Pinning: false
Certificate chain: (...)"
I saw it when using a SSL Tester online. But I have never use this before. Let we have a discuss internal for resolving this problem.
Thanks for your words though, maybe we can improve our credibility.
can it be used as self hosted runner in github?
Also your site's ssl is revoked.
@e2bs2k1 and @Yahome - Thanks for informing us.
Checked via external site
So don't understand why you are seeing this issue ?
Actually, I saw the problem when using that test too. But now, when I rerun the test, it seemed to be okay now.
@nameserver and @e2bs2k1
At the moment FOSSVPS is for developing and testing, so the term (currently over a year) is certainly a very long development cycle.
I am working on a project to allow web hosting but concerned that there is a risk of abuse, so taking things slowly.
Unfortunately because we are free some feel they can abuse the service which destroys our reputation with our very generous donors.
Hmmm, if you can prove that these github runners will be used for Open-Source projects.
What do you think @msatt?
My concern is if long-running or high-concurrency workloads are involved.
However that is not an area I have experience in so I may be talking rubbish. I think I should let the community comment rather than saying a firm yes / no
It was a joke with @msatt, if you didnt notice one of locations is actually sponsored by us.
Yep - I got the joke, but why can't a great service provider use another provider - its all about resilience.
Also as @Hosteroid is one of our sponsors I would say they have an absolute right to check out what we are doing
want to try, hope to be accepted
Hi Mike @msatt and the FOSSVPS Team,
Today I will be your client to ask. And maybe, trying to be an example for requests in the future.
Things are: I am running W9 Labs; W9 Labs' Github, which is currently a organization name I ran by myself.
I already receive a VPS from FOSSVPS project in the UK node. Thanks to Onlyservers. But as my organization have different projects to run, I am asking if I can have mutiple VPSes (One big VPS, and mutiples small one like 1CPU-1Gb RAM). The following image would be my workflow:
This setup will help me learn about DevOps role in a project, and automation. These small VPSes will likely to just interact on LAN (internal) so maybe these internal will not even need Public IPv6 (I must check if this statement is true, but I will try my best not to requesting more IPs).
I think my request is too much and maybe too big, but I am trying with my luck, as if it is the time I found out Tom, the previous owner of this project.
As a project helper, and also a user, I want to send thanks to our generous Donators:
Best to @msatt and the rest of the team. Hope FOSSVPS project will run forever.
Best regards,
Thanh Pham (ShayNeeo)
@shayneeo Just so everyone knows Thanh is a helper for FOSSVPS. We have had no internal discussion about this (which is fine) and I will treat my answer accordingly as a reply to any potential client (no bias)
I can't say I fully understand the process (nor do I need to). But what I can understand is your needs so have some resolutions.
My advice would be to have a larger VPS (perhaps double size) and run Proxmox on it (nested virtualization).
With Proxmox installed you are then free to create your other VMs although, I would think LXC would be more suitable as it would be your own environment. Proxmox SDN can be configured to give internal IPs to the LXCs and NAT everything for you. If you are not familiar with LXCs, they need much less memory and disk as they share many of your host (Proxmox) resources. Comms between your VMs / LXCs would all be via the hypervisor so would be fast.
You would also be able to learn more about the Proxmox environment which in the future could help FOSSVPS support (so a win for use as well).
Because of my experience setting up our free nodes there would be a lot of similar code needed for your setup, so in the spirit of Open Source I am happy to provide them.
Always grateful to our fantastic donors
Thanks to @alexhost for Moldova, Chisinau node.
Thanks to Onlyservers for UK, Fareham node.
Thanks to @Hosteroid for Romania, Bucharest node.
We are always willing to help the Open Source Developers community (see link in signature).
Mike
@msatt
I choose to post in public because I like to hear other advices too. And yes, I want to be criticized to be better everyday. Another thing is: I like how the registrations were posted in the thread more than in a form like it is currently; Yes, I also like the automation process but I what I like more maybe the interactions between providers and users.
Thanks! Regarding the technical requirements for the large VPS:
(I ask because if it is an LXC container, I will need you to enable FUSE/Nesting from your end so I can run Docker inside it.)"
Hope I, and the rest of the team can interact more with our users.
Thanh
As far as the registration process, there is no problem a client discussing requirements (as you did) before completing the registration form. My only slight concern is getting answers quickly from others.
We always provide KVM to clients which has nested virtualization enabled. If you run Proxmox inside the FOSSVPS vm, then you have the choice to nest your created vms and yes you would have to enable fuse for created lxcs.
The more interaction we get, the greater the knowledge base becomes and I am always happy to share - this is Open so not trying to hide anything.
Mike
Server termination notice
With regret I wanted to update everyone using the uk1 server (hosted by Onlyservers) that it will terminate on 25th of January.
This is because the server was apparently won in a raffle and donated to FOSSVPS (prior to handing over to me) with free service extended for only 3 months. The termination does not reflect on what FOSSVPS does or has done, simply the end of the three months with no flexibility to extend.
If you wish to be moved, I will (when I have worked out a process) give more details.
I am sorry and also disappointed
Mike
thank you @dan_onlyservers . I have use a vps from fossvps to watch BBC iplayer for a long time.
thanks @msatt for your great help. I am using one of your free VPSs to test my script. Hope I can push more code :-)
For those currently on uk1 server.
Doing an automated migration is challenging particularly with static IPv4, NAT and IPv6. Doing it manually is a big job and prone to errors. So the best and simplest solution would be to create new VMs and allow you (the client) to rebuild / copy etc.
So let me know (via a PM) your VM ID and if you prefer mol1 or buc1 :
Moldova until January 30th 2027 or Bucharest until March 6th 2026
Your new server will run in parallel until 25th of January when the uk1 server will be destroyed.
Wishing you well.
Mike
Some people are so disrespectful.
Just had a request for a free VPS from a user who gave telegram as their forum (we do check profile) and we are not doing any promotions on Telegram. They also gave their webpage which clearly shows they are SELLING VPSs.
This is a free server for Open Source Developers not for someone profiteering
.