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New Project?
We in the Low End are lucky to have FreeVPS.org and FOSSVPS.org, both of which are still going strong.[^1]
Thanks 
again to all the FreeVPS.org node sponsors and to all the FOSSVPS.org node sponsors!
Earlier today, @alexhost said:
"It was wonderful, the partnership we made with FOSS project.
Hope one day you return with similar project. You know already where to contact us."
Hmm. . . . I have FOSSVM.org, which is parked on the Bun, waiting to be used. . . .
My previous free server from Alexhost was wonderful for me to start FOSSVPS! By the time I gave FOSSVPS to its current leadership and team, the Alexhost server had been running Ubuntu for months using virt-install and cloud-init. About 50 dedicated IPv4 and NAT IPv4 VPSes were assigned to and actively being used by free clients.
Alexhost indicated to me privately today that they are willing to consider a proposal for a new Low End free service. So, may I please ask everyone here,
What should our new project look like?
Specific questions include:
What type of virtual machines? Linux? Containers? KVMs? OpenBSD VMMs? Blink? Something else? While I personally would enjoy continuing with virt-install and cloud-init -- about these there is much more for me to learn -- I also am very curious about interesting technologies such as VMM and Blink and more.
How should our free virtual machines be given out? Long term members? Members with a certain number of posts and thanks? Members who make charitable contributions? Members who are open source software developers? Something else?
Should our project use 100% free and open source software only?
Who might want to join the leadership or the staff or the web app team?
Should ServerVerify and LET be more directly involved?
Maybe one or more additional hosts besides Alexhost might want to donate nodes?
What do you think?
Thanks!
Tom
[^1]FreeVPS and FOSSVPS differ slightly. If I understand right, FreeVPS still uses Blesta and Virtfusion and Debian, while FOSSVPS converted from Ubuntu and Debian to Proxmox.
FreeVPS gives free servers to forum members who meet certain eligibility requirements. FOSSVPS provides free VPSes to open source developers.
Both FreeVPS and FOSSVPS are led and staffed by well known guys here on the forum.
Comments
I think KVM (or OpenBSD VMMs) would be awesome.
Members who contribute to charitable community-focused open source projects like Tor, I2P, Hyphanet, Globalping...
I think it should try to strive for that, but it doesn't necessarily need RMS levels of strictness. If there's absolutely no other option, then it would be fine if some component isn't FOSS. In my opinion, the priority should go FOSS > source available but non-free license > closed source.
Not ServerVerify! But I do think that, to limit abuse, members should either be vetted LET members or invited by LET members who trust them. But there's no need for it to be dependent on LET indefinitely.
But I think they're pretty niche.
Now, something with a GPU capable of running a typical model...but I don't think you can share those over VMs in a rational way.
run away after?...
Maybe just busy. . . .
Sure, but they can run Linux as well as the BSDs, so even people with no familiarity with OpenBSD would be able to happily run Debian on an OpenBSD hypervisor.
Hi Tom, sorry I missed this post but thanks for the positive comments
Also thanks to @alexhost for being extremely supportive to the community
I think the key to success is finding your niche and I am not sure you are really creating anything significantly different (sorry)
My suggestion would be 'small is beautiful'.
I know you are also on OGF and tierhive are being quite revolutionary with their small instances and private network. So why not focus in that sort of area? I am sure it will provide plenty of learning experiences.
As far as your user base again 'small is beautiful'. At FOSSVPS we provide our VPS to Open Source Developers but the potential new developers do not have any background to prove they are Open Source. So focusing on these new users could be a priority.
So my (random) thoughts are little fish in little pools and as they become bigger, they move into bigger pools.
What's the goal of the project? It sounds like you don't know what you want to do, except that it must involve giving out free VMs. Is that right?
A slave has to take it over after some time, because oles is not willing to provide it further.
Im just thinking about many sponsors, 20-30, maybe giving 5-10$ and then ordering a bigger dedi that has something for everyone, than some random sponsored by a provider. Keep in mind, a provider looses money everytime, even its only 5 people on the node.
@Not_Oles
With rise of hardware prices, its not that fun.
Heard back from Alexhost!
They said they were seeing this thread, and that they wanted a fully formed, specific idea from us.
Here is a great opportunity for the LET Community -- not just me -- to set up something we want!
Two very specific ideas already have been mentioned:
(1) we set up an Alexhost donated server and IPs and give out free VPSes made on Debian or Ubunutu with virt-install and cloud-init, and
(2) we set up an Alexhost donated server and IPs and give out free VPSes made with OpenBSD VMM.
A third specific idea would be:
If I understand correctly, OpenBSD VMM VPSes are limited to one vcore, while NetBSD NVMM VPSes can have up to 256 vcores.
My personal favorite would be (3), but both (2) and (1) also are okay. Plus I am happy to consider different ideas in addition to or besides free VPSes. Just one among many possible examples might be (4) a service which provides IPv6-only VPSes with IPv4 access.
I have been trying hard not to be specific because I want our community members and also Alexhost to feel free to discuss openly here in this post whatever relevant services they believe our community needs.
I am not promising to run the new service forever. I do try to stay around as long as I feel genuinely useful and as long as I am learning. I have enjoyed creating two little free VPS startups here and then passing both of them on to their team members. As mentioned in the OP, both of the two most recent free VPS startups are still going strong. I think that's great!
So:
(3), (2), or (1)? Maybe also (4)? Or not (4)? Or, something else?
Who wants to join the Team?
Thanks to Alexhost for their continuing interest!
@alexhost
I vote for (2)! That kind of thing is uncommon. OpenBSD is far more secure than NetBSD, which is why I'd rather (2) than (3). For a free VPS, I think there's no issues with being limited to a single vcore per VM.
Another random thought would be free shell accounts for a variety of UNIX and UNIX-derived systems like OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD, Solaris, Illumos, etc. Then it wouldn't matter what the node is running.
What roles are you thinking of more specifically?
Thanks for the suggestion!
As you probably know, there is a team of very experienced people behind Tierhive. I think their ideas are great, and truly "small is beautiful." I also think that Tierhive's setup is beyond my present skill level in multiple ways. However, I have reached out to them about the possibility of some kind of collaboration. I am 100% sure that the Tierhive guys and I will think very carefully about collaboration between Tierhive our potential new project here.
I really like the idea of helping new guys just starting out!
Sounds great! Thanks again!
(2) might happen!
Thanks for your supportive and helpful comments!
This is a great initiative for the community! As someone who spends a lot of time running Dockerized apps and Python scripts on VPS nodes, I’d love to see this project move forward.
Personally, I’d vote for a setup that fully supports KVM, as it’s essential for those of us running specialized workloads like Oracle databases or custom Nginx Proxy Manager setups.
If the project needs any help with manual testing—specifically how these nodes handle common stacks like Hexo or containerized services—I’d be happy to contribute some feedback and documentation.
Looking forward to the progress!
How should our free virtual machines be given out? Long term members? Members with a certain number of posts and thanks? Members who make charitable contributions? Members who are open source software developers? Something else?
Should our project use 100% free and open source software only?
Should ServerVerify and LET be more directly involved?
Who might want to join the leadership or the staff or the web app team?
What roles are you thinking of more specifically?
-- Website / WebApp programming
-- System architect / administrator
-- Client services
-- Board members, 501(c)(3) financial services (it might get big enough!)
Once again I am very happy to see you launch another (potential) project; will be keeping up with this actively!
I don't get why a 3rd free vps gig, are you hoping the same sponsors will donate servers or trying to attract new ones? If you crowdsource a new idea and convince @alexhost will he continue to provide support to the previous project(s)?
Seems a bit unfair to previous sponsors and previous projects as surely said sponsors won't donate to all 3? Literally making it harder for the previous projects and the sponsors both.
Maybe this is all above my head and I'm reading it wrong, look forward to watching it unfold.
smaller KVM VPS (using Alpine as OS):
I look forward to this chicken.
I probably wouldn't grab a login / machine anyway, but just as an observer of previous iterations of this, I think it'd help if you maintained a stable base system and experimented on top of that with VMs, and gave each user their own VM.
I'm not sure who would otherwise use the systems as there seemed to be a constant churn of "this week, we're going to reinstall with $RANDOM_OS". Which is fine if it's your machine and you're learning stuff, but not everybody would want to go on the same journey, and if they did they'd probably get more out of it by doing it themselves on their own VM.
That said, I approve of any free VPS providers as it does give more people a chance to play with real systems, often with decent specs.
@zejjint Thanks for your support!
Unless I missed something, you are the first to consider volunteering to help staff the possible project.
If the project goes ahead, it needs a website, the server install, and -- to the extent it's not automatic from the website -- VPS creation and assignment.
Please think about what part of all this you might like to do, and please let me know. Thanks again very much!
@zed It got started again with Alexhost's kind words which are linked in the OP!
Nothing against previous projects and nothing against other projects.
An opportunity, courtesy of Alexhost, for those of us who are interested to have fun at LET while working together on a mutual project.
Thanks for your support!
@DejavuMoe What would you run on this truly modest setup?
My question is what kind of bandwidth are we looking at?
More good news from Alexhost!
They say they are prepared to supply infrastructure for any of the ideas previously mentioned to give out free virtual machines and connectivity:
I will run an agent on the status page to show that the server is online, which seems to be of no use.
Addition: 1GB HDD/SSD is sufficient.
Since I felt that my needs did not meet the free VPS to open source developers, I did not apply.
If the new project can provide something like my needs to people, that would be great too.
What kind of bandwidth do we want?
Yes, there probably would be monitoring, and ping.
May I please ask what needs you do have? How could the possible new project help you?
I plan to run a komari agent to report server online status and country region to my status page
I don't know much about komari. A quick Google search suggested that komari experienced some security issues last year.
For example, https://advisories.gitlab.com/pkg/golang/github.com/komari-monitor/komari/
See also https://www.tenable.com/cve/CVE-2025-55300
@DejavuMoe