Oracle AI Database for Free?

Wait — Oracle? For devs? Yeah. Let me show you.

docker pull gvenzl/oracle-free:23.26.0-slim-faststart

Oracle now gives you a modern, free-to-try database with some surprisingly cool features:

🧠 Smart SQL & PL/SQL — Build logic right in the database if that’s your jam.
🧰 Multi-model — JSON, spatial, graph, events, relational, even vector search, all in one engine.
🚀 Scalable — Handles toy apps to giant systems, but still runs fine in a container.
🤖 Autonomous mode — Let the DB handle tuning, patching, backups, and scaling.

You don’t need to be a DBA. You don’t need a license key. You just spin it up and go.

In this article, we’ll explore the different ways you can use Oracle AI Database Free, for learning, experimenting, and everyday development tasks.

Just want to get started and skip the article? Test the waters in your browser with Live SQL for zero cost.

`🐳 Oracle AI Database Free in Docker (Yes, Really)`

No license keys
No 10-step install
Just an accessible database instance

The Oracle AI Database Free container is my favorite way to run Oracle AI Database. I use it every day, and it just works.

To run the container image, you’ll need a docker-compatible environment around 8GB of memory and at least 1 CPU. The image is around 4–5 GB, but starts up in seconds with no additional configuration after the initial download:

docker pull gvenzl/oracle-free:23.26.0-slim-faststart

% docker images
REPOSITORY          TAG                   IMAGE ID      CREATED      SIZE
gvenzl/oracle-free  23.26.0-slim-faststart   d0cace20ac87  2 weeks ago  4.61GB

Then start the container. It’ll be available for connections on localhost:1521 with the FREEPDB1 database automatically created and ready for use:

docker run --name oracledb -d -p 1521:1521 \
  -e ORACLE_PASSWORD=testpassword \
  gvenzl/oracle-free:23.26.0-slim-faststart

Once you’ve got your database up, don’t sleep on the SQL Developer extension for VS Code. Even better, the database image works great with the wildly popular Testcontainers library.

Oracle Autonomous Database Always-Free Tier

You get two free Oracle AI Database instances on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Always-Free tier. All it takes is signing up for an OCI account. OCI also includes in a 1-month trial credit so you can explore other cloud services.

If you want a step-by-step on how to use the Autonomous Database for free in the cloud, I’ve got you covered here: Try Oracle AI Database for free in the cloud with OCI.

Autonomous Database Free Locally?

You can also run Autonomous Database in Docker (adb-free). The image includes a database instance, and an Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) server complete with APEX, MongoDB API, SQL Developer, REST APIs, and more.

For more details, read my story Run Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) locally with Oracle AI Database Free.

Oracle Autonomous Database for Developers

When you hit the two database limit for OCI’s Always-Free tier, reach for Oracle Autonomous Database for Developers. While not completely free, these low-cost instances only run $30/month for 4 ECPUs on a license included database.

To get started, just toggle the “Developer” slider when creating a new Autonomous Database instance. It’s that easy.

An informational graphic about Oracle's Autonomous Database for Developers, detailing pricing at $30 per month for 730 hours of use, with sections on data warehouse, transaction processing, JSON, and APEX capabilities.

FreeSQL

What if you could have instant access to Oracle AI Database, right from your browser? That’s exactly what FreeSQL offers. FreeSQK is an online platform where you can explore community and Oracle-created guides, test SQL scripts, and share them with others.

When would you want to use FreeSQL over a dedicated database instance?

You’re learning Oracle AI Database and are using FreeSQL-based guides
You need to quickly test or try out SQL scripts
You want to share SQL scripts with your audience

Oracle LiveLabs

LiveLabs are workshops to learn Oracle technologies in a guided, hosted (and free!) environment. On livelabs.oracle.com, you can find workshops covering a wide variety of database features.

When you run a workshop in LiveLabs, the Oracle infrastructure is managed for you — given the instance connection information, you’ll navigate the workshop and learn about database features.

Here are a few labs I recommend to try out LiveLabs:

Welcome to Oracle LiveLabs, showcasing various roles like Developer, Data Engineer, Data Scientist/AI, DevOps, and Low Code Developer, along with promotional content for Oracle Database 23ai features. — https://livelabs.oracle.com/pls/apex/r/dbpm/livelabs/home

Install Oracle AI Database Free

Oracle AI Database packages are available for x86_64, ARM, Windows, Mac (via container image), and VirtualBox platforms.

If you’re using Oracle Linux, just dnf install the Oracle AI Database RPM:

dnf install -y oracle-database-preinstall*

Wrapping up

I hope these resources help you access Oracle AI Database more easily, whether you’re a new developer, skeptical of Oracle, or veteran DBA. If you have questions or comments, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.

andersswanson.dev