OpenClaw hosting for free: what each option actually gives you

I work on Aplite, a managed OpenClaw host. It is one of the options compared below; the prices and terms of the others are from their own pages, linked in the table.

Search for openclaw hosting free and the first page is three kinds of result: hosts whose
"free" is a trial or a first-month price, Oracle free-tier guides (several still quoting an
Arm allowance Oracle has since halved), and "best hosting" lists written by the hosts. What
none of them does is the accounting. An agent that works around the clock costs two things —
a machine that stays on, and model tokens for every reply — and most free offers cover one
of the two, for a while.

Here is that accounting as of October 2026, and the one path that costs nothing, with every
command run on OpenClaw 2026.9.8. If you would rather not run a server at all, the same
runtime is hosted in three steps further down.

What "free" has to cover

The server. The gateway is a Node process that has to stay up. The upstream
hardware FAQ puts the
floor at 1 vCPU, 1 GB of RAM and about 500 MB of disk, and recommends 2 GB or more. The floor
is real: capped at 1 GB, the 2026.9.8 gateway settles at about 740 MB of resident memory a
minute after start and logs memory pressure: level=warning. The smallest free cloud
machines give you exactly 1 GB.

The model. Every reply is a model call, billed per token wherever the gateway runs.
Three free ways: a local model through Ollama
(needs a capable machine; the same FAQ warns that small quantized models truncate context
and raise prompt-injection risk); OpenRouter's :free variants, limited to
20 requests a minute and 50 a day until
you have bought $10 of credits, then 1,000 a day; or the
Gemini API free tier, where Flash is free
of charge and, in Google's words, "content used to improve our products". Hosted plans that
include credits cover tokens for as long as the credits last.

The options, side by side

Prices and terms as each page read on 13 October 2026; the links go to those pages.

The $0 path, step by step

Run in a fresh container of our 2026.9.8 runtime image with a 1 GB memory cap, and checked
against the upstream docs. Your install will
be newer — the gateway says so the moment it starts — but the commands are the same.

1. Install. OpenClaw needs Node 24.16 or 26.1 and newer
   (install docs); the installer provisions it when
   missing. On macOS, Linux or WSL2:
   

   curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash
   

   On Windows, in PowerShell:
   

   iwr -useb https://openclaw.ai/install.ps1 | iex
   

   Then openclaw --version — ours printed OpenClaw 2026.9.8 (fc23bc8).

2. Have a free model ready. Local: install Ollama and pull a model
   (ollama pull gemma4 in the upstream recipe).
   Or get a key from OpenRouter or Google AI Studio. Pick Ollama with the server not running
   and onboarding stops here:
   

   Ollama could not be reached at http://127.0.0.1:11434.
   Start or restart the Ollama server for this address.
   If Ollama is not installed on that machine, download it at https://ollama.com/download
   

3. Run onboarding.
   

   openclaw onboard
   

   Choose Quick start, pick the provider, paste the key. OpenClaw verifies it with a
   real completion, writes ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json, starts the gateway in the
   foreground and opens the dashboard. Skip the provider and everything still installs,
   but the first message fails with:
   

   No API key found for provider "openrouter".
   Auth store: ~/.openclaw/agents/main/agent/openclaw-agent.sqlite
   Configure an API key (openclaw models auth paste-api-key --provider openrouter)
   | missing-provider-auth
   

   That command is the fix: openclaw models auth paste-api-key --provider openrouter.

4. Check the gateway. In a second terminal, openclaw gateway status prints:
   

   Gateway: bind=loopback (127.0.0.1), port=18789 (env/config)
   Dashboard: http://127.0.0.1:18789/
   Connectivity probe: ok
   Listening: 127.0.0.1:18789
   

   openclaw dashboard opens the browser with a one-time pairing token in the URL. With
   no provider set, the Control UI lands on Model Setup.

The Control UI on a fresh install: the gateway is up, no model is connected yet.

1. Keep it running after you log out.
   

   openclaw gateway install
   

   This installs a systemd user unit on Linux and WSL2, a LaunchAgent on macOS, a
   Scheduled Task on Windows (gateway docs). On a
   server, add sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER so the unit survives your SSH session,
   as the upstream Oracle guide does.

Where this path ends is in the same upstream FAQ: on a laptop, "sleep, network drops, and OS
updates can interrupt the Gateway", and "use a VPS if you have had gateway disconnects
before". On the free clouds it is the 1 GB floor and Oracle's reclaim of idle instances; on
free models it is the request cap, since one agent turn with tools makes several model
requests. That is when people pay — for a $6–12 VPS plus a key, or for a managed host.

Hosted: the same runtime in three steps

Aplite runs a standard OpenClaw instance for you, set up from the
browser. The whole path:

1. Create an account. Email or Google, no card. The Free plan is one
   agent, the full workspace, budget models and 300 welcome credits that never expire.

2. Deploy. Pick the agents and a model for each, press Deploy. About a minute later the
   workspace opens with its own OpenClaw instance — currently 2026.9.8 — in its own
   container.

A Free workspace: a standard OpenClaw runtime in its own container.

1. Ask. Nothing to install and no key to paste: models come through one metered account, 1 credit is 1¢, spent only when the agent calls a model, and the cost sits under every reply.

The agent answers in the browser with no key pasted anywhere; the line under the reply is what it cost.

Settings → Cost: the welcome credits, and what the week spent.

On top of the runtime sit a markdown workspace the agent reads and writes, an approval
queue, and Telegram delivery from a bot token; scheduled routines are on Pro ($20/mo). What
a managed instance gives up — the shell, raw openclaw.json, local models, day-one releases
— is listed on the OpenClaw page. Aplite is an independent service and is
not affiliated with the OpenClaw project.

FAQ

Is OpenClaw itself free?

Yes: open-source software under the MIT license, and the
install costs nothing. What costs money is the machine it
runs on and the model it calls, which is what "free hosting" offers differ on.

Can I host OpenClaw for free forever?

On your own machine with a local model through Ollama, yes — as long as the machine stays
on. Oracle's Always Free tier has no end date but reclaims idle instances and is often out of
capacity; Runware charges nothing for hosting and bills tokens; Aplite's Free plan has no end
date and welcome credits that do not expire. The rest are trials or credits.

Do I need a credit card for free OpenClaw hosting?

Not for your own machine, Runware, RapidClaw, Ampere during its beta, or Aplite Free. Oracle
takes a card and a phone number at sign-up without charging; Google Cloud requires a payment
method; Hostinger and xCloud are paid from day one.

Do I need an API key?

Self-hosting, yes — unless the model runs locally with Ollama; the key is where the token
bill goes. On Aplite there is no key: models run through a metered account and usage is
billed in credits.

Originally published on aplite.ai. Try it free at aplite.ai.