Are spot/preemptible instances available?
Yes, Oracle Cloud offers Preemptible Instances, which are OCI’s version of "Spot Instances." They allow you to rent unused cloud capacity at a massive discount, with the trade-off that Oracle can reclaim the hardware if a full-paying customer needs it.
As of 2026, here is how the preemptible model works in OCI:
Unlike AWS or Azure, where spot prices fluctuate constantly like a stock market, OCI keeps it simple:
The Discount: Preemptible instances are always 50% cheaper than the standard on-demand price for that same shape.
Predictability: You don't have to "bid" on capacity. If there is spare hardware available, you get it at half price, period.
Stackable: This discount stacks with other negotiated contract discounts you might have.
Because you are using "spare" capacity, Oracle can terminate your instance at any time.
Notification: OCI provides a 2-minute warning before the instance is deleted.
Automation: You can use the OCI Events Service to listen for the instancepreemptionaction event. This gives your application 120 seconds to save its state, drain connections, or upload logs to Object Storage before the plug is pulled.
No Reboots: Once a preemptible instance is created, you cannot "Stop" or "Restart" it. If it’s terminated, it’s deleted permanently.
Preemptible instances are not for your primary database or your core web server. They are perfect for fault-tolerant, stateless workloads:
CI/CD Pipelines: Running automated tests or builds.
Big Data & Batch Processing: Jobs like video transcoding or scientific simulations that can be resumed if interrupted.
AI Inference: Scaling out a fleet of workers to handle a spike in AI requests.
Kubernetes (OKE): You can create "Preemptible Node Pools." If a node is reclaimed, Kubernetes automatically reschedules your pods onto other available nodes.
Shapes: Most VM shapes (AMD, Intel, and Arm) support preemptible capacity. However, it is generally not available for Bare Metal or GPU shapes in high demand.
Always-Free: Preemptible instances are separate from the "Always Free" tier. If you use a preemptible instance, you are still paying 50% of the cost.
SLA: Because they are designed to be interrupted, preemptible instances are not covered by OCI’s standard uptime SLAs.
| Feature | OCI Preemptible | AWS Spot Instances |
| Price Logic | Fixed (50% Off) | Variable (Market-based) |
| Notice Period | 2 Minutes | 2 Minutes |
| Stability | Higher (Less "churn") | Lower (Price spikes) |
| Management | Simple (Toggle a switch) | Complex (Bidding/Fleets) |