14 DAY TRIAL // Google's Cloud Platform just got a new, improved, always-free tier and trial program, as the company silently added it to the list.
The free tier is offered in addition to an expanded free trial program, which makes things a bit confusing. However, the free trial does give you $300 in credits which you can use over the next twelve months. Previously, the time limit set on this credit was 60 days, so expanding it to a full year is certainly beneficial for those who have yet to decide whether Google Platform is the right solution for them.
Google has never really advertised the free tier, but it was there nonetheless. Now it allows the free usage of a small instance in Compute Engine, Cloud Pub/Sub, Google Cloud Storage and Cloud Functions as well, adding up a total of 15 services.
The Cloud Compute Engine instance wasn't there before and neither were the 5GB of free Cloud Storage.
Unfortunately for all the users around the world, this free tier is only available across the United States. Hopefully, one day, the freebies will be handed out across the globe.
Google tries to get more customers
There seems to be a simple idea behind this move - get developers to test the Google platform and maybe get them to move over. Often times, developers running pet projects in the cloud get the whole team in an enterprise to move over and use that particular service. Instantly, you have more people testing your products, perhaps comparing Google Cloud Platform with AWS or other competitors.
Similarly, new developers looking for a platform typically go for AWS because of its 12-month free trial. Now that Google's $300 worth of credits having an expanded lifespan of 12 months, we might see more newbies picking Google's cloud service too.
Google has a lot of work to do if it wants to really compete in the cloud business, especially since Amazon has gained quite an advantage over the past few years. During its Google Cloud Next conference running these days in San Francisco, Google has expressed its intentions to become a real competitor, bringing up huge investments and big customers.