Question:
Windows Azure allows a 30-day trial time to test the platform, but after that? There is a free option for hosting .net applications, but it is not clear if you will have any cost or after the trial period if it will be possible to continue using the most basic plans for free.
Answer:
Comforme Windows Azure Purchasing FAQ :
Yes. With our new Spending Limit feature, customers who subscribe to the Free 90-Day Trial, MSDN or Cloud Essentials offer will be able to use Windows Azure without any fear of being charged, as long as they keep the Spending Limit feature turned on.
And in Windows Azure Spending Limit , there are two parts that stand out:
- Now, by default, all new customers who sign up for the trial offer or one of our member offers (for example, the MSDN offer) will have a Spending Limit of $0. Good news
- When your usage exceeds the monthly amounts included in your offer, your service will be disabled for the remainder of that billing month (…) . There is a limit, if you go beyond it, your service will be disabled .
- If the subscription has been disabled because the Spending Limit has been reached, click the notification: "Subscription has reached Spending Limit and has been disabled to avoid charges." Otherwise, click on "Remove Spending Limit" in the Tasks area. In other words, to have your application active, you would have to reactivate payment, and once payment is activated, you will never be able to deactivate this feature again.
The only thing that is not clear is whether the base limit will always be available for free and you only pay the difference, as with Amazon EC2 free tier for a period of one year.
So yes it is possible to use it for free. However, their application cannot exceed the limits imposed by them .