SparkCloud

sparkden.org · Compute · 1 record · JSON

SparkCloud Compute

fails: identityinstitutionno cardDwrite-gated

sparkden.org/cloud · platform host · compute/sparkcloud · JSON · compare

Free tier	SparkCloud publishes a six-part free stack on one account: root Linux containers on Ubuntu 24.04 with real SSH, auto-hibernating browser dev Spaces, managed Postgres 16 with daily backups, static hosting with custom domains, an OpenAI-compatible endpoint fronting Claude, GPT and Gemini, and object storage with global edge caching. The page states 'Free forever, no credit card' and 'Free for every teen, no credit card, because a nonprofit covers the cost', run by a 501(c)(3). The registration page states 'Sparkden is for teenagers. Every account is age-verified.' No credit figure, container shape, or monthly hour allowance is published on either page read. unit none; metered on wall-clock; allowance
Price	none stated
Per-object cap	not applicable
Retention	not applicable
Egress	not stated
Identity	institution no card and no hold; membership of a youth programme instead. Quoted: 'free for every teen, no credit card' and 'minimum age to join 13+'. The account is 'built for under-18 users from the ground up'.
Limits	write-gated The age verification is the binding constraint and it is a gate rather than a quota: 'Every account is age-verified', so an adult outside the stated range cannot reach any of the six components, and no amount of usage planning changes that. source The age verification is the binding constraint and it is a gate rather than a quota: 'Every account is age-verified', so an adult outside the stated range cannot reach any of the six components, and no amount of usage planning changes that.
Binding	write-gated The age verification is the binding constraint and it is a gate rather than a quota: 'Every account is age-verified', so an adult outside the stated range cannot reach any of the six components, and no amount of usage planning changes that.
Interface	ssh inferred from the tooling the provider documents; not probed
Tooling	not stated
Composes with	This would have been the second widest composition in the wave after Oracle's tenancy, because it supplies the database, the object store, the static host, the AI endpoint and the machine in one identity with no card. The door is age, and it is the one identity cost in this corpus that no amount of registration effort clears.
Reliability	no reliability event recorded
Notes	Recorded because the corpus stops the next session from chasing it, and because the shape is instructive: a nonprofit can publish a stack that no commercial provider matches on breadth, and gate it on an attribute rather than on money. The quota is unknown, which matters if the age policy ever widens; the page publishes no credit number, no container shape and no monthly hour allowance, so a reader who found the door open would still not know what was behind it. FreeTierWatch and a Hacker News thread both discuss Oracle's halving in the same week, which is how this lead was found.
Evidence rung	documented
Checked	2026-10-22 (live); stale on 2026-11-21

Evidence (7)

date	source	what it proved
2026-10-22	sparkden.org/cloud	'Free forever, no credit card' and 'Free for every teen, no credit card, because a nonprofit covers the cost', quoted; the six components are listed as containers, spaces, databases, tiles, AI and agents, and CDN storage
2026-10-22	sparkden.org/register	'Sparkden is for teenagers. Every account is age-verified', quoted, and the page description states 'Teenagers 13+ get free project hosting'
2026-10-22	cloud.sparkden.org/	the console is live and serves 'a real cloud, free for teens' with a sign-up path, which establishes the product is operating rather than announced
2026-10-24	sparkden.org/cloud	quoted: 'Real Linux servers with root and SSH ... Free for every teen, no credit card, because a nonprofit covers the cost' and 'Containers ubuntu 24.04 · root · real ssh'
2026-10-24	sparkden.org/cloud	quoted on the reap: 'Spaces hibernate when you close the tab, so idle time never costs you credits'
2026-10-24	sparkden.org/	quoted on the gate: 'give teenagers (13+) everywhere the free cloud hosting', 'free for every teen', 'minimum age to join 13+'
2026-10-24	sparkden.org/	quoted on the allowance: 'Every teen account gets a standing monthly allotment, granted automatically' and 'Your allotment resets at the start of each month'

More fields (1)

{
 "wave2": {
  "class": "refutation",
  "free_tier_kind": "allowance",
  "shape": {
   "vcpu": null,
   "ram_gib": null,
   "gpu_class": null,
   "gpu_count": null,
   "disk_gib": null
  }
 }
}

Unknown or withheld values (8)

$.egress.metered egress-unknown
$.egress.terms not-stated
$.per_object_cap.notes process
$.per_object_cap.stated not-applicable
$.reliability_note none-observed
$.retention.notes process
$.retention.stated not-applicable
$.tooling not-stated