Free OpenClaw Gateway with Local LLM on Oracle Cloud
A developer on r/openclaw detailed a method to run OpenClaw Gateway with a local large language model (LLM) for free using Oracle Cloud's free tier. The approach avoids paying for LLM tokens by hosting both components on a cloud instance.
Infrastructure Setup
The solution uses Oracle Cloud's free tier. The ideal free instance shape is VM.Standard.A1.Flex, offering an ARM-based Ubuntu instance with 4 OCPUs, 24GB RAM, and 200GB SSD. However, availability is limited as these machines are only free when someone else deletes their instance.
The author opted for the VM.Standard.A2.Flex shape instead. This shape is not permanently free, but Oracle provides $300 in credits for new accounts, which can cover the cost of running a 4 OCPU, 24GB RAM, 200GB SSD ARM Linux server for approximately six months.
Configuration Steps
- Generate an instance with the specified resources using the VM.Standard.A2.Flex shape.
- Oracle provides a minimized Ubuntu for ARM instances. After starting the instance, run
sudo unminimizeto get a regular Ubuntu version, which is required for the LLM and OpenClaw. - The author recommends skipping the Docker version of OpenClaw, stating it is hard to configure, and instead installing the native version.
- Install the Qwen3.5 27B A3B 4-bit model locally on the instance.
- Configure OpenClaw to use this local LLM.
Remote Management
To manage the cloud setup remotely, the author uses an app called "QCAI," available on the Apple App Store and Android. Configuration involves:
- Installing Tailscale VPN on the cloud instance.
- Modifying the OpenClaw
openclaw.jsonconfiguration file to allow access from the QCAI app.
The QCAI app provides a dashboard for OpenClaw and a "claw-portal" browser-based interface for accessing OpenClaw output, which the author notes is better than using a Telegram text channel. The setup also allows running Claude Code on the Oracle Gateway, with the iOS app providing an interface for remote execution.
The result is a 24/7 OpenClaw Gateway with a local LLM and Claude Code, running for free for six months using the initial Oracle Cloud credits.
📖 Read the full source: r/openclaw
👀 See Also
Understanding the .claude/ folder structure for Claude Code configuration
The .claude/ folder contains two directories: project-level for team configuration and global ~/.claude/ for personal preferences. CLAUDE.md files provide instructions that Claude follows throughout sessions, with CLAUDE.local.md for personal overrides.
4 Things Your Claude Code Orchestrator Needs to Be Useful
Practical tips from a developer who built orchestrator agents for Claude Code: mission document, heartbeat, inter-agent communication, and auditable control.
12 OpenClaw Power User Tips for Efficient AI Agent Workflows
A Reddit post outlines practical strategies for optimizing OpenClaw usage, including splitting conversations into topic-specific threads, using voice memos for input, matching models to tasks, delegating work to sub-agents, and implementing security layers.
End-to-End LLM Stack Trace: From Keystroke to Streamed Token
A software engineer has created a comprehensive document tracing every layer of the stack when sending a prompt to an LLM, covering client-side token counting, network protocols, API gateways, safety classifiers, tokenization, KV cache, sampling pipeline, and streaming mechanics.