12GB of space seems adequate for a small, free environment, but the major issue is that Oracle counts not only data but also the UNDO tablespace, which is absurd. I was testing Oracle 23ai FREE and created an instance for evaluation, and I encountered serious problems:

The auditing scheme generates several gigabytes of data with minimal usage, causing the SYSAUX tablespace to grow to the point where it consumes all 12GB, even with only 1GB in its active tables. This behavior occurs simultaneously in both the CDB and spreads like a virus to the two PDBs. Fortunately, this can be mitigated by disabling the audits.

As soon as I finished the installation and removed the audits, I created a custom PDB. When I went to configure the UNDO area of the PDB, I mistakenly executed the command to set it to 8GB instead of 1GB (ALTER DATABASE DATAFILE /* UNDOTBS1 */ '/db23c/FREE/sgf/undotbs01.dbf' RESIZE 1G;), and I simply ran out of space.

While this was my error, it led to the following observations:

a) It makes no sense for the UNDO area to count against the 12GB limit, and Oracle could rectify this, as UNDO does not represent actual data. b) I tested the TEMP tablespace and found that it does not have the same issue, indicating that Oracle at least allows any size for TEMP, which further weakens the logic of 2.1, since TEMP is used to store data, such as from an "external table." c) If you do not maintain backups, be aware that once you hit the 12GB limit, you will lose all your data, even due to a mistake in resizing the UNDO or an accidental transaction that causes this. I did not find a way to open the database once the limit is exceeded to, for example, clean the recycle bin, resize the UNDO, drop tables, etc.

Thus, while it is known that the XE and FREE versions are not recommended for production, I believe that due to these limitations, they are also not suitable for any purpose.