Oracle calls True Cache a no-cost feature, but it is architecturally a read-only replica that runs on separately licensable cores. This breaks down where the free claim holds, where it collapses into a second Enterprise Edition bill, and what to lock down before you deploy.
Oracle calls True Cache a no-cost feature, but it is architecturally a read-only replica that runs on separately licensable cores. This breaks down where the free claim holds, where it collapses into a second Enterprise Edition bill, and what to lock down before you deploy.
Oracle's public position is unambiguous on its face. The True Cache FAQ (oracle.com, 2026) states that True Cache is a database feature included in your Oracle AI Database 26ai Enterprise Edition license at no additional cost. Read literally, that sentence tells a buyer the feature carries no incremental option fee. It does not tell you the whole cost, and that gap is where the money leaks.
The problem is architectural. Oracle's own Learn tutorial (docs.oracle.com, January 13, 2025) describes True Cache as a fully functional, read-only replica of the primary database, just like Active Data Guard, except mostly diskless. A replica runs on hardware. Hardware has cores. Oracle licenses cores. The word free applies to the feature license, not to the compute the cache instance consumes. Those are two different questions, and Oracle's marketing conflates them.
There is a second complication. The True Cache User's Guide (docs.oracle.com/26/odbtc, December 15, 2025) states that True Cache licensing is based on the edition of Oracle AI Database you use for both the primary database and True Cache. That is a two-sided rule, and it is the same structural pattern that makes Active Data Guard expensive. If your primary runs Enterprise Edition, your cache tier will need Enterprise Edition too. For a fuller treatment of how EE options generate bills, see our Oracle 23ai AI feature licensing pillar.
Free describes the feature license. It says nothing about the cores the cache instance runs on, and cores are where Oracle collects.
To price True Cache correctly you have to understand what it borrows from. In 25 years negotiating Oracle database contracts, the single most reliable predictor of a licensing surprise is a feature that reuses another product's mechanics. True Cache does exactly that.
That last point is the one to circle in red. The moment you set an ADG_ parameter, you are exercising a mechanism that, in every prior Oracle release, has been tied to a separately licensed option. Independent analysts have flagged the ambiguity: Version 1 (medium.com/version-1, January 28, 2026) notes that True Cache uses Active Data Guard technology but that no explicit obligation for the ADG option is expressed in the licensing document, and that True Cache does not appear as a named feature in the current licensing manual at all.
Silence in the licensing manual is not a gift. It is unresolved risk. Oracle audits on feature usage views, not on marketing pages, and a feature that quietly activates ADG-style behavior is precisely the kind of thing an auditor exploits. Our view, based on market experience rather than any published Oracle grant, is that any documentation gap around True Cache and Active Data Guard will be interpreted in Oracle's favor unless you have secured written clarification before deployment.
To judge whether True Cache is truly free, price the thing it resembles. The rule for Active Data Guard is the trap buyers fear, and it is worth stating exactly. The option must be licensed on every processor of both the primary and the active standby, never the standby alone (Oracle Licensing Experts, March 19, 2026). A standby that is actually running is a real, licensable database. The often-misremembered ten-day rule applies only to a passive failover node used for a limited number of days per year, not to an actively used replica.
True Cache is, by design, always active. It is serving read traffic continuously. If the analogy to Active Data Guard extends to licensing, and Oracle's own documentation invites that analogy, then the cache tier is an actively used database instance in exactly the sense that triggers full Enterprise Edition licensing on its cores.
| Cost element | Active Data Guard replica | True Cache (Oracle's stated position) | True Cache (buyer risk view) |
|---|---|---|---|
| EE base license on the tier | Required on all cores | Free feature, silent on cores | EE cores likely required |
| ADG option | $11,500 per processor list (2026) | Not mentioned in manual | Exposure if ADG mechanics active |
| DML redirection | ADG parameter, ADG-licensed | Uses ADG_REDIRECT_DML | Activating it invites ADG scope |
| Edition matching | Must match primary | Must match primary (User's Guide) | Confirmed two-sided rule |
| Support at 22 percent | On all licensed cores | On EE cores if counted | On EE cores if counted |
The 2026 Active Data Guard list price is $11,500 per processor plus 22 percent annual support, or $230 per Named User Plus (Redress Compliance, November 10, 2025). Enterprise Edition itself lists at $47,500 per processor. Those two numbers frame your worst case if the free claim does not survive an audit.
Whether or not the ADG option applies, the cache instance still runs on cores, and cores are counted the same way for any Oracle database instance. The formula is fixed: required processor licenses equal total physical cores multiplied by the core factor, rounded to the nearest whole number (Redwood Compliance, August 28, 2025).
For x86, the core factor is 0.5, and the January 2026 update to the Core Factor Table brought the entire current Intel Xeon server portfolio, including the 69xxP, 67xxE, 67xxP, 65xxP, and 63xxP variants, into the 0.5 category (Redress Compliance core factor guide). IBM POWER remains at 1.0. That multiplier alone can double or halve your count. And on VMware, Oracle recognizes only hard partitioning and claims every physical core in the cluster, not just the cores running the Oracle VMs (Oracle Licensing Experts DB Guide, mid-2026). If you place True Cache on a soft-partitioned virtual host, you can inflate the count far beyond the cache's actual footprint.
A worked example transfers directly. A 16-core server at a 0.5 core factor yields 8 processor licenses. At the ADG rate that is 8 times $11,500, or $92,000, plus 22 percent annual support at $20,240 per year (Redress Compliance). If those same 8 processors also need Enterprise Edition because the cache is treated as a database, add 8 times $47,500, or $380,000 list, before discount. That is the shape of a cache tier that Oracle called free.
A free feature running on eight processor licenses is not free. It is a $380,000 Enterprise Edition question wearing a marketing label.
If you license by Named User Plus instead, remember the minimum. Enterprise Edition requires at least 25 NUP per processor (Oracle Licensing Experts DB Guide, mid-2026). A separately counted cache instance on 8 processors would carry a 200 NUP floor whether or not that many users touch the cache.
There is a genuinely free route, but it is small. Oracle Database Free supports True Cache, and a Free True Cache must comply with all Oracle Database Free licensing restrictions for memory, CPUs, and user data (Oracle Coretec blog, May 24, 2024). Those caps are the well-known Free edition limits, and they rule Free out for any production workload of consequence. See where that line sits in our breakdown of 23ai Free versus Enterprise Edition feature gaps.
There is also a deployment constraint that raises your machine count. In the Free setup, Oracle does not permit running two database instances on a single VirtualBox machine (dineshbandelkar.com, July 7, 2024). You cannot collapse the primary and the cache onto one host. Two tiers means two footprints, and in any paid edition that means two sets of countable cores.
One more architectural fact narrows your options: True Cache does not support non-CDB primary databases, because non-CDB is deprecated in 23ai (DatabaseVerse, November 11, 2024). If you are still running non-multitenant, True Cache is off the table until you convert. That conversion is its own licensing review, covered in our note on the license review to run before migrating to 23ai.
None of this stays hidden. Feature usage is recorded automatically in the database feature usage views, and those views are the first place an Oracle audit looks (Redress Compliance, November 10, 2025). If True Cache activity, or the ADG_REDIRECT_DML parameter, registers as ADG-related usage, you have handed the auditor their opening argument regardless of what the marketing FAQ said.
The pattern is familiar. An engineer opens a standby read-only to run a report, feature usage records the option, and the customer owes the license years later. A cache instance that continuously applies redo and optionally redirects DML is a far larger and more permanent version of that same signature. The naming change from 23ai to 26ai (the same product, banner 23.26.1 for January 2026) carries no licensing impact per Version 1, so do not assume the rename resets any of this.
Treat the free claim as a starting position, not a settled fact. The buyer-side moves below are ordered by leverage.
The honest answer to the article's question is this: True Cache is a free feature only in the narrow sense that Oracle does not charge a separate option fee for the feature itself, and only if Oracle confirms in writing that no Active Data Guard obligation attaches. The cache tier is a running database instance on licensable cores, and until Oracle names True Cache and its ADG relationship clearly in the licensing manual, prudent buyers should price it as a second database and negotiate the free claim into a contractual grant. Free that is not in your contract is not free.
Oracle's FAQ says the True Cache feature is included at no additional cost in an Enterprise Edition license. However, the cache runs as a separate read-only replica instance on its own cores, and Oracle counts cores for every database instance. The feature is free, but the compute it runs on is licensable, and the User's Guide requires the same edition on both the primary and the cache tier.
Oracle's documentation does not explicitly require the ADG option for True Cache, and analysts note the feature is not named in the current licensing manual. But True Cache uses ADG's redo-apply mechanism and enables DML redirection through the ADG_REDIRECT_DML parameter. Because of that ambiguity, secure written confirmation from Oracle before deploying, and avoid enabling DML redirection until you have it.
The standard formula applies: physical cores multiplied by the core factor, rounded to the nearest whole number. Current Intel Xeon x86 cores carry a 0.5 factor after the January 2026 Core Factor Table update, while IBM POWER is 1.0. On VMware, Oracle claims every physical core in the cluster, not just the cache's VMs, so placement matters as much as core count.
Only on Oracle Database Free, and only within its memory, CPU, and user-data caps. Those limits rule Free out for production workloads. The Free setup also prohibits running the primary and cache on a single machine, so you cannot collapse the two tiers even in the free tier.
No. Version 1 confirms 26ai is the same product as 23ai, shown as 23.26.1 in the database banner for January 2026, with no licensing changes. Do not assume the rename resets or clarifies any of the True Cache licensing questions.
Yes. Feature usage is recorded automatically in the database feature usage views, which is the first place an audit looks. If True Cache activity or the ADG_REDIRECT_DML parameter registers as ADG-related usage, it becomes the auditor's opening argument regardless of what Oracle's marketing FAQ states.
Oracle Database 23ai bundles options you may never deploy. The buyer side guide to edition right sizing, option pruning, and AI Vector Search licensing.
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