diff --git a/scripts/lib/upgrade-zulip-stage-2 b/scripts/lib/upgrade-zulip-stage-2
index 44c2324915..38894b4da0 100755
--- a/scripts/lib/upgrade-zulip-stage-2
+++ b/scripts/lib/upgrade-zulip-stage-2
@@ -158,6 +158,18 @@ if args.ignore_static_assets:
     # cannot run `tools/update-prod-static`.
     pass
 elif args.from_git:
+    # Because `upgrade-zulip-from-git` needs to build static assets, it
+    # is at risk of being OOM killed on systems with limited free RAM.
+    mem_bytes = os.sysconf('SC_PAGE_SIZE') * os.sysconf('SC_PHYS_PAGES')
+    mem_gib = mem_bytes/(1024.**3)  # e.g. 3.74
+
+    # Ideally, we'd have 2 thresholds here, depending on whether the
+    # system is running queue workers multithreaded or multiprocess.
+    # See puppet/zulip/manifests/app_frontend_base.pp for background.
+    if mem_gib < 3.8:
+        logging.info("Shutting down server to build static assets on a low-RAM system.")
+        shutdown_server()
+
     # Note: The fact that this is before we apply puppet changes means
     # that we don't support adding new puppet dependencies of
     # update-prod-static with the git upgrade process.  But it'll fail