diff --git a/esphome/components/display/display_buffer.cpp b/esphome/components/display/display_buffer.cpp
index bc2d8d5ef0..29f86dbd5f 100644
--- a/esphome/components/display/display_buffer.cpp
+++ b/esphome/components/display/display_buffer.cpp
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const Color COLOR_OFF(0, 0, 0, 0);
 const Color COLOR_ON(255, 255, 255, 255);
 
 void DisplayBuffer::init_internal_(uint32_t buffer_length) {
-  this->buffer_ = new uint8_t[buffer_length];
+  this->buffer_ = new (std::nothrow) uint8_t[buffer_length];
   if (this->buffer_ == nullptr) {
     ESP_LOGE(TAG, "Could not allocate buffer for display!");
     return;
diff --git a/esphome/components/nextion/nextion_upload.cpp b/esphome/components/nextion/nextion_upload.cpp
index 1a6e6d1066..43c8867e56 100644
--- a/esphome/components/nextion/nextion_upload.cpp
+++ b/esphome/components/nextion/nextion_upload.cpp
@@ -275,8 +275,8 @@ void Nextion::upload_tft() {
     } else {
 #endif
       ESP_LOGD(TAG, "Allocating buffer size %d, Heap size is %u", chunk_size, ESP.getFreeHeap());
-      this->transfer_buffer_ = new uint8_t[chunk_size];
-      if (!this->transfer_buffer_) {  // Try a smaller size
+      this->transfer_buffer_ = new (std::nothrow) uint8_t[chunk_size];
+      if (this->transfer_buffer_ == nullptr) {  // Try a smaller size
         ESP_LOGD(TAG, "Could not allocate buffer size: %d trying 4096 instead", chunk_size);
         chunk_size = 4096;
         ESP_LOGD(TAG, "Allocating %d buffer", chunk_size);
diff --git a/esphome/core/config.py b/esphome/core/config.py
index 23e6e34625..97748d71d8 100644
--- a/esphome/core/config.py
+++ b/esphome/core/config.py
@@ -344,6 +344,15 @@ async def to_code(config):
         else:
             cg.add_library(lib, None)
 
+    if CORE.is_esp8266:
+        # Arduino 2 has a non-standards conformant new that returns a nullptr instead of failing when
+        # out of memory and exceptions are disabled. Since Arduino 2.6.0, this flag can be used to make
+        # new abort instead. Use it so that OOM fails early (on allocation) instead of on dereference of
+        # a NULL pointer (so the stacktrace makes more sense), and for consistency with Arduino 3,
+        # which always aborts if exceptions are disabled.
+        # For cases where nullptrs can be handled, use nothrow: `new (std::nothrow) T;`
+        cg.add_build_flag("-DNEW_OOM_ABORT")
+
     cg.add_build_flag("-Wno-unused-variable")
     cg.add_build_flag("-Wno-unused-but-set-variable")
     cg.add_build_flag("-Wno-sign-compare")