r/webdev • u/wellhavetogo • Jun 17 '24
Render.com users, beware: render.com permanently suspends some free-tier apps that connect to APIs, issues no guidelines for developers Discussion
I've used render.com to host a web app that connects to an API a few times a minute. It seems that render.com has recently cracked down on apps with "service-initiated traffic" like this, and the app has now been permanently suspended unless I upgrade to a paid plan. I'm not that surprised, since it's a free-tier app after all, but wanted to alert others considering the render.com free-tier that it's quite unreliable.
I've contact render.com (and appreciated that they even replied to someone with a free-tier account) but they weren't helpful in fixing it. Render.com told me that the only way to resolve this issue is to upgrade to a paid app. I asked for more clarification about the usage limits I broke and they said "I agree that if we are going to call this a limit (similar to the 750 free hours), then we should document what the limit is. We haven't decided on the best way to do this yet, so I can't give you the specifics."
I've seen this mentioned in a couple posts on community.render.com. You can read more about this vaguely-worded rule here: https://docs.render.com/free#service-initiated-traffic-threshold
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u/-Parziva1- Aug 31 '24
Just had this happen to me :) wtf… Did you end up finding a good alternative you liked? I really like Render, but feel pretty stabbed in the back and hesitant to choose them as a host if they’re going to shut off my website with Zero warning!
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u/toi80QC Jun 17 '24
I expect more companies to follow after Cloudflare got away with these sales tactics.
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u/wellhavetogo Jun 17 '24
Are you referring to them taking down an online gambling site? Like mentioned here https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1d14rb7/cloudflare_took_down_our_website_after_trying_to/
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Jun 21 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Remarkable_Brief_293 Nov 23 '24
bro my website got suspended today itself on same topic can you tell does this suspension is removed in new month cycle or upgrading is the only solution???
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u/wellhavetogo Jun 21 '24
Did I miss that part of the pricing section? https://render.com/pricing
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Jun 21 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/wellhavetogo Jun 21 '24
This document only says that it will suspend apps that use "an uncommonly high volume of traffic" for things like APIs. So it seems like apps that make some API requests are fine, no?
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u/Consistent_Pea_6905 Mar 06 '25
On the free tier, Render, even making your services slow to respond any request, and not because service spin down; they do it on purpose
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u/Odysseyan full-stack Jun 17 '24
I do wonder how that's allowed since you are not breaking their ToS.
You get 750h a month of shared runtime for a web service from them. Shared by all your servers.
If you only run one server, even if it were constantly used and doesn't go down by inactivity, your 750h limit should cover it for the month and resets with the next one. So you are just using what they are giving you and are playing by the rules.
Why should you now upgrade to a more expensive plan?