Slow builds in free tier aren't great DX

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This has been mentioned before, but I just want to throw out there that the really long build times for web services (and also sometimes a significant delay between a build seemingly finishing and the endpoint been accessible in the browser) isn’t great DX for the free tier. I’ve been a customer for a quite while and typically always pay for web services, and will continue to do so gladly!, but I tried out the free tier for a little side project and it was…er…not great. I think the marketing rationale for having a free tier is sound, but if the build times are frustrating, that’s at cross purposes. I’d almost prefer there weren’t a free tier, so then we’d have to use a paid tier that’s much less frustrating.

I fully understand the CPU/memory limitations of the services once they’re running, that’s perfectly understandable, but the setup process does seem like it should be more seamless.

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P. S. Maybe if this were pitched more like a “trial” tier — See if Render can run your app before you pay for it! — it would lessen expectations.

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Jared,
Your point is definitely valid. Before we had the free plan we did actually have a 7 day trial, but once we launched the free plan we retired the trial offering. Part of the problem is that the minute you provide something for free it gets abused, not by people that will ever become customers but by people who try to find any free compute resources for nefarious uses.

I’ll definitely share your feedback internally as it’s an incredibly useful datapoint,

Regards,

John B

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Thanks John…I’m rooting for you guys! :smile: :v:

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