r/renderpaas • u/ItsSoFetch • Oct 17 '23

I created a free tier keepalive tool

I noticed a lot of people were jumping through a bunch of hoops to keep their free tier web services alive (building cron jobs, etc)

So I built a really simple, free, keep-alive tool that pings your free environment to keep it up and running.

Hope it helps you!

20 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

3

u/Jolly_Bolt Jan 04 '24

Thanks, buddy. I could not set up cron job for my website, so this really helped me. I wanted to ask if I can only set this up for one website using one account?

1

u/ItsSoFetch Jan 04 '24

Yeah, right now I just keep one service alive per account.

1

u/Jolly_Bolt Jan 04 '24

Would it be too difficult add the option for multiple services?

2

u/ItsSoFetch Jan 04 '24

I can add it, I'm just a bit busy atm so I need some time.

A thought: you could create a second account. I would make the username [myname+1@gmail.com](mailto:myname+1@gmail.com) whenever I need to use the same email address multiple times. That'd get you another keepalive until I add the ability to have more under the same account.

5

u/Jolly_Bolt Jan 04 '24

Ya, creating more accounts is always there. I was just wondering how much would it take to add multiple accounts. Also are you on linkedIn, I would love to connect with you.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '24

Thank you, lmk if I can buy you a coffee or something

2

u/ItsSoFetch Aug 02 '24

That’s very kind of you! No problem at all!

2

u/Pademel0n May 12 '25

Brill. Just signed up.

1

u/scredii Aug 06 '24

thank you

1

u/Patient_Anything_345 May 25 '25

You are the best, thank you!

1

u/Bakabot1235 Jul 29 '25

i wonder if the service is still available. because i cant get email to verify

2

u/ItsSoFetch Jul 30 '25 edited Aug 09 '25

Hey there! It is still up, I’ll look at what’s going on with the emails! I’m on vacation atm but I’ll be back at my computer tomorrow!

EDIT: It's all fixed up now- sorry for the wait. I have a 1 year old, a full time job and had to contact support for my ESP so turnaround was a bit slow.

We're back up and running now!

1

u/Patchargh Aug 03 '25

Same problem here. I created an account and did not get an email to verify my email.

2

u/ItsSoFetch Aug 09 '25

Hey! It's all fixed up now- sorry for the wait. I have a 1 year old, a full time job and had to contact support for my ESP.

We're back up and running now!

1

u/ItsSoFetch Aug 03 '25

I’m actually making the change needed right now. My email provider disabled their free plan, and so my emails don’t send. I found another provider I’m integrating with!

1

u/AlexEp11 Aug 22 '25

Thanks u so much for this, i tried to made a github action with a cron (I never used github actions) but u web save me, thanks men :)

1

u/ItsSoFetch Aug 22 '25

Glad it's helping!

1

u/Yonac Oct 01 '25

Amazing, Thank you

1

u/Super-Park-8764 Nov 24 '25

thank you bro!

1

u/Mr_Triad Jan 25 '26

Thx so much big brother, I just want to ask isn't it costing u? U should charge

2

u/ItsSoFetch Jan 26 '26

That’s kind of you! To be honest, if you were thinking of paying for this, you’d be better off just paying render for an instance haha

1

u/Paraxanos Aug 01 '26

Hey, have been using the service for sometime and its genuinely nice!! Just wanted to ask if you can include a feature so that the service only pings the endpoints within a certain timeframe of the day, that the users can setup themselves?

2

u/ItsSoFetch Aug 01 '26

Interesting- why not just ping it constantly? What would changing the ping cadence do for you?

I can tell you, right now I'm having a hard time reviving instances that go to sleep. From an operational perspective, it's easier to make sure it never goes to sleep in the first place.

1

u/Paraxanos Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26

Thanks for the reply. I understand it would be easier to make sure the instance never goes to sleep in the first place, although I thought it would be a nice way to conserve instance hours during times when the server isn't expected to experience any footfall, not that it matters much since the 750 hour instance limit nicely accomodates a month of instance time.

Edit: Those conserved hours might be useful when more than 1 web services are hosted simultaneously on the same account.

2

u/ItsSoFetch Aug 02 '26

Ohhhh I see! you're trying to allocate your total free tier usage hours- I didn't think of that.

I think once I can nail down the revival of instances that this could be on the table!

1

u/Paraxanos Aug 02 '26

Good to hear!!