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Aleksandar Gosevski

Cloud hosting made simple for developers

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Quick note

This is an independent, unsponsored review of render.com. I have no affiliation with the company and haven’t been in contact with them. These are my genuine thoughts shared to help fellow developers. Of course, if render.com wants to show some love with free credits after reading this, I wouldn’t complain!

The challenge every developer faces

Remember the early days of web development? Back in 2007, when I was 15, I spent what felt like forever trying to get Apache, PHP, and MySQL working on my computer. So much time wasted on setup instead of actual coding! Then I found XAMPP, and it was like finding an oasis in the desert.

Fast forward to my first encounter with AWS a decade later, and there I was, stuck again. This time with even more complicated questions: What instance type should I choose? How much RAM do I need? How many CPUs? It was overwhelming. These days, the lines between developer and DevOps roles are getting blurrier, and we’re expected to wear both hats.

Sure, you can find plenty of tutorials showing you how to spin up a server and run a Node.js app in the background. But let’s get real – that’s not how production apps work. What happens when your app crashes at 3 AM? You need:

  • Automatic restart capabilities
  • Reliable monitoring and alerts
  • Proper log management
  • Automated deployments through git
  • The ability to scale when traffic spikes

And that’s just the basics! Once you add microservices, private networks, and shared storage to the mix, things get really complicated – often beyond what a typical developer should need to handle.

Why tools aren’t always the answer

I’ve been down the DIY road. In fact, I even wrote about my love for Ansible and how it makes server management easier. But here’s the truth: tools like Ansible are helpful, but they’re not magical solutions. They can’t set up servers on their own – you still need to understand the underlying infrastructure and tell them exactly what to do. Even with the best tools, you’ll end up learning more about server administration than you probably wanted to.

Enter render.com: development without the devops headache

Then I discovered render.com, and everything changed. Their platform is so intuitive that within three minutes, I felt like I’d been using it for years. The real game-changer? I deployed multiple projects – static sites, Node.js applications, and even containerized apps – all in just 15 minutes.

Want to scale your application automatically? It’s literally two clicks away. No more worrying about:

  • Server management
  • User permissions
  • Infrastructure configuration
  • System administration

Instead, you can focus on what you do best: building great applications.

Sure, if you’re a DevOps guru, you might find cheaper alternatives. But for developers who value their time and sanity, the slightly higher cost is absolutely worth the hassle it saves. Sometimes, paying a bit more to focus on actual development instead of infrastructure management is the smartest investment you can make.