Deployment Lesson: Fly.io No Longer Has Hobby Plan

[Amiriel01]

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Describe your suggestion

I suggest the Fly.io Free Plan wording in the Deployment lesson be updated. It currently says there is a hobby plan with a $5 free trial credit.

The site no longer offers the hobby plan $5 credit for new users. All new users are signed up under the pay as you go plan and must provide a credit card to sign up.

There is a thread that mentions if a personal organization account charges less than $5 in a month they are not invoicing them. https://community.fly.io/t/free-tier-is-dead/20651/6

The wording could be changed to something like:

Fly.io requires a card on file to sign up for an account. New accounts are enrolled in a Pay As You Go plan. Currently, if your monthly charges are less than $5, the fee is waived. Please check the current pricing on Fly.io when signing up, as the fee waiver policy may change.

Path

Ruby / Rails, Node / JS

Lesson Url

https://www.theodinproject.com/lessons/ruby-on-rails-deployment

(Optional) Discord Name

Amiriel

(Optional) Additional Comments

No response

[MaoShizhong]

Looks to be something in the last month or so...yet another change this year :pensive: At least the wording from that support forum response was clearer about the sub $5 invoice waiving. They had mentioned that in previous threads, but wording was always super vague and ambiguous, and often sounded like they were referring to not charging extra for any resource usage within the $5 hobby plan's included allowance.

Although I'm not the most comfortable with relying in a support forum response about waiving invoices when nothing in their docs backs it up. Since they can silently stop doing so without changing docs and pricing info.

@TheOdinProject/maintainers any thoughts? At least on the Node side, we still have Railway/Render/Adaptable/Koyeb for server+db hosting, and Neon for db hosting, so it wouldn't be too bad if we decided to just drop the Fly mention, but we could reword it as per its PAYG plan now and mention about the waiving (if they stick with it...) I know Adaptable isn't suitable for Rails hosting within the curriculum, but not sure about Koyeb (and Neon for postgres DBs).

[thatblindgeye]

@MaoShizhong Honestly unless there's something they're offering that the others aren't, I'd say drop it. If it's not something on their actual docs/when you sign up or anything, and it's literally some forum post, it's not exactly a guarantee like you said.

I just feel iffy about users needing to pay for something to get through the curriculum (even if it's 1 option of several).

[MaoShizhong]

I too am iffy about keeping Fly.io on the basis of "it's a paid plan but a forum thread says < $5 invoices are waived" without it being in the docs, since that can change at any moment. Or potentially a learner ends up paying and has to contact support for a refund/waive. It doesn't offer anything special the other options don't also offer.

It shouldn't be a big issue for the Node version since we'll still have Railway/Render/Adaptable/Koyeb, and Neon for db-only hosting. For the Rails version, removing Fly.io would leave only Railway and Render as free options for server hosting. I imagine Neon would be fine to include there for db-only hosting. I don't know if Koyeb will work with Rails, but Adaptable won't, as far as the curriculum is concerned.

@TheOdinProject/rails-path any thoughts about removing Fly.io from the Rails Deployment lesson and anything else related to that? As far as the Node version goes, I'm for just dropping Fly.io.

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue is stale because it has had no activity for the last 30 days.

[MaoShizhong]

@Amiriel01 Would you be happy to remove the Fly.io section from the Node deployment lesson, and any other mentions of Fly.io there (if any)?

I'm not comfortable recommending a PaaS that now only has paid options, with the only "free" feature hinging upon a forum thread about waiving <$5 invoices, which is otherwise undocumented and may change at any time/require people to fight for refunds etc. And we already have plenty other free options there.

Pinging @TheOdinProject/rails-path again if anyone feels this should be handled differently in the Rails deployment lesson.

[Amiriel01]

Sure, I can remove it.

[MaoShizhong]

Thanks @Amiriel01 I'll assign you to this for the Node deployment removal. Don't close this issue in that PR, just state it's "Related to" instead of "Closes" - want to see what the Rails people think should be done for that side.

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue is stale because it has had no activity for the last 30 days.