OwainX

We've rolled out an initial version of the "expire now" functionality. Click the [X] in the top right of any free server's box in the dashboard and you'll be taken to a confirmation page letting you expire the server's remaining time immediately

The "How it works" page has been updated to remove this reference until we include the FreeBSD image.

Thanks!

Containers and container services are great but sometimes you need a full server and doing a PaaS with containers has it's own challenges to ensure isolation, have network setup work easily and other factors. I use containers for some of my own stuff but other things are just better with a full VM.

Haha.. ok that one is hilarious.. and it's been fixed (the typo that is)

SMTP ports are blocked and we recommend using a transactional mail service if your server needs to send mail.

We're implementing a number of things to profile abusers and prevent abuse on the platform and will be strictly enforcing policies against abuse. The lack of an API and prohibition on automating the creation of servers combined with required Github profile for ssh keys help to make the service unattractive for most abuse cases. Our goal is to use these methods to prevent abuse while keeping a very low barrier to entry for legitimate users.

It's not and until your comment I wasn't familiar with Diply. Doesn't look like we offer anything similar but if I heard from them with concerns we'd consider changing our logo font to prevent confusion.

We'll be enabling FreeBSD soon

Thanks. A lot of this feedback I've been hearing from others today. We'll be updating the serer name field to stand out visually better and doing updates to the home page and informational pages to both highlight the button capability and better present details like pricing. An "expire now" option for servers on the free plan will be in place this weekend which will allow you to delete a free server before it expires.

There are quite a lot of cases where you could find yourself facing a large bill unexpectedly. Forgetting about a server you spun up to try something out, with may platforms having your server hacked (or even DDoSed) could result in huge bills for bandwidth. With Dply you only pay what you pay up-front if you choose to add time to a server. There are no bills racking up. The flip side is that if you forget about it, it could vanish on you. Automating your deployment with something like a user-data script that pulls your code from Github would make this less of a concern. Permanent services on Dply are certainly possible but not the primary use case for most users.

Right now you can have one free server at any time. There is no daily limit currently.

We do not provide an API and automating server creation is a violation of our TOS and would be considered abuse.

When you need a server and can log in and fill out the form, you can create one :)

We found an issue where the stacktrace was originally enabled in our code twice so when it was switched off it was being overridden. That's been fixed. Adding better form validation for the button creation form is also on our list. Our primary focus as we receive bug reports is on issues that directly affect server creation, deletion and billing as those are the highest impact. Since the button form just creates a shortlink and saves some text it's a lower priority but we should have significant improvements in place for that page in the next week or so.

We've had several people suggest making this more prevalent and it's on our todo list :)

We'll be adding an "expire now" option for servers on the free plan this weekend :)