5 best cloud render farms in 2024
Why do we use cloud render farms? There are two reasons for that: one is it’s faster and two is it’s cheaper. A normal project will consist of 30 frames per second, and if you want it to be more smooth motion, you can increase the frame frequency. It means that your animation will have more frames and take you longer to render. Counting in other effects, it will take more computational power to render.
A cloud render farm has a large number of powerful machines that will process the render much faster than an individual’s rig. Moreover, you don’t need to pay an extra fee for maintenance, electricity, cooling, etc. As a result, not only do 3D artists use cloud render farms but also studios need it for extra rendering.
In this article, let’s find out some of the best cloud render farms (or cloud rendering services) around the world. We will try to give you some recommendations on which cloud render farm will be suitable for your project.
Table of Contents
5 best cloud render farms/best cloud rendering services
This is not a ranking, but a purely alphabetical list. Let’s get started.
Fox Renderfarm
Fox Renderfarm was established in 2009 in China. This is a SaaS cloud render farm and is well-known for many hits and blockbusters. This render farm was used by many famous studios and freelancers around the world.
Fox RenderFarm supports many software and render engines and plugins/addons. If you find them inside their documentation, it might not be sufficient. You should download their Desktop Client software and find them inside the setting. They provide two ways to upload and render, one is from their website and one is from their Desktop Client software.
Fox Render Farm will be very suitable for someone who uses many plugins/addons and wants to store their project on the cloud render farm for a rather long time. The list of programs supported by Fox is very varied and you can save your renders there for about 20 days. Their support is 24/7 so you don’t need to worry much about no one’s support when there’s a problem.
Fox Render Farm’s price starts from $2/hour for GPU Rendering and $0.06/hour for CPU Rendering with up to 64% off. Besides, Fox RenderFarm offers cumulative incentives, users can save more if they have paid more than $10,000.
Visit the Fox Renderfarm website for more details.
GarageFarm
Garage is a cloud render farm from the United Kingdom and was established in 2010. Like Fox Renderfarm, GarageFarm also has a SaaS approach. However, it’s a little bit different, when Garage has their own application called renderBeamer installed inside your software and you will send your job through it.
Garage will be suitable if you want to find the best cloud rendering service. The support is also 24/7 via live chat, Skype,.. Their live chat always has support staff and almost answers all your questions immediately.
Garage program support might be somewhat not varied like Fox RenderFarm, and the storage is just for 7 days. So if you are a person who uses some unique and uncommon addons/plugins, and requires long storage, you should check before using this render farm.
Visit GarageFarm website for more details.
iRender
iRender is a cloud rendering service from Vietnam, established in 2019. It’s a new name and gradually gaining some recognition in this field. The approach is IaaS, which is completely different from Fox or Garage. With the IaaS platform, you can access their remote servers and control it like you control a new computer. You are free to install any programs to work.
iRender will be suitable for unique and uncommon programs, which is not supported by SaaS cloud render farms. Or if you want to set up your pipeline and use many applications at the same time, this is an excellent choice. The support is also 24/7, which will help you with your problems.
Especially, if you use real-time rendering programs like Lumion, Twinmotion, Enscape, D5 Render, and Unreal Engine, this cloud rendering service is the one for you. Architects will find it very comfortable when using their service, for their support of many Archviz programs.
However, iRender is not really a choice if your project needs the power of many CPU nodes. But it is the best choice if you are looking for a GPU Render Farm with powerful hardware. iRender offer 1/2/4/6 x RTX 4090 and 2/4/8 x RTX 3090 with 256 GB of RAM. This will make it easy to handle all of your heavy projects. Besides, Besides, iRender continuously updates its hardware. You will always experience the most powerful graphics cards on the market at an affordable price.
Visit iRender website for more details.
Ranch Computing
Ranch is a cloud render farm in France, established about 15 years ago. Like Fox and Garage, they provide a SaaS platform, with a web-based scene upload system. Before that, you will need to download a plugin called RANCHecker. It will be integrated into your software and help you to check if your project is okay. If it’s okay, it will upload through RANCHecher. Then you go to their website and submit it then wait for your results.
If your project is more than 10,000 frames, you should not choose Ranch. Moreover, Ranch Computing has some downsides like limited programs supported (not much for architects, not many plugins/addons), the support is not 24/7, not many rendering packages (only three options which are low, medium, and high priority). Your data will also be erased right after you finish (could be kind of inconvenient).
However, Ranch computing is very suitable for small-scale projects, which are less than 10,000 frames. If you have a small and simple job, Ranch can process it well.
Visit Ranch Computing website for more details.
RebusFarm
Rebus cloud render farm, like Ranch Computing, has more than 15 years in this industry. They come from Germany. Thiss is one of the most famous render farms in the world and is used by many famous studios.
Their SaaS approach is like Garage, which will have a plugin installed inside your software and then you can send your job through it. The plugin is called Rebusdrop.
RebusFarm is still stronger in animation and VFX programs. Their GPU rendering service is not the best in price, and the live support is not 24/7. The storage for your data on their farm is just 2 weeks.
Visit RebusFarm website for more details.
Final words
Above are our recommendations and suggestions when you are considering one of those cloud render farms. Sometimes, price is not really the most important factor if you wanna render. The software compatibility, the support and your requirements for your workflow are something you will need to care for. Also, you are the customer and you are not obliged to use just one cloud rendering service. A mix of them is a possible choice.
It’s hard to review more cloud render farms. We just select 5 ones which are our main focus and give you some of their pros and cons. We hope that this article will help you to understand and find out your cloud rendering service.
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