Best Houdini Render Farm in 2025

Houdini, one of the top 3D software for CG and VFX, is also one of the common software if you want to find a render farm that supports it. In this article, VFXrendering will review and introduce you to the best Houdini render farm in 2025. We will see if the render farms support Houdini fully with the latest version and with renderers it’s compatible with, such as Karma, Mantra, Redshift, Octane, Arnold, and V-Ray.

Why Use Render Farms for Houdini?

A render farm is a group of networked computers used for rendering images, animations. There are two types of render farms – SaaS and IaaS. We have introduced them to you in our series of overviews of render farms.

There are many reasons for you to use a Houdini render farm. First, you don’t have a strong enough machine to render. Second, you want to free up your machine to do other work and let the render farm do the render. Third, the render farm is faster, and you need to deliver your work before the deadline comes. Finally, it’s economical to use a render farm because you don’t want to manage a rig with many extra fees (electricity, cooling, maintenance, etc.). 

Top 5 Best Houdini Render Farms in 2025

This list is not a ranking. We only introduce them in alphabetical order. We will try to list the version of Houdini they support, the render engine, and other plugins you can use, and some advantages and disadvantages notes for you.

AnimaRender

AnimaRender is a render farm from Russia, established in 2016. Like many other render farms, they are SaaS and also provide CPU as well as GPU rendering. You will download their plugin and integrate it into your Houdini, then you can start your render from the interface of your software.

Interestingly, they have a GPU Rental service, where you can rent their rig (2080 Ti) for at least 3 days. You will connect to their GPU server through AnyDesk/VNC. So you can install another version of Houdini on their instance and use it as you want.

• Hardware: Dual Xeon 64-128 Gb RAM and Threadripper 3970x 256 Gb RAM for CPU. RTX2080Ti for GPU.
• Pricing: pricing starts at $0.5/hour/server.
• Houdini support: AnimaRender supports some recent versions of Houdini, and of course, some popular renderers.

Houdini version	Renderer	Plugins
18.5 19.0 19.5 20.0 20.5	Arnold CPU Mantra Octane Redshift V-Ray CPU	no

 Note:

• No plugin supported
• Only support Arnold CPU and V-Ray CPU
• No Karma, Renderman supported
• GPU is kind of old (RTX2080Ti)
• No Linux support
• You can use their GPU rental service if you want to use a renderer or plugin that they don’t support. But you will need to rent the server for at least 3 days with a price starting from $249.

Fox Renderfarm

Fox Renderfarm is from China, established in 2009. It’s a well-known render farm which is the choice of many 3D artists, and is the service for many hits and blockbusters. The approach is still SaaS, but you will proceed with the render on their website.

• Hardware: RTX4090/3090/2080Ti/GTX1080Ti, 64-256 GB RAM
• Pricing: free trial $25 credits, with 40% GPU coupons. Price starts at $0.9 per node per hour to $1.8 per node per hour. It will have an extra fee for more VRAM.
• Houdini support: Because of its approach as SaaS, you will need to check if their Houdini version and render engine match yours. Below is the list we have collected:

Houdini version	Renderer	Plugins
13.0 14.0 15.0 16.0 16.5 17.5 18.0 18.5 19.0 19.5 20.0 20.5	Arnold Octane Redshift Renderman V-Ray	no

Note:

• Have Fox Renderfarm Cloud Rendering Client app for Houdini, which you can use on your own PC and don’t need to go on their website.
• Supports many versions of Houdini
• No Karma, Mantra supported
• No plugin supported

GridMarkets

GridMarkets is a render farm from America, established in 2011. It keeps a low profile with more than 5.000 users from more than 110 countries around the world. However, the support for the big 3D software and render engines is superb. It’s a SaaS platform where you need to download their plugin and integrate it into your software, then send your files through their plugin and get back the rendered images.

• Hardware: minimum machine configuration is 12 cores (24 threads) at 3+ GHz with 64 GB of RAM. GPUs are Tesla P100 and Tesla V100.
• Pricing: free trial $20 for new users. Pricing is kind of complex as it calculates for each type of software, machine, OB rating, and RAM. In general, price ranges from $0.37 to $5.50 per hour for CPU, and from $1.94 to $12.29 per hour for GPU. If you rent daily, the price rate could be better, from $10 to $50 for CPU and $55 to $200 for GPU.
• Houdini support: They support many versions of Houdini as well as renderers.

Houdini version	Renderer	Plugins
18.0 18.5 19.0 19.5 20.0 20.5	Arnold Karma Mantra Redshift RenderMan V-Ray Simulations	Axiom Solver

Note:

• Supports many versions of Houdini
• Support plugin, but limited
• Windows, MAC, and Linuxare supported
• No Octane supported

iRender

iRender is a render farm from Vietnam, established in 2019. Of all the render farms in the list, its approach and development are really impressive.

The platform of iRender is IaaS, which means you can control and use their remote servers as your computer. Therefore, you can install any version of Cinema 4D (which runs on Windows 10 and 11), and any renderers and plugins.

• Hardware: RTX 4090/ 3090 GPU, AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3955WX or AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3955WX CPU
• Pricing: pricing starts at $9/hour/node to $52/hour/node. 100% bonus for new users’ first deposit and 50% bonus for students and educational purposes.
• Houdini support:

Houdini version	Renderer	Plugins
16.0 16.5 17.5 18.0 18.5 19.0  19.5 20.0 20.5 or any version compatible with Windows 10/11	Arnold Arnold GPU Karma Karma-XPU MantraOctane Redshift RenderMan V-Ray V-Ray GPU Simulation And more	qLib Lynx MOPS AELib Axiom Solver And more

Note:

• Support all GPU and CPU renderers for Houdini
• Support all plugins
• Support Linux
• No macOS. You will need to connect to a Windows or Linux OS server to use.
• Need to install your app and transfer your license to their servers.

Ranch Computing

Ranch is a company in France that provides high-performance 3d rendering services. It’s a well-established farm that has a long history of nearly 20 years in this industry. They provide a SaaS platform, with a plugin integrated into your Houdini called RANCHecker. It will 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. And now it’s their job to render for you and notify you when it’s done.

• Hardware: Up to 192 CPUs or 56 GPUs, 128 or 156 GB RAM
• Pricing: pricing starts at $0.011-$0.047/hour. Free trials are $36, and you need to apply for them.
• Houdini support: Ranch supports many versions of Houdini, along with many renderers and plugins.

Houdini version	Renderer	Plugins
19.0 19.5 20.0 20.5	Arnold Arnold GPU Karma Karma-XPU Mantra Redshift RenderMan V-Ray V-Ray GPU Simulation	qLib Lynx MOPS Rombo

Note:

• Support Arnold GPU and V-Ray GPU
• Support Simulation
• Plugins supported
• No Octane supported

Final Words

To conclude, Houdini is one of the popular software programs that you can find support for on many render farms. However, the support for the renderers/plugins, and CPU or GPU support, is what you should consider when choosing a farm. Another important note is simulation, as some services can deliver while some cannot. Make sure to get advice from the render farms’ staff and test it before making your own decisions.