Review

Review: LionRender

Johnson Martin ·

Today I’m going to be reviewing LionRender, the latest (and greatest?) renderfarm to rise on the Blender scene, it’s on of the cheapest farms out there, and it’s been growing ever since it’s launch last year. The man behind the farm, Alex Martin (yes we have the same last name, no we aren’t related), was kind enough to give me a free testing account so I could do an informed and accurate review.

LionRender is designed for Blender and uses a unique “invite only” signup system that makes it one of the cheapest render farms on the market today at $49 a month for totally unlimited rendering. Since it’s launch last year, it’s slowly grown to be serious competition for other farms. So let’s take a closer look at the features and pricing of LionRender to see how well it holds up. Here we go!

Ease of Use

When you first log on to the LionRender online app, you’re presented with a very minimal interface with three panels. A projects panel, listing all the projects you’ve uploaded. A settings panel listing the options for whatever project you have selected. And finally, a panel with the final rendered frames, with export for the various image and video formats. It’s quite a simple interface, which is nice to see, considering many farms have more convoluted interfaces.

The desktop app has a similar interface, but more compact and acts more like a widget. It also has the ability to run in the background, so don’t need a window open all the time.

Overall, everything straightforward and as it should be. I didn’t find any quirks or oddities that bothered me while testing. That applies to both the online and desktop apps.

Features

LionRender includes all the major features you’d expect from a renderfarm, but also some things less common, such as LionSync, a desktop app that can sync your project folder to LionRender for rendering. Allowing you to quickly get renders without having to zip your project and upload it every time you change something. It’s a great convenience.

Other features include support for python scripts, various image and video output types (including EXR formats),  CPU and GPU rendering, custom workflows, live rendering stats and estimations for time remaining and cost, and support for all major operating systems.

I should also mention the support system, there’s a live chat system that allows you to talk to someone at LionRender for any problems or questions you have, it’s convenient and saves you from opening your email (You still can if you want to) whenever you have a question.

One feature that’s lacking is the ability to render using external render engines such as V-ray for Blender, or Luxrender. While for many this isn’t a problem, it is still a downside to consider if you render using any external engines.

Screenshot from 2016-06-22 18:31:40

Speed

The speed of rendering in LionRender is based upon whether you use the Unlimited or On Demand services. Unlimited is less powerful and is generally 2-3x slower than On Demand based on the benchmarks I’ve seen. But it can vary quite a bit depending on the type of scene.

On Demand is also faster due to not having a queue, saving about 8 minutes per render. Which is quite a bit if you think about it, so if you plan on rendering an animation, it’s defiantly worth it to use the On demand service.

One thing that disappointed me somewhat was the Balancing system the Unlimited service uses. The more you render, the slower you’re render times become. This allows those who render less to have higher priority, but leaves the users who’ve already been rendering that month in the dust in terms of render speeds. For example, if you render a lot in the first few days of the month, you’ll have to endure much slower render times for the rest of the month. Maybe even at unusable speeds, depending on how much you render. So while you technically have unlimited rendering, you still have to watch how much you render.

In comparison to other farms, LionRender is slightly faster on average based on the limited benchmark data available. But as I said, the data is limited, so don’t quote me on that.

Value

LionRender offers both a subscription plan for $49 ($44 if annually) a month, or an on-demand service for $2.50 per machine hour. Both prices are on the lower end of the current market. In fact, they claim to be the cheapest for-profit render farm available, and will match any lower price you can find. It’s quite an appealing statement. So as far as the competition goes, they definitely have an edge. One of the things LionRender does to keep the pricing low is to allow signups on an invitation-only basis. Meaning, once you signup, you have to wait for LionRender to send you an invite before you can start using the farm. Allowing LionRender to buy equipment as needed. Instead of having thousands of dollars worth of equipment lying around unused.

But even if they are one of the cheapest in the industry, it still leaves the question of whether it’s worth paying $44-49 a month for a subscription. For the most part, I’ve never been a fan of subscription services, in many cases, it’s better to buy outright than to pay monthly to infinity. But for rapidly changing technologies such as rendering, a subscription model becomes more appealing. Because everyone knows the trouble of buying a new GPU, just to have a new one announced a few weeks later that does everything and more for half the price.

Conclusion

When I first began to look over LionRender, I figured it would be a decent budget render farm, but lacking the features and speed to really be a top of the line rendering solution. But after testing and using it, I’m fully convinced it has everything it needs to accommodate just about any rendering need. It’s hard to find anything negative to say, other than that some minor features are missing such as email alerts, pricing estimator. Also more advanced features for studios are missing, such as reserving render nodes. But I don’t think that’s the market of LionRender.

In the end, LionRender proves to be a great option for freelancers and small studios looking for an inexpensive, but powerful rendering solution.

Link

Author Johnson Martin
Hi, I'm Johnson. . I run Topology Guides, a blog about tips and tricks for 3d modelers. I'm also a primary contributor to the Digital Life 3D project creating virtual animals for use in science and education.
Advertisement