8 Blender Render Farms Compared
Michael Soluyanov writes:
Hi! I made a test of 8 render farms. Test includes render speed of 3 different scenes, upload/download speed and price.
Timecodes:
- 1:24 RenderStreet
- 2:49 GarageFarm.NET
- 3:57 Raysrender
- 6:02 Blendergrid
- 7:18 Polargrid
- 8:06 Anima render
- 9:07 F1
- 10:22 TurboRender
- 10:46 Results
Testing scenes:
Why isn’t sheepit included?
well, it not a render farm in classical meaning..
It is certainly a render farm.
It is a render farm, but Crantisz is correct that it isn’t in the traditional meaning (not bashing sheepit. I love it actually…) Sheepit is dependant on other people being active so measuring it is extremely difficult as opposed to having a dedicated service where there is a certain expectation and degree of consistency which is measurable.
its DISTRIBUTED render farm, so really not render farm in the traditional meaning. As THORNTON STROLIA wrote.
“its DISTRIBUTED render farm”
Literally said “render farm”, it’s still a render farm. Doesn’t matter if the computers are connected via LAN or WAN, it’s still a computer cluster as per the definition of “Render Farm”. More specifically it’s a distributed render farm.
Sheepit sums it up on their FAQ:
“What is the difference compared to other render farms?
The difference is in the word distributed, as in the service doesn’t own machines that render, but instead relies on people to share their computers. Thus,there is virtually no limit to the amount of power the render farm can have.”
I appreciate you tagging me but that’s not quite why it’s different. Distributed systems and farmed systems for all intents and purposes are the same thing. Distributed is a little bit more of a gray area word in the world of 3-D they can be taken a lot of different ways but by definition they are quite literally the same thing. Distribution of assets has nothing to do with ownership of the data, just that it is happening in more than one place. “Distributed” tends to carry a connotation that the work is spread out on a more macro level single frame per computer or whatever else your mind can cook up. With the term render farm we tend to think of it as though it may be working on a single frame per computer, or maybe it is blending samples of the same frame across multiple computers. Regardless of what you call it, they are the same exact thing. The fact that they don’t actually on the computers themselves really doesn’t have a technical name that I’m aware of, but, I go back to my original statement about reliability. I have never had a bad experience with them, however, when I was using our schools $3,000,000 render farm I knew exactly how many computers and when my work was being rendered. With sheep it….. eh. Don’t know what’s going on and a computer that was there yesterday might not be there tomorrow on the network and no guarantees how that might affect me. A single computer might not affect me that much but when you are dealing with a network of tens of computers going on and offline, there’s just no measurable efficiency.
Great list! I use Renderstreet for most of my blender renders and from my experience their system for getting your files on their servers is really a stand out for me.
One other renderfarm that has started a blender program is GridMatkets. I’ve never used their beta program for Blender, but if it’s anything like their Housini, Arnold and Pixar Renderman system, it might be something to look into as a slightly more pricey, but fantastic support offering for render clouds.
Anyway, great video!
Michael, thank you from the Raysrender team for an unbiased review.
We are pleased to announce that since the preparation of the material, the service was launched (August 15, 2019).
Now the service is available to everyone, without restrictions. Prices start from 2 cents/frame ($ 0.5 per GPU-hour, minimum payment is 1 dollar).
We are actively working to improve the characteristics of the service, in particular:
– Upload and download speed has been improved;
– Scene analysis has been accelerated and lasts from a few seconds to several minutes (for setting a price offer before work is completed). The price is final and does not change upon the completion of work.
– Added support for Branched Path Tracing rendering mode;
– Improved overall stability (annoying situations with the hang of some frames), which made the service even faster.
Very shortly, zip support will be added (already testing), and integration with Google Drive, so we will get rid of the main disadvantages that you mentioned in the review.
They invite everyone to try: http://raysrender.com
When registering from social networks (Facebook, Google, VK), an entrance bonus is equivalent to $ 30, which you can immediately spend.
Thank you for taking the time to make this review, Michael, and for keeping an objective position throughout the video.
Building on the findings in your presentation, I’d like to add a few comments regarding RenderStreet:
– The issue with Cyrillic characters in the archive contents was solved as soon as you pointed it out to us, as mentioned in our email conversation.
– The upload and download speed are also dependent on the user location and the speed of their connection to our server. We have a 10 Gbit internet connection on our customer-facing server, which is almost never full. Also, there are instructions in our knowledge base regarding setting up automated downloads for the renders through FTP and cloud accounts (Dropbox / Google Drive).
– We have an upgrade in the works that will significantly increase the web upload speed, and which will be released soon. Also, another infrastructure upgrade will further increase the transfer speed for our European customers.
– The same upgrade will add more options in our interface, besides the already existing ones. The video previews for animations, that are now available in our web interface, will remain in the upgraded version as well. So our customers have more information available in the interface, as well as the ability to launch a render with different parameters without reuploading the file.
– Our on-demand plan, which you have tested, picks up speed as the project size becomes larger. Because of that, we’re able to deliver large renders significantly faster. At the same time, we always have available render nodes. So allocating 100 render nodes for a larger project won’t be an issue, and no advance booking is necessary.
– We pride ourselves with a very high delivery rate and also constantly high availability over the past years. The yearly numbers offer a peek into our activity – the ones for 2018 can be seen here (https://blog.render.st/getting-your-projects-rendered-renderstreet-in-2018/), and the ones for this year will be published at the beginning of 2020.
– The monthly plan, which you also mention in the video, is a one-of-a-kind offer at the moment, and it has rendered over 33 million frames to date. It can bring real cost savings for long videos compared to pay-per-use rendering.
I just wanted to mention these things to provide a bit more details about our service.
One more mention in terms of features: we have support for Eevee rendering. In fact, we have been the first farm to offer it, starting in November 2018. And we also have support for 3rd party engines (LuxRender / LuxCore, YafaRay).
When the in house render farm is full loaded we always use render street
Good to see a thorough comparison! I personally wouldn’t attach much importance to upload speed As rendertime even for short animated clips probably dwarfs the upload time but the big takeaway for me is that so many farms have issues with more complex files like those with linked assets or baked simulations, that is really something to be concerned about because testing a render setup takes considerable time.
Thanks for the work you put into this! (But please turn down the volume on the background music next time because it is annoying and drowns out your voice; sorry to be blunt about it :-)
We support both linked assets and baked simulations (including with Flip Fluids) and we can bake textures, too. Our knowledge base has instructions for setting up each particular type of simulation so it works correctly on our farm.
..talking about RenderStreet, of course :)
Hi Michael,
If/When you plan to repeat the comparison exercise, please add http://www.gridmarkets.com/blender to the comparison. Thanks,
Mark
Hi Michael,
You can have a try on Fox Renderfarm, which supports both GPU and CPU rendering.
Hi, I talked with the farm, they did not agree to participate in testing
Hello,
It’s a greate video !
I would like have some advice if you can, for a render.
I had create a complexe project on Blender 2.8 in animation 3D.
The scene contains 149 frames.
In your opinion, what render farm is the best for this kind of complexe animation ?
I don’t specially looking for a speed render, i prefer a long render and less expensive.
The F1 is maybe the good one ?
Thank you for your attention.
Hi Paul,
Try gridmarkets.com/blender . . . full disclosure – I work for GridMarkets.
Mark
Hi,
what about Rebusfarm? I have been using them for a while.
https://us.rebusfarm.net/en/blender-render-farm
Cheers,
Hi Paul,
In terms of value per dollar, it’s hard to beat the RenderStreet One monthly plan. Because of its fee structure (pay one single fee per month), if you have longer projects with no-so-tight deadlines, it’s a very good option. We have rendered over 42 million frames with this plan, including a number of short films, so it’s as reliable as it gets.
You can try it one full day for just $1 – and render your project in the process too.
https://render.st/one/
For disclosure, I should mention that I’m RenderStreet’s CEO. This doesn’t make our monthly plan less unique or less capable, though. On the contrary :)
Actually, it’s been some time since the comment you are referring to. At the moment, the number is 46 millions of frames – all successfully delivered with the RenderStreet One monthly plan :)
As I explained both on email and in my comment below, both the cost and the speed were in fact significantly different for your final render than you expected initially. Our service is faster than your in-house workstation, and the speed difference will only increase as you have more and more work to render.
The costs were also three times lower than your initial calculations, and can be even lower than that depending on the chosen render plan. It’s all a matter of using our technology in an effective way, and we’re always happy to help make that happen.
I’m using concierge render, this one is super cheap, support cycles and eevee.
And for me the most important is free-preview feature before final render to make sure all works well before I pay.
Mostly I’m rendering NPR animation using eevee, for 1080 resolution only cost 1 cent/frame. If using cycles around 10 cent/frame.
Hi VisionaryMind, Contact us at [email protected] and we will spot you the free credits needed to render your scene using our Blender-GPU service. Thanks, Mark
Hi VisionaryMind,
RenderStreet has been leading in the rendering space for Blender for a number of years now. We are constantly innovating and this is why we are able to offer a constantly good service, with three different rendering plans that offer both speed and cost-effectiveness for a wide range of use cases.
I’d like to thank you for coming to RenderStreet with your project because this opportunity allowed me to present some of the differences between us and the other solutions you tested. And I have personally answered the tickets you sent to our support to make sure that all misunderstandings are cleared up, and that you are starting to use our farm at the full potential granted by our unique technology.
The 320 frames you rendered as a test were in fact rendered much faster (roughly one hour) and much cheaper ($15) than your estimates. The cost can be further reduced by using our Studio plan, or our monthly plan, depending on your preferences and deadlines. At the same time, the on-demand and Studio plans scale automatically for your workload. So we can deliver all your projects in the same way, even if you launch them all at once. I explained all the options and how they work in our email discussion. I also explained how to set up the layers system for the rendering part and not for a viewport render, to solve the visibility issue you were having.
I know that every service or application has a learning curve, and RenderStreet is no exception. We make every effort to help keep the learning period to a minimum, through our documentation and support. After all, we built the tech so that it can be put to proper use :) And I hope that our discussions have helped with that.
Hi Michael,
We are 3S Cloud Render Farm supporting Blender. We are a newcomer and excited to join the market. You are welcome to visit and try rendering on our farm. We support eevee, cycles, luxcore. Also, our features free render preview and auto-analyzing will make you impressed. We would love to see you on our farm, and if possible, please give us some note of how you feel about it and what we should improve
If you have another render farms comparison video in the future, we hope to be featured on it
You can take a tour now at https://3sfarm.io/
Thanks :D
Hello, Very nice comparison of different render farms, I would like to mention that there is a new render farm company https://vfxfarm.com that offers very good cloud rendering services. you should also review that.
I had a question, that I can’t quite understand about render farms, what happens with the addons that one uses in the scene? For example, if you use GRASWALD, or Botaniq, etc … that’s the part that I don’t understand well, thank you very much !
Fundamentally, as long as those plugins aren’t changing any core functionality of blender, IE are generators producing nodes and assets which are baked or finalized or packaged into the project then you should be fine. Bigger concerns are when a custom version of blender is in use or if the plug-in is linking or referencing an outside file or application. Outside of that the plugins are ultimately just scripts and even if the plugin isn’t installed, it should nearly never be needed for you to see the results of a previously run script.
I can only speak for our systems here (RenderStreet). Most addons work out of the box, but for some, there are some extra actions that need to be taken. We have an article about this in the knowledge base, with some examples of popular addons and how they work on our farm:
https://support.render.st/portal/en/kb/articles/3rd-party-blender-plug-ins-add-ons-compatibility-with-renderstreet
Thanks so much for all the info!, greetings!
Matias Kritz
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