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Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

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Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#91

Post by Lammy »

PaoloBarbolini wrote: post #63
Lammy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.netlify.com/security/ sez “Active DDoS mitigation — Netlify monitors for traffic pattern anomalies and spikes, and effectively controls for them as needed” and now I'm curious about what that actually means .

It means they protect themselves from layer 3 and 4 DDoS. For layer 7 you're mostly on your own. That's what most companies mean when they talk about DDoS anyway.

I found https://www.netlify.com/blog/2017/03/28/why-you-dont-need-cl... and it sounds like you're right.

“The cool thing is that we also provide a load balancer, and if our system has detected that our main load balancer is currently being hit by a large DDoS attack and is slow or unresponsive, we’ll simply route around that on the DNS level. Since we cache content at our edge nodes around the world, end users also experience extremely fast page load times because of this.”

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#92

Post by sshine »

injuly wrote: post #85
jzebedee wrote: post #13

The most bizarre thing is that this is a known issue that folks have asked them for ways to mitigate, to no avail. The reddit thread even links to an extremely weird dialogue where Netlify's response boils down to, "if you're hosting a small site that gets DDoS'd, don't." https://answers.netlify.com/t/limit-bandwidth-to-avoid-high-...

I'm hesitant to use "fancy" cloud service/hosting providers for reasons like this. I don't understand why they won't just raise a 503 if the traffic exceeds the spend limit, or at the very least provide that as an option.

What's spend limit?

Autoscaling is a feature!

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#94

Post by tasuki »

satvikpendem wrote: post #34
lopkeny12ko wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For less than 1% of OP's monthly bill, you can build or obtain a more-than-enough server, drop your static files on it, and serve through nginx. And you get to keep it forever; there's no monthly subscription fee! Seriously, maybe I'm just old, but I look at the pricing of these hip and modern SaaS products for dead simple software and I cannot believe my eyes. The "old fashioned way" works just fine (and has always…

Hetzner or DigitalOcean with Coolify [0] works great, it's like an open source Heroku that runs on any host, you get git push to deploy, and a bunch of other features built in. It only works on one machine at a time though so it's not like a CDN but for small sites, it's great. [0] https://coolify.io

I use DigitalOcean to host some things (with my own setup for deployments with git push, because `curl | bash` is not a great way to install/maintain software).

How am I protected against extra charges for traffic?

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#95

Post by Springtime »

factorialboy wrote: post #77
nindalf wrote: post #44

Since the author has gone viral I expect some netlify exec is going to take over and write this bill off to $0. In the words of Kramer “these big companies, they just write it off!” A moment of silence for the people who got DDoS-ed, didn’t go viral and still had to pay $5k.

You don't even know what a write-off is.

For those who don't get the reference: https://twitter.com/JayBauman1/status/1665024103282012161/vi...

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#96

Post by SiVal »

isoprophlex wrote: post #14

There's no way in hell anyone should ever under any circumstance use a free service that might, for reasons entirely outside your control, suddenly bill you 5k, or 104k... or any non trivial amount really. Just suspend service on excessive overages...

I understand that some businesses might want to take the hit from a cost surge because they get an even higher revenue surge. But a large fraction of sites aren't like that and would prefer a loss of service to a cost overrun. Service providers should always offer a "maximum out-of-pocket cost" service option. Those that don't aren't suitable vendors for most customers and customers should be warned about them.

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#97

Post by fbdab103 »

whatever1 wrote: post #43
lopkeny12ko wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For less than 1% of OP's monthly bill, you can build or obtain a more-than-enough server, drop your static files on it, and serve through nginx. And you get to keep it forever; there's no monthly subscription fee! Seriously, maybe I'm just old, but I look at the pricing of these hip and modern SaaS products for dead simple software and I cannot believe my eyes. The "old fashioned way" works just fine (and has always…

But you need a static IP, stable internet, UPS, and permission from your wife to have a 24/7 powered noisy box in a room

I mean, the C10k problem was coined in 1999[0]. A 10W raspberry pi is going to be faster than any server of that day, so it depends on what exactly you are hosting if you need the noisy box.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C10k_problem

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#99

Post by gregorvand »

There's a reason price plans are 'pay as you go' - so that they don't take on any risk for things like this. Moral of the story: never go for pay as you go by usage plans if this scenario is not mitigated through a third party. By no means am I trying to suggest a get out for Netlify here - more a rule of thumb for anyone worried the same could happen to them.

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#100

Post by carlmr »

sshine wrote: post #92
injuly wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hesitant to use "fancy" cloud service/hosting providers for reasons like this. I don't understand why they won't just raise a 503 if the traffic exceeds the spend limit, or at the very least provide that as an option.

What's spend limit? Autoscaling is a feature!

I guess we need regulation for this.
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