Easy way to prevent Heroku idling

Question

In the Heroku free apps the dynos seem to keep idling - my app has very low traffic but it s also not really acceptable in my case that my users have to wait 20  seconds to spin up a new dyno    Frankly  with that kind of wait  many will leave before the first page even displays   So  I have a problem  should I be paying  36 a month to save each user an embarrassingly long 20 seconds when my traffic is in the single-digits per day   Is there a way around this

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This is my solution  Use Google Apps Script  and set time trigger     main js function ping       UrlFetchApp fetch  quot https    lt Your app gt  herokuapp com ping from GAS quot       It is very easy

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One more working solution  wokeDyno Here is a blog post how it works   It s integrated in the app very easy      Example  as used with an Express app     const express   require  express   const wakeDyno   require  woke-dyno        create an Express app const app   express        start the server  then call wokeDyno url  start   app listen PORT       gt        wakeDyno DYNO URL  start       DYNO URL should be the url of your Heroku app

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this work for me in a spring application making one http request every 2 minute to the root url path    import org slf4j Logger  import org slf4j LoggerFactory  import org springframework scheduling annotation Scheduled  import org springframework web client RestTemplate   public class HerokuNotIdle    private static final Logger LOG   LoggerFactory getLogger HerokuNotIdle class     Scheduled fixedDelay 120000  public void herokuNotIdle        LOG debug  Heroku not idle execution        RestTemplate restTemplate   new RestTemplate        restTemplate getForObject  http   yourapp herokuapp com    Object class         Remember config your context to enable scheduler and create the bean for your scheduler   EnableScheduling public class AppConfig     Bean public HerokuNotIdle herokuNotIdle        return new HerokuNotIdle

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Note that the new dyno types  currently in beta  incoming in June 2015  will forbid to keep a free dyno awoken 24 7  as it would have to sleep at least 6 hours per day   So try to remove any solution you found in this thread before this comes out  or pay for the service you actually use

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You can use http   pingdom com  to check your app  if done every minute or so  heroku won t idle your app and won t need to spin-up

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I use the Heroku Scheduler addon provided by Heroku for free  Once added it is simple as creating a job with  curl http   yourapp herokuapp com  and a 10 min interval

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Freshping is another free resource that can keep your free Heroku app alive 24 7

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If you have access to a unix server that s always up  you can set a cron job to GET your website   Under the new terms of the free plan  you ll probably want to disable the GETs in the night hours  using a line in your crontab like this     20 8-22        usr bin curl domain com  amp  gt   dev null   This instructs curl to GET domain com every 20 minutes between the hours of 8 and 22   Be aware that   Not everyone who wants to see your website lives in your timezone and Your site may receive other requests in the middle of the night  waking up your dyno and causing another hour of usage time for each request  Even if no one else knows your domain  there are bots and crawlers that are active all the time  Therefore  it s advisable to set the process defined in your crontab to be active for only 14 to 16 hours to provide a buffer against these wake-ups   Also  make sure your system time is set up properly so that the down-time window happens when you expect it to

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Guy  here is a heroku app you can run to keep multiple heroku apps alive  Just add the urls you want to ping in the config json   https   github com jcarras rise-and-shine

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I have an app that only needs to run from monday to friday around lunchtime  I just added the following script to the crontab at work      bin sh   script to unidle heroku installation for the use with cronjob   usage in crontab      5 11-15     1-5  usr local bin uptimer sh http   www example com   The command  usr local bin uptimer sh http   www example com will execute every 5th minute of 11am through 3pm Mondays through Fridays in every month    resources  http   www cronchecker net echo url to unidle   1 echo  UPTIMER   waking up at  date curl  1 echo  UPTIMER   awake at  date   So for any app just drop another line in your crontab like     5 11-15     1-5  usr local bin uptimer sh http   www example com

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I have written down the steps     Add gem  newrelic rpm  to your Gemfile under staging  amp  production   bundle install   Login to heroku control panel and add newrelic addon   Once added  setup automatic pinging to your website so that it does not idle   Browse to Menu   Availability Monitoring  under Settings    Click    Turn on Availability Monitoring      Enter the url to ping  eg  http   spokenvote org    Select 1 minute for the interval

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Easy answer--if you value the service then pay for it     All these  tricks  to get the benefits of paid service   well it s essentially like stealing cable   Questionable to even list them here   What s next  tricks on how to pirate games   Like another poster here  I value the free service for development and testing and I will be greatly annoyed at all you ethics-impaired types if Heroku does away with it because there are too many freeloaders   I just don t think he was direct enough in his criticism

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Tested and working on my own Heroku app using Node js 0 10 x on 6 28 2013  var http   require  http      importing http  function startKeepAlive         setInterval function             var options                 host   your app name herokuapp com               port  80              path                         http get options  function res                res on  data   function chunk                    try                          optional logging    disable after it s working                     console log  HEROKU RESPONSE      chunk                     catch  err                        console log err message                                                on  error   function err                console log  Error      err message                      20   60   1000      load every 20 minutes    startKeepAlive

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In my opinion  using the  free  tier of the service should not be powering a production or customer facing application   While the above solutions work against the Dyno idling  think thoroughly about what you re doing   If nothing else  use a cron job to ping your site  and disable the check for known low-use periods  ie  overnight  to ensure Heroku doesn t do away with the free tier for everyone else

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You can also try http   kaffeine herokuapp com  made by me   it s made for preventing Heroku apps to go to sleep  It will ping your app every 10 minutes so your app won t go to sleep  It s completely free

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Most of the answers here are outdated or currently not working  The current free tier for personal accounts are gives a base of 550 free dyno hours each month    And a verified free account gives you 1000 hours of free dyno  I wrote an article on how I made my free app stay awake   https   link medium com uDHrk5HAD0  Hope it helps anyone who is in need of a solution in 2019

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I think the easiest fix to this is to self ping your own server every 30 mins  Here s the code I use in my node js project to prevent sleeping   const request   require  request    const ping        gt  request  https    lt my-app-name gt  herokuapp com     error  response  body    gt        console log  error    error      Print the error if one occurred     console log  statusCode    response  amp  amp  response statusCode      Print the response status code if a response was received     console log  body    body      Print body of response received     setInterval ping  20 60 1000      I have set to 20 mins interval

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You can install the free New Relic add-on  It has an availability monitor feature that will ping your site twice per minute  thus preventing the dyno from idling   More or less the same solution as Jesse but maybe more integrated to Heroku    And with a few perks  performance monitoring is just great         Note  to all those saying it doesn t work  the important part in my answer is  availability monitor   Just installing the addon won t help  You also need to setup the availability monitoring with the URL of your heroku app

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Add your app s URL to http   kaffeine herokuapp com   From the site   Kaffeine pings your Heroku app every 30 minutes so it will never go to sleep

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It says in Heroku documentation that having more than 1 web dyno will never idle out  Possibly a cheaper solution than  0 09 hour like Pierre suggests     Documentation

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A cron job will do  See https   cron-job org  It s free and reliable

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As an alternative to Pingdom I suggest trying Uptimerobot  It is free and offers 5 min interval site checking  It works very fine for me   UPDATE 7th of May 2015  This will not be possible any more  as Heroku will change their free dyno to prevent keeping it alive for full 24 hours      Another important change has to do with dyno sleeping  or    idling     While non-paid apps have always slept after an activity timeout  some apps used automatic pinging services to prevent that behavior  free dynos are allowed 18 hours awake per 24 hour period  and over the next few weeks we will begin to notify users of apps that exceed that limit  With the introduction of the hobby dyno   7 per month   we are asking to either let your app sleep after time out  or upgrade to this new option    When is this going to be live  According to their blog post      Applications running a single 1X dyno that don   t accumulate any other   dyno charges will be migrated gradually to the new free dynos   beginning on July 1

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I found another free site that will constantly ping your site called Unidler  http   unidler herokuapp com   Same as pingdom  but doesnt need to log in

[heroku] Easy way to prevent Heroku idling?

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