TL;DR: This month, the total cost of running the https://vernissage.photos platform amounted to $260.78. A significant portion of these costs was covered by patrons: $144.90. I am very grateful for this support - without it, it would not be possible to run the platform in its current form.
Below is a detailed financial report for the operation of https://vernissage.photos during the month of November. The report is broken down by individual service providers whose services are essential to the functioning of the application.
Amazon (S3 + CloudFront)
Vernissage uses Amazon S3 to store all user files and relies on Amazon CloudFront - a content delivery network (CDN) - to distribute those files quickly and reliably across the internet.
- Total storage used: 592.2 GB
- Total number of files: 1,862,018
- Total cost: $19.27
The number of photos is enormous, and the process of reducing the retention period for photos stored in Amazon S3 is still ongoing (the goal is 3 months).
Fly.io
In mid-November, the amount of resources allocated to the database was increased. The Managed Database on fly.io is currently set to performance-2x. The speed and stability of Vernissage have improved significantly - unfortunately, so have the maintenance costs. I hope that support from patrons will cover part of these expenses, or that it might be possible to obtain some funding/support from other sources. We’ll see what the future brings.
- Total cost: $240.92
Here’s a breakdown of the services currently in use:
| Name | Type | RAM | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| push | shared-cpu-1x | 512MB | 2 machines |
| web | shared-cpu-2x | 1024MB | 2 machines |
| api | shared-cpu-2x | 2048MB | 2 machines |
| jobs | shared-cpu-2x | 2048MB | 2 machines |
| proxy | shared-cpu-2x | 512MB | 2 machines |
| redis | shared-cpu-2x | 1024MB | 1 machine |
| database | performance-2x | 8192MB | 2 machines |
OpenAI
The use of OpenAI for generating photo descriptions and suggesting relevant tags has remained at a consistent level.
- Total tokens used: 195,610
- Total requests: 230
- Total cost: $0.59
Patreon
Huge thanks to all the patrons who make it possible to keep the platform running - and a warm welcome to those who joined last month! Your support truly keeps this project alive, and I’m deeply grateful for it.
- Total contributions: $144.90
In November, the service maintenance costs amounted to $260.78. These costs are significantly higher than in October due to increased resources for the database. For this reason, community support is very important. Apart from the funds from Patreon, I cover all maintenance expenses out of my own pocket. There is no corporation or sponsor behind me. Thanks to this, the photos uploaded by users are not used in any way other than being displayed on the platform.
Thanks again to everyone for your incredible support - it really means the world to me.
— Marcin Czachurski