Posted on 03/25/2026 7:28:23 AM PDT by Libloather
No link. Just wondering. Hate to see it disappear.
There’s anecdotal evidence that many long time Freepers have disappeared from this site.
Fewer people on the site resulting in fewer donations?
Having a FR X subscription channel may not be a bad idea.
This was a labor of love for Jim.
The only thing FR really offers now is a community of people that have known each other for years.
That said, the infighting and rudeness that seems to be pervasive, violating policy, makes it less relevant when there’s options like X.
FR used to be the only place I could get a fast rundown of what’s going on, no “left or right” only articles, anything from anyone....where the comments were aligned with my views.
That is no longer the case. I’ve written and hosted database driven websites, there’s nothing about FR that should be costing a ton of money.
“$320000.00”
That’s about the cost of employing one highly skilled technical person in Silicon Valley for a year.
Embracing a constant strategy is always good.
Maintain the original mission and objective of the site, but employ “tweaks” that reflect new “accessories”...much like you would find with a new car model.
For example, I would love to see the ability for the group to click a “like” button for each post that appeals to them. A “dislike” button could also be available, but a like button for sure.
I’m sure other members of the site have suggestions for consideration as well.
At any rate, it’s well past time for a makeover of this site in my opinion.
They want 300k a year to run the FR LLC.
FR wants for a website half the revenue my small 4 man shop makes in a year servicing cars. I would be shocked if the server expenses cost more then 5k a month. Yes they pay taxes on the money, but smart tax planning, especially with an LLC, can mitigate most of that.
Combine the above with the fact that this website’s remaining residents behavior, morals and language(this I am guilty of as well, but have been attempting to actually improve my post quality) have made this a very unfriendly place to be, and the quality of articles(which is out of our hands obviously, considering how we source them) and discussions(rare constructive discussions and more flame wars and shit talking) is worthless. This site is no longer the bastion of Conservatism it used to be and these points generally point towards, imo a lack of enthusiasm to keep it operating.
I am here out of habit. Been here since 07 as a lurker at the ripe old age of 13, 2nd generation. When this place eventually shuts down it won’t make a difference to me. I am here for Automotive articles and Various Christian topics. Things I can source elsewhere easily enough.
“FR that should be costing a ton of money”
The largest plumbing firm in my area of Florida is said to charge $225/hour.
And yet even here on FR it was an ‘effing disgrace how much scolding I got from Branch Covidian Karens because I refused to shut down my business and hide under my bed back in the spring of 2020.
Yes, but the servers are located in a data center. Data center fees are significant.
Ok. Just made a second $100 dollar donation for this drive.
If you haven’t donated please do now.
Bandwith here is less due to less graphical images and the fact this forum is from like 1999 with zero upgrades on the user side.
Plus I would expect We have less Traffic then a Manga site. I could spend more time in a day reading manga then I ever could here at FR.
I don't mind the flak, and while others might and decide to depart, there's no better alternative. So much else is compromised.
Yes, as expected, Free Republic is infiltrated by paid propagandists from the Left but the infiltrators are easy enough to spot, easy enough to ignore, and also often put their own foot in their mouth, unwillingly helping the Conservative cause. This current wave of propaganda and attacks is from RINOs and NeoCons who are paid to hijack the MAGA movement. We see them. Let's not stop exposing them.
The response is to push back harder and not be dissuaded by the paid propagandists. I don't post to change the minds of the ignorant, but to let others know they're not alone.
People I interact with here behind enemy lines in a deep blue state are shocked and relieved to find out that they're not alone, and that others clearly see it. I think of people like comedienne Leonarda Jonie who went from woke Left to far Red Pill and know that without sites such as Free Republic, it's near impossible.
Server costs
Tech support
Income
The biggest loss of regular members here almost certainly came back in 2003-04 when independent conservative/nationalist Freepers were being banned because they had the audacity to call out that retarded baboon George W. Bush over the ill-fated Iraq invasion.
No lost many posts before about 2001?
Servers in a different location
Which this site does not need. There is nothing highly skilled or technical about a forum that has no change since like 1999.
*** How much does it cost to run a server with 100,000 hits a day?***
There’s no single answer because cost depends a lot on *how* those 100,000 hits are spread out and what the site does, but we can ballpark it.
Assume:
- 100,000 hits/day ≈ maybe 10,000–30,000 page views/day, depending on assets.
- Traffic is fairly steady, not all at once.
- “Normal” app or site (blog, small SaaS, brochure site), not Netflix.
### Typical hosting cost ranges
For **100,000 hits/day** you’re usually in this territory:
- **Basic VPS / small cloud instance**
- Something like 2–4 vCPUs, 4–8 GB RAM, decent SSD.
- Roughly **$20–$80/month** on a commodity provider if the app is efficient and content is cached.
- Good enough if concurrency is moderate (tens to a few hundred users at a time) and you’re not doing heavy CPU work.
- **Beefier VPS or small dedicated box**
- 4–8 cores, 16+ GB RAM, more I/O.
- Roughly **$60–$200/month**.
- Gives more headroom for traffic spikes, heavier app logic, background jobs, etc.
- **Extras you might or might not need**
- **Managed database** (RDS/Cloud SQL/etc.): +$20–$100/month.
- **CDN** (Cloudflare, etc.): often **free to $20/month** for basic plans.
- **Backups, monitoring, logging**: could be another **$10–$50/month** depending what you use.
### So, realistic all‑in monthly cost
For 100k hits/day, a typical small–medium site or app can usually run for:
- **Lean setup**: around **$20–$50/month** (single decent VPS, CDN, and a cheap or built‑in DB).
- **Comfortable setup**: around **$60–$200/month** (more powerful server or two, managed DB, monitoring, etc.).
You only get into **hundreds or thousands per month** when:
- You need high availability (multiple regions, automatic failover).
- You have very CPU‑heavy workloads (video processing, big analytics).
- You’re paying for fully managed, white‑glove infrastructure.
If you tell me:
- What stack you’re using (e.g., WordPress vs Node/Go, etc.).
- Rough size of your pages (lots of images/video or mostly text).
- Peak concurrent users you expect.
I can sketch a concrete example config and a tighter monthly cost estimate.
There is no insane amount of traffic here.
They’d better be highly skilled at that price.
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