Render Farm Battle: biased render farm ranking?

Hi everyone. It’s me again. 

When finding the best render farm for my studio, I found out that five render farms appear in every ranking. In alphabet order, they are Foxrenderfarm, Garagefarm, iRender, RanchComputing and Rebusfarm. It seems that these five render farms are dominating the CG, VFX rendering industry. So, I took the time to learn about these five render farms.

Recently I read this top render farm blog from Rebusfarm.

https://rebusfarm.net/blog/4403-top-render-farms-in-2023/

The top five render farms in that blog are the five render farms featured in all rankings I did mention above.

I also found another similar top render farm blog from Foxrenderfarm.

https://www.foxrenderfarm.com/share/best-render-farm-services

So, I dug up more and more in their blog. This is what I found (maybe it’s even more).

Then, I searched in the blog section of the remaining three render farms – Garagefarm, iRender, RanchComputing. They may also talk about themselves but don’t make the render farm ranking as Rebus and Fox do. That’s why I divide five render farms into two groups:

Group 1	Group 2
Render farms talk a lot about themselves (loud and affirmative)	Render farms don’t talk a lot about themselves (calm and quiet)
Foxrenderfarm Rebusfarm	Garagefarm iRender RanchComputing

Render farms in Group 1 not only make their own self-ranking but also make more and more posts about it. Not to mention, Rebus and Fox are two render farms spending the most on advertising (This is the post I talked about it).

Back to the rankings of Fox and Rebus, do you notice what they have in common, in addition to the same 5 render farms? I’ll give you a few seconds to think.

1…

2…

3…

Okay, let’s see that we share the same idea. Both Foxrenderfarm and Rebusfarm put themselves at the top 1 in the ranking. I don’t like that. For me, the rankings in magazines and websites kinda can be used for reference. Although there are cases where the render farm appears in the ranking as sponsored, at least it is reviewed and approved. As for the ranking that render farm ranks itself and brags about, I don’t believe that ranking at all. Since Fox and Rebus are so confident, I want to try to see if their render farm is as good as they say it is.

Below are Fox and Rebus’s render farm rankings:

Ranking by Foxrenderfarm	Ranking by Rebusfarm
1. Foxrenderfarm 2. Rebusfarm 3. iRender 4. RanchComputing 5. Garagefarm	1. Rebusfarm 2. Garagefarm 3. RanchComputing 4. Foxrenderfarm 5. iRender

I’ll be pitting top 1 against top 5. I’ll see the render farm that Fox and Rebus rated the lowest and themselves, who will outperform.

• Render Farm Battle 1: Foxrenderfarm vs Garagefarm
• Render Farm Battle 2: Rebusfarm vs iRender

Because I’m on my own, I will do the 1st render farm battle between Foxrenderfarm vs Garagefarm. When I have more free time, I will continue to do render farm battle 2. I have recorded the whole process of using the rendering service of render farms, please watch the video below. If you are lazy, jump to the next section to see the results.

Battle 1: Foxrenderfarm vs Garagefarm

Render Farm Battle – The scene

• Blender 3.4.1
• Cycles CPU + GPU
• Size: 1920 x 1080
• Max samples: 1024
• Noise threshold: 0.01
• Number of frames: 80 frames

Render Farm Battle – Test

	Foxrenderfarm	Garagefarm
CPU rendering	$51 1h 35m	$24.88 1h 5m
GPU rendering	$71 3h 2m	$46.45 2h

Render Farm Battle – Final result

Foxrenderfarm vs Garagefarm: Garage wins.

So the correct render farm ranking should be:

1. Garagefarm
2. Rebusfarm
3. iRender
4. RanchComputing
5. Foxrenderfarm

Garage replaces Fox in top 1, Fox is now in top 5. I keep three render farms in the middle as before since I haven’t tested them yet.

Battle 2: Rebusfarm vs iRender

[Update August 8th, 2023]

Render Farm Battle – The scene

• Cinema 4D 2023.2.2
• Redshift GPU 3.5.17
• Resolution: 1920 x 1080
• Size: 35.21 MB
• Number of frames: 120 frames

Render Farm Battle – Test

	Rebusfarm	iRender
GPU rendering	35.28 RP (~ $38.59) 1h 5m	$30 54m

Render Farm Battle – Final result

Rebusfarm vs iRender: iRender wins.

My thought

The render farm’s self-ranking is not reliable. I just took the top 1 and the top 5 against each other, the results are completely opposite. I’m going to fit my own test results into Fox ranking.

Foxrenderfarm ranking (BIASED)	My render farm ranking – CPU & GPU (Based on real test)
1. Foxrenderfarm 2. Rebusfarm 3. iRender 4. RanchComputing 5. Garagefarm	1. Garagefarm 2. Rebusfarm 3. iRender 4. RanchComputing 5. Foxrenderfarm

In future posts, I will test render farms in group 2 (calm and quiet). Because I know the results of group 1 (loud and affirmative) are like what.

Once again, these posts are useful information that I dedicate a ton of time to achieve. They are to serve the journey to find the best render farm for my studio.

What is your opinion? You can feel free to share. I will read it when I have time. I may be interested in it, or not 🙂