Scaling

How many copies of your app run, how big each one is, when more start on their own, and when the app sleeps while nobody uses it.

Instances and sizes

An app runs as one or more instances, each in its own sandbox. More instances share the traffic and keep the app up while one restarts. Every instance has the same size: small, medium, or large (sizes). The number you set is the total, not an addition. 0 stops the app without deleting it.

An app with a disk runs one instance: scaling it above one, or turning on autoscaling, is refused.

Autoscaling

Set a maximum above the number of instances and Deplane adds and removes instances for you, between the two. instances is the minimum and --max is the maximum.

• Deplane aims for each instance to use about 70% of its size's CPU. Above that, it adds instances; below it, it removes them.
• It scales up within a minute of the load rising, by at most 2 instances a minute.
• It scales down only after 5 calm minutes, by 1 instance a minute.
• For your plan's limits, an autoscaled app counts at its maximum, whether or not it is using that many.

Turn autoscaling off with --max 0. The app then stays at its instances number.

Sleep when idle

A sleeping app costs nothing to run. Choose how long the app waits without requests before it sleeps: 5, 15, or 60 minutes, or never (the default).

On Free, apps always sleep: a new app sleeps after 15 idle minutes, and you can choose 5 or 15 minutes but not 60 or never (limit_sleep). Stopping a Free app (deplane scale 0) keeps its sleep time, so it sleeps again once you start it, and you can change it to 5 or 15 while the app is stopped. An app that never slept before its team moved to Free keeps running as it was. Scaling it down (fewer instances, a smaller size, a lower autoscale maximum, or a stop) always works and keeps its setting; starting or growing it needs 5 or 15 minutes, for example deplane scale 2 --sleep 15m. Free has no workers, since they run all the time (Workers). Hobby and larger plans choose freely.

• Any request to the app's address counts as use, including requests to your custom domains. An app that serves no requests for the whole time goes to sleep. A minute for which the platform could not read the request count never counts as idle.
• A new deploy, a scale change, or a wake counts as activity, and a deploy wakes a sleeping app.
• The first request to a sleeping app wakes it. It waits a few seconds, then is redirected to the same URL, which now reaches the running app. Later requests are not slowed down.
• Only the app's web instances sleep. Its workers and cron jobs keep running while the web app sleeps. On Free, new workers are refused, and workers from before a move to Free keep running.
• A sleeping app still counts toward your plan's limits.

If the app is not ready in time, the request gets a 503 with Retry-After: 5; try again.

From the CLI

$ deplane scale 1 --max 5       # one to five instances, depending on load
$ deplane scale --sleep 15m     # sleep after 15 minutes without requests
$ deplane scale --sleep off     # never sleep
$ deplane scale --max 0         # fixed number of instances again

deplane status shows the autoscale range and, while the app sleeps, Sleeping since. See deplane scale.

From the dashboard

On an app's Settings tab, the Scale card has Autoscale up to (leave it empty for a fixed number) and Sleep when idle (Never, or after 5, 15, or 60 minutes; on Free, Never and 60 are greyed out). A sleeping app shows Sleeping, and counts as healthy on the overview. Setting instances to 0 stops the app and turns autoscaling and sleep off (on Free, sleep stays on). The Assistant and AI tools can set the same things.

Limits

• Instances: 0 or more, up to your plan's instance limit (Limits). The autoscale maximum is 1 to 1000, also bound by your plan. The AI tools' scale tool (MCP) is stricter for instances: it takes 0 to 20. Its max_instances (autoscale maximum) goes up to 1000, like the API.
• The maximum must be above instances. See invalid_autoscale.
• Sleep time is 5, 15, or 60 minutes. See invalid_sleep. On Free, 5 or 15 minutes: see limit_sleep.

This page is also available as Markdown. AI agents can start at /llms.txt.