Last updated: November 2026

iRender Farm is a Vietnam-based cloud render farm established in 2019. After 7 years of continuous growth, from being a new name in the global render farm market, iRender has become a truly reliable and competitive platform. Their constant innovation, stable performance, and excellent customer support make them one of the best choices for both individual artists and studios today. 

iRender provides an IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) model that allows users to have full control over their computer and set up a similar working environment with the customer’s personal computer on the remote server to work and render. iRender helps to bring 3D artists, VFX, filmmakers, animation studios, etc. an efficient rendering method with the high computing GPU and CPU infrastructure that can handle all the heavy-duty tasks like a breeze.

The first and foremost impressive thing I have to say that their UI/UX is so friendly and easy-to-use. In the past, I used to experience AWS EC2 service whose business model is the same as iRender farm, but I found it really difficult to use AWS service and had to learn a lot to get used to it. At first, I thought the IaaS-based render farm was also hard to use, but I was wrong. In contrast, I have had a great experience while using the iRender farm service due to their good UI/UX. They gave me detailed instructions which helped me have easy access to the remote server. By creating an image and booting it, users are able to connect to a robust server and use it familiarly as their personal computer.

The next enormous advantage of iRender Farm rendering service is that iRender provides a free tool called iRender GPU (for Windows) and iRender Drive (for MacOS) to help users transfer their files from their local computer to the remote server. These apps make me impressed by iRender because there are few IaaS-based render farms supporting transferring files for free as well as easily expanding the amount of storage. You can upload your files under any format first via the iRender GPU App/iRender Drive, then connect to the server, which saves you time and money. On top of that, they support transferring a large amount of storage that can be 100GB, 1TB of data, or even more which makes big demanding studios satisfy.
Especially for Windows users, the iRender GPU App is a true all-in-one solution. It lets you transfer files, connect to your remote desktop, and manage your projects seamlessly – all without having to open the website. It’s incredibly convenient, especially for someone like me who prefers keeping everything in one place instead of juggling multiple tabs.

Nevertheless, iRender needs more steps in the rendering process for the first time. After connecting to the remote server, users need to manually install the software they want on a new machine, fortunately, one time only. All installed data and software are automatically stored as an image and saved for later usage. That makes iRender farm unique among well-known render farms. In addition to the available image with installed software for the next time, iRender also launched a useful function called CLONING that allows users to clone an original image to other images with the same data. By doing this way, first, you will have a back-up image and second, you are able to use many servers simultaneously to speed up your rendering time without setting up everything from scratch.

Regarding types of software, iRender shows that they support all major software such as 3Ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Blender, Keyshot, Lumion, Enscape, Unreal Engine, Daz, and so on. Yes, you can install and use any kind of software, renderer, or plugin on iRender servers, however, you need to add your license key(s) to their farm. iRender just gives you a high-performance machine, what you do on it is up to you and they don’t have the right to get access to your remote server. However, if you’re their prime customer, you are able to use iRender’s licenses for Cinema 4D and Redshift, which are common GPU-based render engines in the market. From my point of view, if you are using special plugins or software that famous SaaS-based render farms do not support, you can take iRender farm into account and use this service to speed up your rendering time due to their machine specs. Why?

The hardware or machine specs of iRender farm is one of the decisive benefits that have a great effect on users’ behavior. While users may be confused and do not know exactly what SaaS-based render farms offer in terms of hardware (both CPU and GPU). Things changed when it comes to IaaS-based render farms, users precisely know what type of CPU and GPU are contained in the remote server? Is it legal licensing or not?. Regarding iRender farm which is based on the IaaS model, you can simply check CPU&GPU type, as well as the license keys they support, are legal or illegal on the remote server. iRender also can be considered as a leading render farm that constantly improves their service as well as upgrades the newest graphics cards in the world. Their servers now run on RTX 4090 (24GB) and RTX 5090 (32GB) cards, with 1, 2, 4 or 8 GPUs per machine for both models. Depending on your software, you can pick exactly what you need – a single GPU for tools like Lumion, Enscape, or Unreal Engine, or multiple GPUs for renderers such as Redshift, Octane, or V-Ray. It’s great that iRender gives users this kind of flexibility instead of a one-size-fits-all setup.

There is no doubt that iRender ranks first in the top render farms 2026 list, followed by Rebus Farm, Fox Render Farm or Garage Farm. The reason is that iRender not only offers all software that other render farms support (such as 3Ds Max, Maya, Cinema4D, Houdini), but they also offer other software that other render farms cannot support (such as Unreal Engine, Lumion, Enscape, Daz Studio).

One more thing that IaaS models are preferred to use than SaaS models is customization. If your project is straightforward and has a simple pipeline, I certainly suggest you should use a SaaS render farm. However, there are increasing demands of IaaS render farms because users need to take full control of the server and customize their job with large projects and complex pipelines. For example, thanks to IaaS render farms like iRender, you are able to execute your rendering tasks simultaneously with several software such as Cinema4D, Houdini or After Effects on only one server (image). While you need to work separately on each software and sequentially on a SaaS render farm to get the final result, which takes a long time and wastes more money, therefore, SaaS model is not suitable for a 3D team. 

When it comes to pricing, iRender offers a wide range of rental packages at various costs. Currently, iRender focuses more on GPU Rendering, but they still have strong CPUs: AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX (3.9-4.2GHz) and AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5975WX (3.6-4.5GHz). You can choose from 1/2/4/8× RTX 4090 or 1/2/4/8× RTX 5090 setups. The table below lists every package and its hourly rate as shown on iRender’s pricing page in November 2026.

iRender only charges the usage time, without any hidden costs. Apart from the pay-as-you-go payment method, you can pay for 3 hours or more in advance and save about 10% on the hourly rate (for example, $7.38 instead of $8.2 per hour for 1x RTX 4090, and $9.72 instead of $10.8 for 1x RTX 5090, as listed on the pricing page in November 2026). The prices of iRender farm can be considered “reasonable” when compared with other farms.

Plus, there’s also a special promotion for first-time top-ups (receive 100% bonus points), which makes it even more attractive if you’re trying iRender for the first time.

The last thing we need to mention is their elite support. iRender farm possesses enthusiastic staff and experienced experts who support us directly and immediately whenever we need help with a variety of communication methods: Live Chat (24/7 on weekdays and 6:00 AM to 11:59 PM UTC+7 at weekends, per the pricing page), WhatsApp, and more. iRender staff make us more satisfied with this cloud rendering service. 

When rendering, the most important thing is the time required and the hardware available. This rendering process requires a lot of computing power to enable the rapid creation of an image or video. GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is the computing power for graphics and increasingly used for rendering CAD models. There are special processors in GPUs that execute commands for fast editing and displaying of images and videos. Especially, rendering videos requires even more power and takes much more time, as single and as many pictures as possible are rendered. These images and videos can be rendered in minutes, hours, or even days, which depend on the 3D CAD model. For example, to create a 20s long animation video with 30 frames per second, a total of 600 single frames are needed. As a result, if one frame renders for 10 minutes, the complete rendering process would take 100 hours.

Why do you need a render farm?

As normal, your workstation includes personal or office computers with CPU and GPU. On this workstation, your 3D CAD raw data was designed and rendered to a realistic image or video. In terms of rendering, the demand for powerful hardware is needed, which consists of graphics cards. As a result of additional hardware, the costs are remarkably increased including higher operating and maintenance costs. Apart from the high costs, setting up a rugged workstation is time-consuming when you need to expand or scale up the hardware. It’s time to consider using the render services or outsourcing your job to a render farm.

The evolution of distributed and parallel computing technologies has paved the way for the concept of Render farms. An offline render farm usually contains a cluster of computers that are connected together in a network for rendering in the animated models. Each individual computer in the cluster is called a Render node. An animated scene usually contains many individual frames. In a render farm, each frame is rendered independently in different render nodes at the same time or many frames are rendered independently and linearly in a render node at the same time that contains many GPUs. As a consequence, this reduces rendering time sharply. In some render farms, in order to distribute the tasks automatically to each render node, Rendering Job Management software (provided by a render farm or a third party such as Deadline Monitor) is used, which acts as a queue manager and assigns the rendering tasks to appropriate render nodes. The rendering task is offered as a service using cloud computing technology as is known as Rendering-as-a-Service.

The Rendering as a Service (RaaS) is based on the principles of Cloud-based rendering. The files to be rendered are uploaded and sent to the RaaS service providers and the rendering task is completed using the virtual machines in their render farms. Using RaaS services can determine the rendering deadline and are likely to increase the number of virtual machines accordingly to meet the deadline. The advantage of RaaS services is that the user needs to pay only for the resources utilized on an hourly basis. Hence, the animation studios need not invest much in building their own render farms or rugged workstations. However, as the RaaS services follow different business models, the potential and intended users of RaaS services namely the animators, 3D studios, freelancers, or students need to spend a lot of time to explore, analyze and identify the suitable RaaS service providers. Depending on each render farm, they chose a particular type of RaaS service (including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS) to develop their business. In this article, the writer proposes the comparison of IaaS and SaaS as well as gives the top list of render farms that follow the IaaS or SaaS model. Our valued readers can rely on the list and then make a decision which render farm is the better one for you.

In general, there are three types of service models of cloud computing namely IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), and PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service). However, the cloud-based render farms often are delivered as SaaS vs IaaS models. This article details the difference between SaaS and IaaS as well as giving the list of which SaaS or IaaS render farm is suitable for you.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)  is another cloud computing offering that provides users with access to a vendor’s cloud-based software. Users no need to install 3D software or renderers on their local devices. SaaS offers a complete software solution that you purchase on a pay-as-you-go basis from a cloud service provider. All of the underlying infrastructure, middleware, app software, and data are located in the service provider’s data center. The service provider manages the hardware and software, all you need is to upload your job to their system and get the output after waiting for the render farm provider rendering.

As the workflow, the 3D models are constructed at your workstation, before uploading to the SaaS render farm. The render station can be extended by several individual render stations, therefore, a render farm is created. The render farm consists of many individual render nodes. These individual computer nodes can be used either individually or in combination. This setup allows an optimization and easy scaling of the requirements for the respective render job. For instance, if you have a video, you can order the use of many render nodes simultaneously or if you have different images, you select a large number of nodes individually where each node renders each frame at the same time. Assigning tasks to each render node needs a render manager or a small program that belongs to the respective render program. 

Admittedly, users definitely do not know What exact machine specs are? and wonder Do they use software licenses or use crack versions? The SaaS render farms can do marketing campaigns and show that their machine specs are the cutting edge CPUs and GPUs or hang out the banner of supporting all software or render engines, but who knows what they currently own in their render farm. Looking on the bright side, users mainly leverage the number of render nodes on a SaaS render farm to complete their job, instead of the robust performance of the computer. The advantage of rendering using cloud render farm services is that the number of render nodes can be scaled up or scaled down instantly based on the users’ requirements. As the animators have to pay for the total number of rendering hours for which the cloud render farms were used, they can avoid investing in the huge infrastructure required for the rendering purpose. 

However, the actual render cost is not stated explicitly on the render farms’ websites. There can be added the indirect cost variables that increase the actual cost remarkably compared to the estimated cost given in the websites. The indirect cost variables can be software license, data storage, activation time, and use time. Another key factor that impacts customer behavior is functionality. Does the render farm guarantee that the uploading files and rendering time is the same as the estimated time or the rendered files meet your requirements? For example, they estimate the period of uploading files time is about 15 minutes for 5GB data, but the actual time lasts over 2 hours for uploading 5GB data to the render farm system. Moreover, the render farm can be likely to render an output that is totally different from your needs due to lack of texture or missing files. What you should do before choosing a SaaS render farm is explore:

• Which software they are supporting? 
• Is the render farm compatible with your own software, renderers, and plugins?
• How much time does it take to upload files and render? or How many nodes are you able to select?
• How much does the render farm cost your project?
• Is it difficult to use that render farm? (Some render farms are not friendly to use and it takes you much time to get used to it.)

As my recommendation, if you use CPU-based rendering that needs numerous computers to complete a project, you should opt for a SaaS render farm, It is because you can utilize the number of render nodes where each node renders each frame simultaneously. Popular supported software such as 3Ds Max Corona, 3Ds Max Vray, Houdini Mantra, RenderMan should be rendered on a SaaS render farm. The outstanding players in the SaaS model are Fox Render Farm, RANCH Computing, Rebus Farm, etc. 

IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) is a form of cloud computing that delivers fundamental compute, network, and storage resources to users, over the internet, and on a pay-as-you-go basis. IaaS enables end-users to scale and shrink resources on an as-needed basis, reducing the need for high, up-front capital expenditures or unnecessary “owned” infrastructure. IaaS is made up of a collection of physical and virtualized resources that provide consumers with the basic building blocks needed to run 3D programs or plug-ins and workloads in the cloud. 

Under the IaaS model, the render farm provider gives you & your studio the control of the machine, and your studio will manage operating systems, databases, applications. Hence, you typically have more control and flexibility compared with SaaS. To illustrate, if you use an IaaS render farm, you need to install your own software, renderers, and plugins, setting a similar working environment as your computer. However, software licensing issues can be one of the major problems in cloud computing services. In the IaaS type of services, the software license details often added to the server by users whereas, in the SaaS type of services, the software licensing issues are coped with by the render farm providers, the users are charged a fee based on the time they use (maybe this fee include along with the licensing cost). 

With this workflow, 3D raw data can be designed at your workstation first, then transfer to the remote server of the render farm. In general, the difference from the classic render farm is that the render farm is located in a cloud infrastructure. This infrastructure allows virtualization of the existing hardware so that customized configurations (network configurations to clusters containing many virtual machines) can be made. In IaaS render farms, users exactly know what the sever specs contain or what kind of CPU and GPU in the server. There is no need to purchase additional hardware, by a few clicks, the cloud infrastructure is available for you. Depending on the heavy tasks or job volume, you can easily scale up or scale down the infrastructure including the number of virtual machines, the types of configurations, the number of graphics cards, and so on. Once creating the infrastructure, the virtual machine(s) will be stored as an image in the cloud and be available to use at any time. Interestingly, the outstanding characteristic of cloud infrastructure is that many more virtual machines can be created from an original image and then clone to other images with identical data. By doing that way, not only does this save time and money to set up every image, but many render nodes also can be processed simultaneously by a large number of images. 

As we all know, the SaaS render farms offer supported software and plugins on their system, users just need to upload files and the classic render farms render users’ jobs. It seems that SaaS business models are likely to handle the rendering problems for users, however, there are more IaaS render farms launching to the market. The question is why CAD users still need the IaaS  render farm? In fact, 85% of customers need to add their license keys on the remote server to use (some IaaS render farms support specific software licenses), but they continue choosing this type of render farm. The key factor that affects the users’ behavior is the ability of full control of the robust server(s) and customize flexibly their projects. The IaaS models will be suited for studios or artists whose pipeline is intricate & complicated and needed the high control of the project’s owner. Apart from it, if the studio uses many software and different renderers as well as special plugins, it is really hard for SaaS render farms to meet the studio’s needs due to limited types of supported software. It is time to move to the IaaS render farms where the providers give customers the highest customization ability. In addition to flexibility, IaaS render farms highly specialize in GPU rendering services. While SaaS render farms leverage the number of render nodes, IaaS render farms utilize both the number of GPUs in a single server and the number of servers. As a result, if you are using software and renderers that take advantage of GPU rendering, IaaS render farms should be the best option. In terms of leading IaaS render farms, they can be mentioned iRender farm, VFX Farm, UltraRender, Xesktop, etc which let you rent the high-performance remote server as you want.

In conclusion, there are both advantages and disadvantages of IaaS and SaaS render farms. The IaaS render farms will be suited for CPU-based rendering that is rendered with a large number of render nodes. These classic render farms such as Fox Render Farm, RANCH Computing or Rebus Farm give rendering solutions for common software such as 3Ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, and Houdini. However, the types of software entirely are dependent on the render farm providers, the users find it hard to customize settings or use the different render engines or plugins. When it comes to IaaS render farms, all software based on GPU rendering is optimal on their system. The full control and high ability of customization are decisive advantages that make users opt for IaaS render farms. On top of that, users can utilize the power of multi graphics cards in one machine to speed up their rendering time which is 50 to 100 faster times than CPU rendering. iRender Farm, Xesktop or VFX Farm are trusted and certificated brand names regarding IaaS models.

Learning more article Top 3 best render farms for Lumion Cloud Rendering Service