Why We Use Idle Shutdown
Let’s be honest — most Foundry VTT servers sit around doing nothing most of the time.
We noticed it ourselves early on: people would play a few hours each week, then their world would quietly hum away on the server for days or weeks, not being used — but still eating up resources and power.
That’s when we thought: there has to be a smarter way.
TL;DR
Waiting 30 seconds before your game starts helps us:
- Keep your hosting affordable
- Improve overall server performance
- Reduce wasted resources and energy
- And still give you a fast, stable, and reliable gaming experience
It’s a small tradeoff with big benefits — and we think that’s pretty fair.
What Problem Idle Shutdown Solves
When we built our hosting platform, our goal was simple: make Foundry VTT hosting as affordable and high-quality as possible.
To do that, we needed to make sure every bit of server power we use actually goes toward running games — not sitting idle.
After running the numbers, we realized something wild: by introducing an Idle Shutdown feature, we could reduce resource waste enough to cut hosting costs for users by over 50%.
That’s not a small improvement — that’s the kind of difference that lets us keep prices fair without compromising performance.
How Idle Shutdown Works (Without the Tech Jargon)
Here’s the plain version:
If your Foundry VTT world isn’t being used for a while — meaning no one’s logging in, rolling dice, switching scenes, or poking around in journals — it goes into nap mode.
After a set time (depending on your plan), we gently shut it down until you’re ready to play again:
- MOVE-BASIC: after 3 hours of inactivity
- MOVE-ON: after 6 hours
- MOVE-UP: after 12 hours
- MOVE-PRO: stays awake 24/7
When you’re ready to jump back in, you just visit your server URL — and your game boots right up, usually in about 30 seconds.
Enough time to grab a drink or set the mood music before your session starts.
Why It’s Worth That 30-Second Wait
That little pause does a lot of good behind the scenes.
Because idle servers don’t sit around wasting resources, we can:
- Host more users on each physical server (2–4x more, actually)
- Lower overall prices
- Boost performance — since we can give your game more power when it’s active during off-peak hours
- And as a nice side effect, use less energy, which helps us stay eco-friendly and compliant with sustainability laws.
So yes — waiting those 30 seconds actually keeps prices low and performance high.
What If My Server Goes Idle — Do I Lose Anything?
Nope! Nothing gets lost, deleted, or reset.
Your data, your worlds, your settings — everything stays exactly as you left it.
The moment you log back in, your server wakes up and picks up right where you left off.
Some users were a little confused by this at first, which is why we’re writing this post. We want everyone to know: Idle Shutdown doesn’t remove anything — it just saves power (and money) while you’re away.
A Real Bonus You Might Not Notice
One cool side effect of Idle Shutdown: it actually improves your experience during off-peak hours.
Because servers aren’t wasting resources on idle instances, we can give more active games extra breathing room — meaning even smoother performance when you’re playing.
It’s one of those small behind-the-scenes wins that makes your game night just a bit better, even if you never think about it.
Our Philosophy: Smart Hosting for Smart Players
We don’t use big-name cloud services like AWS or Azure. Instead, we run on our own physical servers — which gives us more control, more stability, and more freedom to keep things running even when the big clouds go down.
Features like Idle Shutdown help us do what we set out to do from the start:
Deliver high-quality Foundry VTT hosting for the lowest possible price.
Because at the end of the day, we’d rather you spend your gold on new dice and snacks — not wasted server time.