Who we are
Silly Development is operated by an individual sole trader based in the United Kingdom. Where these documents say "we" or "us", they mean that operator.
You can reach us at [email protected] for anything relating to your data or these terms, and at [email protected] to report misuse of the service.
What we provide
We provide hosting for small, long-running Node.js, Python, Bun and Ruby projects: bots that connect out to a service such as Discord, Minecraft, Telegram or WhatsApp, small web apps and APIs, background workers, scheduled scripts and similar programs. Every free server receives a fixed allocation: 25% of a CPU core, 256 MB of memory, and 512 MB of disk. We support Node.js, Python, Bun and Ruby.
We host your project and nothing else. We are not a general virtual server, and we do not host game servers except as our Acceptable Use Policy allows. A web app or API is reachable at the address and port shown in your panel; we do not provide a domain name or an HTTPS certificate for it. Where we describe a platform, that describes what your code may connect to, not something we operate or have any relationship with.
The free service is not a trial and not a cut-down version of something better. The allocation above is not reduced, time-limited, or throttled to push you toward paying, and it did not change when we introduced a paid plan. You never have to pay us anything.
Where we offer them, each account may also create a limited number of free MariaDB and PostgreSQL databases, each with a fixed disk quota shown in your panel. A database belongs to your account rather than to a server. Optional paid database plans give a database more room for a monthly fee, as described in "Paid databases" below. Everything in these terms about your code and your data, acceptable use, availability and suspension applies to your databases as it does to your servers.
There are optional paid plans, which give a server more of that allocation for a monthly fee. They are described in "Paid servers" below. Everything else in these terms applies to free and paid servers alike unless that section says otherwise.
There is no guarantee attached to a service you are not paying for — see "Availability" below.
Paid servers
There are two paid plans. Standard costs 75p per month and doubles the free allocation: 50% of a CPU core, 512 MB of memory and 1 GB of disk. Where we offer it, Plus costs £1.75 per month and gives five times the free allocation: 125% of a CPU core, 1.25 GB of memory and 2.5 GB of disk. Each paid server is billed separately, there is no limit on how many you may have, and they do not count towards the number of free servers your account is allowed.
Card payments are taken by Stripe. We never see or store your card details. Your card is checked when you order, but nothing is charged until your server is actually running — if we cannot build it, you have paid nothing and can walk away at no cost.
You may schedule a downgrade at any time. Your server keeps its paid resources until the end of the month you have already paid for, you are not charged again, and you may reverse the decision at any point before that date at no cost.
You may instead end a plan immediately and be refunded for the time you have not used, less the fee our payment provider charged us to take that payment, plus 5p. That fee is not a penalty: our payment provider keeps its processing charge when a payment is refunded, so it covers a cost we cannot recover. Immediate downgrades are limited to one per account every 30 days, and are not offered in the last twelve days before renewal on Standard, or the last week on Plus, when what is left after the fee would amount to a few pence. Scheduling a downgrade is always free and always available.
You may move a paid server between Standard and Plus. A move up happens straight away: the server is resized and restarted, and you pay the difference between the two prices for the rest of the month you have already paid for. A move down works like a downgrade: either at the end of that month at no cost, or straight away with the unused part of the difference refunded under the same fee and limits. A move down is refused while the server holds more files than the smaller plan has disk for. Immediate refunds are not offered in a month in which you have already moved plan, because that month was paid in more than one part; a move at the end of the month is still available. Plans paid in cryptocurrency cannot be moved.
Instead of a refund to your card, you can choose to have the unused time added to your account credit, less a 5p fee instead, because no card processing charge is lost. This option is still offered close to renewal, as long as at least 1p would be added, but it counts towards the same one-per-30-days allowance. Account credit is described below.
If you are a consumer in the United Kingdom, you have a separate legal right to cancel a new subscription within 14 days of taking it out and to be refunded, reduced only in proportion to the service you have already received. That right is not affected by the limits in the paragraph above: inside those 14 days we will not deduct the fee, and the cancellation will not count against your one-in-30-days allowance. Nothing in these terms removes or restricts it.
If a payment fails, your server keeps running and we keep trying your card. If it is still unpaid after 24 hours the server is paused. It is not deleted at that point, your files are untouched, and it starts again by itself as soon as a payment succeeds.
When a subscription ends for good — whether you cancelled it or it could not be paid — your server returns to the free plan and keeps all of its files, provided you have a free server slot available for it. If you do not, the server stays suspended and we will email you the date on which it would be deleted, which is at least seven days later. You can prevent that by subscribing again or by freeing up a slot before then.
If you raise a payment dispute with your bank, the server is suspended immediately while it is resolved.
You can also pay for a paid server in cryptocurrency, through our payment provider Plisio. A crypto payment buys the number of months you choose, in advance, and does not renew by itself: we email you a week and two days before the paid time runs out, and you renew by paying again. Months you pay for are added to the end of the time already paid for.
A crypto payment counts once Plisio confirms it has been received in full. A payment may be a little short of the amount on the invoice, to allow for network fees (currently up to 2.5%), and still count in full. A payment that is shorter than that, that arrives after the invoice has expired, or that does not match the invoice is not lost: we hold it, review it, and either apply it or refund it.
If the paid time runs out without a renewal, the server keeps its paid resources for 24 hours and is then paused. Seven days after the paid time ended, it moves to the free plan as described above. You can also choose not to renew, in which case it moves to the free plan when the paid time ends.
A crypto plan cannot be ended early for a refund of the unused time. Your right as a UK consumer to cancel within 14 days, described above, applies to it in the same way: email us at [email protected] and we will refund you in proportion to the time left. Crypto refunds are sent in the same cryptocurrency, to an address you give us, and are the amount we received less the network fee for sending it.
From time to time we may offer an account a free month of a paid plan, such as to an account that has had a free server with us for a while. The offer says which plan, and how long it is open for. It can be used once per account and once per card, on any account, and cannot be combined with account credit or a promotion code. Paid by card, your card is saved when you take the offer, the first month costs nothing, and the plan then renews at its normal price each month until you downgrade; we email you a few days before the first charge. Paid in cryptocurrency, you get one month on top of the months you pay for. Because the free month itself costs nothing, there is nothing to refund for it, and its plan cannot be moved to another plan until the first paid month has started. We may withdraw or change the offer at any time before it is used, and take back a free month obtained through more than one account or by misusing the offer.
We may change the price. If we do, we will tell you by email at least 30 days before it affects you, and you may cancel before it takes effect.
Paid databases
A paid database plan gives a database more disk, more connections at once and longer queries for a monthly fee. The plans, their prices and their limits are shown on our paid databases page and before you buy. Each paid database is billed separately, there is no limit on how many you may have, and they do not count towards the number of free databases your account is allowed.
Payments are taken by Stripe, as for servers. Nothing is charged until the database has been created on its plan, or moved onto it, so if we cannot do that you have paid nothing.
Moving a database up to a larger plan takes effect straight away, and you pay the difference for the rest of the month. Moving it down, to a smaller plan or back to free, takes effect at your next renewal: it keeps its current plan until then, you are not charged for that plan again, and you may change your mind at any point before that date at no cost.
A move down is only accepted while the database fits the smaller plan. If it has grown past that by the time the move happens, it is suspended, which blocks connections to it without touching its data, until you move it back to a plan it fits. A move to free that it no longer fits is treated as a subscription ending, below.
Unlike a paid server, a paid database cannot be ended immediately for a refund of the unused time; moving it down is how you stop paying. If you delete a paid database, billing for it stops at once and the rest of that month is not refunded. Your separate legal right as a UK consumer to cancel a new subscription within 14 days, described in "Paid servers" above, applies to paid databases in the same way.
If a payment fails, the database keeps working and we keep trying your card. If it is still unpaid after 24 hours, the database is suspended. Its data is untouched, and it comes back by itself as soon as a payment succeeds.
When a subscription ends for good, whether you cancelled it or it could not be paid, the database moves to the free plan and keeps its data, provided it fits the free quota and you have a free database available for it. If not, it stays suspended and we will email you the date on which it would be deleted, which is at least seven days later. You can prevent that by subscribing again before then.
If you raise a payment dispute with your bank, the database is suspended immediately while it is resolved.
We may change the prices. If we do, we will tell you by email at least 30 days before it affects you, and you may cancel before it takes effect.
Account credit
Your account can hold a credit balance. Credit comes from rewards in our referral programme, from refunds you choose to take as credit, and occasionally from us. It is not money: it has no cash value, it cannot be paid out, refunded to a card or transferred to another account, and it can only be spent on your own account. Your balance and every change to it are shown on your billing page.
Credit is spent on your own bills only. If it covers a whole month of a paid server, you can buy the server with credit alone, without a card. That plan then renews from your credit each month while the balance covers it. If it does not, we email you, and you can renew in cryptocurrency instead; otherwise the server is paused 24 hours after its paid month ends and moves to the free plan seven days after, as described for crypto plans above. A promotion code cannot be used on a purchase paid with credit; pay by card or crypto to use one.
Credit can also be taken off a crypto payment. If your credit does not cover the whole payment, enough is left to pay in crypto that the payment is worth sending (currently at least 25p). Credit taken off a crypto payment that is never paid is given back.
If you pay for a server or database by card, spare credit is moved to your balance with our payment provider, Stripe, where it is taken off your next card bills before your card is charged. Credit kept for any plan you pay for with credit stays in your account. Once credit has moved to Stripe it stays there and is used on card bills only.
A plan paid for with credit can be ended early, with the unused time returned to your credit less the 5p fee, under the same one-per-30-days allowance. Your right as a UK consumer to cancel within 14 days, described in "Paid servers", is not affected.
We may correct a balance that is wrong, and take back credit that was given in error, through a reward that turned out not to qualify (such as for a refunded or disputed payment), or through misuse of the service or the referral programme. A balance can go below zero as a result; later credit pays that off first. If your account is closed, any credit on it ends with it.
We may change how credit can be spent, or stop offering it. If we stop offering it, we will tell you at least 30 days before, and credit already on your account can still be spent on your bills during that time.
Eligibility
You must be at least 13 years old to use Silly Development. If the law where you live sets a higher age for consenting to online services, or a platform your project connects to sets a higher one, that higher age applies to you.
You must not use the service if you have previously been permanently banned from it.
To buy a paid server or a paid database plan you must be 18 or over, or have the permission of a parent or guardian who agrees to pay for it.
Your account
You are responsible for everything that happens under your account. Keep your password to yourself, and enable two-factor authentication if you can.
Give us accurate registration details. One person should hold one account: creating additional accounts in order to stack resource allocations is a breach of these terms and of our Acceptable Use Policy.
An API key that has not been used for 90 days is deleted, and we email you before that happens. You can make a new one at any time.
Tell us promptly at [email protected] if you believe someone else has accessed your account so we can lock it down. We will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to do so.
Your code and your data
Your project, its source code, and its data are your responsibility. We do not guarantee that it will work or be preserved.
You keep every right you have in your project. You give us permission to store, copy, run, back up and check it, only as far as that is needed to provide the service and enforce these terms. That permission ends when the project is deleted from our servers.
To keep the service safe for everyone on it, we run automated checks on what is hosted here, including the files on your server and how much of its resources it uses. Those checks can suspend a server on their own when something looks like a breach of the Acceptable Use Policy. If you think one got it wrong, reply to the notice and a person will look at it. We do not describe how the checks work in detail, because doing so would mainly help people get around them.
A person reads your files or console output only when that is needed to investigate something the automated checks or an abuse report have flagged, or to help you with a problem you have asked us about. We do not otherwise access them, and we do not share them with anyone else except as the Privacy Policy describes.
If your project has users of its own, such as the members of a server your bot is in or the people signing up to your web app, you are responsible to them for it. That includes keeping their data secure, handling it lawfully, and providing any terms or privacy notice your project needs. We provide the hosting and are not a party to that relationship.
You are responsible for having your own backups. We may keep backups for operational reasons, however these are not guaranteed to be complete or restorable, and we do not provide a way for you to access them. Any such backup is deleted within two weeks of being taken. That includes your databases: apart from the copy kept for a few days after you move one to another version, we do not back them up for you.
Acceptable use
Your use of the service is subject to our Acceptable Use Policy, which forms part of these terms. It sets out what you may not run on our infrastructure.
Availability
We aim to keep the service running as much as possible. We do not, however, offer a service level agreement or any uptime guarantee. That is true of paid servers and paid databases as well: paying for more memory or more disk buys you exactly that, not a promise about uptime, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
The service may be unavailable for maintenance, because something has broken, or because we have decided to stop offering it. We will give reasonable notice when we decide to shut it down. If we withdraw the service, or stop offering paid plans, we will refund the unused part of anything you have paid us.
Suspension and termination
We may suspend or terminate a free account or a free server whenever we feel the need to, for any reason. Subject to the "Liability" section below, we will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from that.
We will only suspend or terminate a paid server or a paid database for a valid reason: a breach of these terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, non-payment, a legal requirement, a risk to the service or its users, or our withdrawing the service or the paid plan.
If possible, we will warn you first and give you a chance to put things right. Serious cases — anything illegal, anything that puts other users at risk — may be actioned immediately and without notice.
Where we suspend or terminate a paid server or a paid database for any reason other than your breach of these terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, we will refund the unused part of the month. Suspension for non-payment is dealt with in "Paid servers" and "Paid databases" above and is not a termination.
A free server that is never used in the 7 days after it is created is deleted, so that somebody else can have the room. Starting it or opening its console counts as using it, and we normally email a warning a couple of days beforehand.
For the same reason, a free server that has been left idle is deleted: after 30 days if it holds no files, or after 90 days if it does. A server is idle while it has not run at all, not even for a moment, and nobody with access to it has done anything with it in the panel. We email you at least a week before it is deleted, with a link to keep it, and keeping it starts the clock again.
When somebody reports one of your servers to us, a member of staff looks at the report. If you can put it right, we may email you saying what needs to change and by when. Reply to that email to tell us what you did. Missing the date does not suspend anything by itself: staff look at the server again and decide.
We never tell the person who reported your server who you are, which server it was, or anything else about your account. They can see whether their report is still open and anything we choose to tell them about the outcome, nothing more.
A suspended server may be deleted. If it is going to be, we will email you the date before it happens.
You may close your account at any time from your account settings, or by emailing us at [email protected]. It is deleted a week after you ask, and until then you can call it off from the link in the email we send you. While a paid server or paid database is still being paid for, end its plan first. When the account is deleted, all its data goes with it, including your files and databases, as the Privacy Policy describes. We may retain a minimal record of accounts terminated for serious abuse, in order to enforce the ban.
The platforms your project connects to
Discord, Minecraft server operators, Telegram, WhatsApp and anyone else your code talks to are nothing to do with us. We have no relationship with them, no influence over them, and no visibility into their decisions. Their terms apply to you separately from ours, and it is your responsibility to know them and to keep to them.
You are responsible for any account, token, number or credential your project uses. If one of those platforms restricts, suspends, bans or deletes an account, a number or a bot of yours, that is a matter between you and them. We are not liable for it, we cannot appeal it for you, and we cannot recover anything lost with it.
This matters most for automation a platform does not officially support. Where we host something of that kind we say so on the page for it, and we say plainly that we do not recommend it. Choosing to run it anyway is your decision and the consequences are yours.
No warranty
The service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, to the fullest extent the law allows. We do not warrant that it will be uninterrupted, secure, or free from error, or that any data stored on it will be preserved.
Liability
Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. If you are a consumer, nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights.
Subject to that, we are not liable to you for loss of profit, loss of business, loss of data, or any indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of or inability to use the service. Where the service is provided to you free of charge, that is the whole of our liability. Where you are paying for a server or a database, our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the amount you have paid us for that server or database in the twelve months before the claim arose.
That includes the loss of any third-party account, number, token or bot used by, or affected by, something you ran here. See "The platforms your project connects to" above.
Changes
We may update these terms. Where a change materially affects you we will give notice through the panel or by email before it takes effect.
If you are paying for a server or a database and do not accept a change that materially affects you, you may cancel before it takes effect and we will refund the unused part of the month, without the fee described in "Paid servers". Otherwise, continuing to use the service after a change takes effect means you accept the revised terms.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and disputes shall fall to the courts of England and Wales. If you are a consumer resident elsewhere in the UK, you may bring proceedings in your local court instead.