FlowFuse
Create 'testing' hosted instance in existing teams
Description
There are a few ways to create a free Node-RED instance on FlowFuse, including a trial of FFC Pro and a download of OSS Flow-Fuse.
This task is to create a trial hosted instance for existing teams.
User story: As a user, I want to be able to create a temporary, free testing instance, so that I can try out a new instance before I am billed for it
If users had a way to try out a new instance temporarily, this could encourage exploration with new instances, and lower the bar for designing better Node-RED architecture, as users would be more willing to spin up a temporary instance than one they would have to pay for immediately.
Proposal: allow each paying customer to create an instance in a new 'testing' mode. This would require the ability for the user to designate the instance as 'testing', and a way of limiting its duration (so that it doesn't simply amount to a free forever instance). Perhaps this could be done by limiting the total amount of time that a testing instance is running to three days per month.
Epic/Story
No response
Have you provided an initial effort estimate for this issue?
I have provided an initial effort estimate
I'm not convinced on the proposal, but open to discuss it further.
If a user is in a trial, they can create and second instance for 'free' during the trial. For 'Pro' teams, they can have up to 5 as part of the base cost, so they aren't restricted to gain experience of the value of multiple NR instances.
This is only really relevant to Starter teams that, since the last pricing change, are limited to one instance in the base cost. Once they are signed up and paying for an instance of Node-RED, they are already going to know what Node-RED can do for them. I'm not clear what the incentive is for a testing instance that would lead them to expanding their actual usage.
