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Hosting your dapp on Chromia

Chromia offers a unique approach to resource management and fees that allows you to design user experiences on par with traditional Web2 applications. Instead of gas fees paid by users for every transaction, Chromia enables you to lease containers with a known amount of vCPU, RAM, storage, and I/O, similar to traditional cloud service providers without the drawbacks of centralization. You can pay manually or programmatically directly from the dapp, allowing you to design a fee structure and revenue model that makes sense for your dapp while maintaining decentralization.

Dapp containers and standard container units​

Dapps run in containers duplicated across all Chromia nodes in a cluster. Container capacity is measured in Standard Container Units (SCUs). One SCU consists of a specified amount of vCPU, RAM, storage, and I/O. When leasing a container, you select the resources your dapp needs in increments of SCU and pay to lease that container in increments of weeks. One SCU/week has a target USD cost. You pay in Chroma token (CHR), but the price in CHR depends on the current CHR/USD price to keep fees predictable even as the price of CHR fluctuates. The SCU/week USD cost target is set by network Providers by way of proposals and voting. Since each dapp has its own container and resources, issues or traffic spikes on other dapps don't affect the performance of your dapp.

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One SCU has 2 GB RAM, 0.5 vCPU, 16 GB storage, 25 MiB/s read IO, 20 MiB/s write IO, and a target cost of 88 USD per week in a default dapp cluster with seven nodes and access to an EVM bridge.

Predictable running costs​

The cost of running a dapp on Chromia is determined by;

  • the capacity of the dapp's container measured in SCUs,
  • extra storage required, if any,
  • the number of nodes in the cluster the container runs in,
  • extra features the cluster might have, such as access to an EVM bridge.

When you first lease a container and deploy a dapp, you pay manually in CHR. Future payments can be made programmatically directly from the dapp, allowing you to collect fees from users in various ways and build a decentralized dapp economy. If a dapp runs out of tokens to pay for hosting, anyone on the network can fund it manually.

Monetizing your dapp​

With Chromia's flexible fee structure, you have several options to generate revenue from your dapp:

  • Subscription model: Offer tiered access or features for a recurring fee.
  • Freemium model: Provide a basic version for free and charge for premium features.
  • Transaction fees: Charge users for specific actions or transactions within your dapp.

Provider rewards​

Providers receive compensation from a pool of all fees paid by dapps for containers on the network. The compensation a Provider receives is calculated based on several parameters, such as the number of SCUs contributed to the network, node uptime, and provider role (system provider or node provider). The reward calculation formula can be updated by a proposal as the network evolves and the optimal balance of parameters changes.