I want to express my lack of trust and frustration with the way OutSystems manages personal environments.
As users, we rely on these environments not only for learning but also to enrich the ecosystem with meaningful components. In my case, I even maintain a trusted component, which makes it even more disappointing to see my environment repeatedly deleted.
This is especially frustrating because I shouldn’t have to constantly worry about losing my work or my contributions. To make matters worse, the “Try Now” feature in Forge—which is very helpful for community members exploring and testing components—points directly to my personal environment. When that environment disappears, it undermines both my component and the experience of other developers who are trying to use it.
I believe OutSystems should reconsider how personal environments are managed for contributors who add value to the platform. At the very least, there should be more transparency, longer retention, or exceptions for environments tied to published Forge components.
Please take this into account. For active community members and component publishers, stability and reliability of our personal environments are not just a convenience—they’re essential.
I agree. Every couple of weeks my account also gets suspended. Since I need my personal environment for maintaining my Forge component and its demo, it’s really frustrating to wake it up again and again just to keep things running.
Hello.
There have been some talks around this topic for years now. Maybe since PE were launched. You can see a lot of ideas for PEs. https://www.outsystems.com/ideas/?page=1&q=personal+environment&t=&s=&c=&o=trending
But the main pains are "Sleep" and "Space".
PEs are given for free and they have a cost to OS. based on usage, it makes sense to disable 90% of them every two weeks.
Forge creators and Try Now button is the most relevant issue. In ODC it was fixed by providing a shared environment to active creators.
Would having a component be enough to keep the PE up? No. I also moderate Forge submissions and some apps don't deserve to be in the Forge, let alone to have a demo.
Some other criteria could be used but community ranking of author doesn't align with usage of Forge, and number of downloads can be manipulated (we know who you are).
The best option would be some voting system where we say "this person needs to have a full time PE". But who can say that? Based on what? At the moment Forge/Forum/Ideas moderation is done by a few MVPs on their free time. We can't keep asking the same people to do everything around here.
Keep your ideas coming as OS will see it. That part I can guarantee ;)
Hi, Pedro.
Thanks for raising this.
Your feedback is spot on and it’s aligned how we are thinking about the next evolution of personal environments. Really appreciate your contributions to the community and for pushing us on this.
Ângela
Hi all,
Thanks for sharing your insights and keeping this discussion alive. I completely understand the concerns around costs and potential abuse — I had also assumed that was the root cause behind the current approach.
One idea that came to mind was the possibility of linking personal environment retention to community contributions. Specifically, having a trusted badge on your Forge components already serves as a strong indicator that your contributions are meaningful and valuable to the ecosystem.
Of course, this raises the question of fairness for other contributors who may not yet have a trusted badge. But I believe this kind of policy would not only recognize those who already contribute high-quality components, it could also encourage more developers to create meaningful Forge content. Naturally, this might also lead to more trusted badge requests — but that seems like a positive side effect if it grows the quality and value of Forge overall.