Secure your Render deployments with these essential practices. From environment variables to private services.
Verify your app follows these best practices automatically.
Render handles infrastructure security, but application security is your responsibility. These practices help you deploy securely on Render.
Never commit secrets to your repository. Use Render's environment variable management.
Add secrets in Render Dashboard → Service → Environment
Services that don't need public access should be private, accessible only within your Render network.
Set service type to 'Private Service' for internal APIs and workers
Consider whether automatic deploys are appropriate for production services.
Disable auto-deploy for production, use manual or branch-protected deploys
Validate authentication and authorization in every API endpoint.
Check auth tokens and user permissions at the start of each route
Use Render environments or separate services for production and staging.
Create separate services with different environment variables
Configure health checks to ensure only healthy instances receive traffic.
Configure health check path in Service Settings
Internal services don't need public internet access
Use private services for anything that only your other services access
Any push deploys immediately without review
Disable auto-deploy for production, require manual deployment
Staging can affect production data
Create separate services with isolated databases
Following best practices is the first step. Verify your app is actually secure with a comprehensive security scan.
Scan Your App FreeYes, Render encrypts environment variables. They're only exposed to your service and not visible in logs or the dashboard after creation.
Private services are only accessible within your Render network. They don't have public URLs and can only be reached by your other Render services.
Use internal database URLs when connecting from Render services. Enable SSL for all database connections.
Last updated: January 2026