DEV Community: PlainTOS App The latest articles on DEV Community by PlainTOS App (@plaintos_app_fd54e75a054e). https://dev.to/plaintos_app_fd54e75a054e https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3925337%2Fa4ccb31c-5435-4ad2-a924-f97527d181a5.png DEV Community: PlainTOS App https://dev.to/plaintos_app_fd54e75a054e en I built a free tool that shows what AI bots are really costing your server PlainTOS App Mon, 11 May 2026 15:51:19 +0000 https://dev.to/plaintos_app_fd54e75a054e/i-built-a-free-tool-that-shows-what-ai-bots-are-really-costing-your-server-3546 https://dev.to/plaintos_app_fd54e75a054e/i-built-a-free-tool-that-shows-what-ai-bots-are-really-costing-your-server-3546 <h2> The problem </h2> <p>If you run a website, AI crawlers are hitting it <br> constantly. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Bytespider, CCBot — <br> they scrape your content 24/7 for training data and <br> search indexing. You pay the bandwidth bill. They <br> get your content for free.</p> <p>The frustrating part is most developers have no idea <br> how much of their server bill is pure bot waste until <br> they actually look at their logs.</p> <h2> What I built </h2> <p>BotCost.dev is a free browser-based log analyzer. <br> You drag and drop your server log file and it shows <br> you exactly:</p> <ul> <li>Which AI bots are hitting your site</li> <li>How many requests each one made</li> <li>How much bandwidth each one consumed</li> <li>Estimated monthly cost in dollars</li> <li>A ready-to-paste Cloudflare WAF rule or Nginx config to block them</li> </ul> <h2> The privacy part </h2> <p>Everything runs in your browser. Your log file never <br> leaves your device. We have no server that receives <br> it. You can verify this yourself by opening your <br> browser Network tab while running an analysis — you <br> will see zero upload requests.</p> <p>Supports Nginx, Apache, Cloudflare CSV export, and <br> Vercel JSON logs.</p> <h2> Try it </h2> <p>botcost.dev — free, no account required.</p> <p>Would love feedback from anyone who tries it on real <br> logs. Curious what bot percentages people are seeing <br> in the wild.</p> webdev javascript security devops