Cloud · alternatives
Alternatives to Heroku
24 cloud tools sit alongside Heroku in this directory. Below is what separates each from Heroku on the figures we hold, price, model, tier count and rating, and a direct comparison for every one.
- Alternatives listed
- 24
- With a free tier
- 22
- Cheaper to start
- 4
- Heroku starts at
- $5/month
Why people look past Heroku
Only what the record supports. Each point below is a figure on the Heroku entry measured against the tools listed beside it.
There is no free tier
The record for Heroku carries no free tier, so evaluating it means paying first. 22 of the 24 alternatives below can be used without paying.
Cost climbs steeply across the tiers
Heroku publishes 5 tiers, from $5/month up to $250/month. Teams that outgrow the entry plan can find the next rung a large step, the Heroku pricing page breaks each one down.
What each alternative does differently
Ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry. Differences are drawn from price, pricing model, tier count and rating, the fields the category listing carries. For a feature-level difference, follow the head-to-head link on each card: those pages read both full records.
The developer cloud
- Can be used without paying; Heroku cannot.
- Starts $1 a month cheaper, at $4/month.
- Sold on a usage-based model rather than subscription.
Composable observability platform
- Can be used without paying; Heroku cannot.
- Starts $14 a month dearer, at $19/month.
- 3 tiers to Heroku's 5.
Serverless Postgres for modern developers
- Can be used without paying; Heroku cannot.
- Starts $5 a month cheaper, at Free.
- 3 tiers to Heroku's 5.
The leading cloud computing platform
- Can be used without paying; Heroku cannot.
- Starts $5 a month cheaper, at Free.
- Sold on a usage-based model rather than subscription.
- 2 tiers to Heroku's 5.
Open source distributed block storage for Kubernetes, incubating at the CNCF
- Can be used without paying; Heroku cannot.
- Sold on a Open source, no licence fee model rather than subscription.
- 1 tier to Heroku's 5.
Kubernetes operator that deploys and manages Ceph storage clusters
- Can be used without paying; Heroku cannot.
- Sold on a Open source, no licence fee model rather than subscription.
- 1 tier to Heroku's 5.
Every Heroku alternative at a glance
A dash means the catalogue entry carries no figure, not that the answer is nothing.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Tiers | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heroku (this page) | $5/month | Subscription | 5 | |
| DigitalOceanThe developer cloud | Free, then $4/month | Usage-based | - | vs Heroku |
| Grafana CloudComposable observability platform | Free, then $19/month | - | 3 | vs Heroku |
| NeonServerless Postgres for modern developers | Free | - | 3 | vs Heroku |
| AWS (Amazon Web Services)The leading cloud computing platform | Free | Usage-based | 2 | vs Heroku |
| Longhorn | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| Rook | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| OpenEBS | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| CapRover | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| Infracost | Free, then $250/month | Free open source tool, then per month by run volume | 4 | vs Heroku |
| Dokku | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 2 | vs Heroku |
| Coolify | Free, then $5/month | Open source, no licence fee | 2 | vs Heroku |
| Zipkin | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| HAProxy | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| Thanos | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| Flux | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| Kustomize | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| Rancher | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| VictoriaMetrics | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| Caddy | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| Cilium | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| Jaeger | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| Linkerd | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Heroku |
| Portworx | $0.33/node hour | Per node hour | 2 | vs Heroku |
| Qovery | On request | Quote | 3 | vs Heroku |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry; Softwr hosts no reviews of these products. How each figure is used is set out on the Heroku badges page.
Cheaper ways to solve the same problem
Free to start (22)
These publish a tier that costs nothing, so they can be evaluated before any money changes hands.
- DigitalOcean , Free, then $4/month
- Grafana Cloud , Free, then $19/month
- Neon , Free
- AWS (Amazon Web Services) , Free
- Longhorn , Free
- Rook , Free
- OpenEBS , Free
- CapRover , Free
Cheaper than Heroku (4)
Entry price under Heroku's $5/month. The record does not say what unit that price is charged in, so confirm per-seat versus flat rate before comparing budgets.
- DigitalOcean , Free, then $4/month
- Neon , Free
- AWS (Amazon Web Services) , Free
- Portworx , $0.33/node hour
What you would be giving up
Heroku is most often brought in for application hosting, database as a service, ci/cd pipelines, api deployment. Anything replacing it has to cover the ones you actually depend on, and a cheaper tool that misses one of them is not cheaper.
Two things this page cannot settle. It compares on price, model, tier count and rating, because those are the fields the category listing carries, feature-level differences need both full records, which is what the head-to-head pages load. And the ratings are third-party aggregates imported with each entry rather than reviews written here, so a 0.2 difference between two tools is noise rather than a finding.
If Heroku is broadly right and the question is cost, the Heroku pricing breakdown covers every tier and what each one adds. If you want the whole field rather than a shortlist, the Cloud category lists everything the directory holds, and best cloud tools ranks them.
Heroku runs on web, api, workers. Platform coverage is not carried on the category listing for the alternatives, so it is one more thing to check on each head-to-head page rather than here.
Questions about Heroku alternatives
- What are the main alternatives to Heroku?
- 24 other cloud tools are listed in this directory, led by DigitalOcean, Grafana Cloud, Neon, AWS (Amazon Web Services). They are ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry, not by any Softwr ranking.
- What is the best free alternative to Heroku?
- 22 of the alternatives listed here can be used without paying: DigitalOcean, Grafana Cloud, Neon, AWS (Amazon Web Services), Longhorn.
- Is there a cheaper alternative to Heroku?
- Yes. 4 of the alternatives below start under Heroku's $5/month: DigitalOcean at Free, then $4/month, Neon at Free, AWS (Amazon Web Services) at Free, Portworx at $0.33/node hour.
- Why do people look for an alternative to Heroku?
- On the figures on record, 2 things stand out: there is no free tier; cost climbs steeply across the tiers. Each is set out with the numbers behind it above.
- What would I give up by switching from Heroku?
- Heroku is most often brought in for application hosting, database as a service, ci/cd pipelines, api deployment. Anything you replace it with has to cover the ones you actually rely on, the side-by-side comparisons linked from each alternative below put the two feature records against each other.
- Is there an open-source alternative to Heroku?
- None of the cloud tools listed here are recorded as open source. That is what the licence field on each entry says, and the field is not always filled in, so it is worth checking directly for any tool you are serious about.
- How were these Heroku alternatives chosen?
- They are the tools filed in the same category, Cloud, ordered by the aggregated rating on each entry. There is no editorial shortlist, and nothing on this page is paid: no sponsored placement runs on alternatives pages and the order cannot be bought. Softwr has not used these products.
- Where can I compare Heroku against one of these directly?
- Every alternative below has a side-by-side page against Heroku covering price, platforms, features and what each one is used for. Those pages read the full record for both products rather than the summary shown here.
- Does this list cover every cloud tool?
- No. It covers what this directory holds in the Cloud category, 24 tools beside Heroku. The category page lists the rest of the catalogue as it grows.