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Heroku vs Longhorn

Heroku logo

Heroku

Cloud

Cloud Application Platform

From
$5/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Longhorn logo

Longhorn

Cloud

Open source distributed block storage for Kubernetes, incubating at the CNCF

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Longhorn has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Heroku there is no free dyno tier; the cheapest Eco dyno is $5 per month; Longhorn there is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.
  • They diverge on capability: Heroku covers Git-based deployment, Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Heroku and Longhorn actually diverge.

Attributes where Heroku and Longhorn differ
AttributeHerokuLonghorn
Starting price$5/monthFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, Api, WorkersLinux, Kubernetes
Founded2007Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cloud).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Heroku

  • Git-based deployment
  • Buildpacks
  • Dynos (containers)
  • Add-ons marketplace
  • Postgres database
  • Environment variables
  • Logging
  • API

Only in Longhorn

  • Per-volume controllers
  • Synchronous replication
  • Snapshots and backups
  • Volume expansion
  • Disaster recovery volumes
  • Web interface

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Heroku

  • Application hostingnot Longhorn
  • Database as a servicenot Longhorn
  • CI/CD pipelinesnot Longhorn
  • API deploymentnot Longhorn

Longhorn

  • An on-premises Kubernetes cluster with local disks and no SAN that needs replicated persistent volumesnot Heroku
  • Edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole clusternot Heroku
  • A K3s deployment where the storage layer must be light enough to run alongside the workloadsnot Heroku
  • A team that wants snapshots and S3 backups of persistent volumes without paying per-node storage licencesnot Heroku

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Heroku

  • There is no free dyno tier; the cheapest Eco dyno is $5 per month
  • Eco dynos sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity, are restricted to personal accounts and allow only 2 process types
  • Free SSL and 10 process types start at the Basic dyno at $7 per month
  • Private and Shield dyno types require a Private Space, which is billed on top of the dynos
  • Private Space dynos start at $250 per month for Private-M and $500 per month for Private-L
  • Dyno prices are per dyno per month, so an app with several process types multiplies the bill

Longhorn

  • There is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.
  • Synchronous replication across nodes means write latency depends on the slowest replica and the network between nodes, which makes it a poor fit for latency-sensitive databases.
  • Every replica is a full copy, so three-way replication consumes three times the raw capacity, unlike erasure-coded systems that are far more space efficient.
  • It is designed for block storage on modest clusters and does not scale to the node counts or throughput that Ceph or a commercial array handles, so growth eventually forces a migration.
  • Recovery from certain degraded states, such as a volume stuck detaching or replicas failing to rebuild, requires manual intervention and knowledge of Longhorn internals that is not widely held.

Pricing, plan by plan

Heroku

$5/month
  • Eco Dyno$5/month
    • 0.5 GB RAM
    • Git/Docker deploy
    • Custom domains
  • Basic Dyno$7/month
    • 0.5 GB RAM
    • Always-on
    • Free SSL
  • Standard-1X Dyno$25/month
    • 0.5 GB RAM
    • Horizontal scaling
    • App metrics
  • Standard-2X Dyno$50/month
    • 1 GB RAM
    • Horizontal scaling
    • App metrics

Longhorn

Free
  • LonghornFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed, no licence fee
    • Community support via GitHub and Slack only
    • No vendor SLA or escalation path

Which should you pick?

Choose Heroku if

  • You need git-based deployment.
  • You work on Web, Api, Workers.
  • You also want buildpacks.
Heroku review

Choose Longhorn if

  • You need per-volume controllers.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Kubernetes.
  • You also want synchronous replication.
Longhorn review

Questions people ask

Is Heroku or Longhorn better?
Neither clearly leads. Heroku starts at $5/month and Longhorn at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Heroku or Longhorn?
Longhorn has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $5/month for Heroku and Free for Longhorn.
Does Heroku or Longhorn run on more platforms?
Heroku runs on Web, Api, Workers. Longhorn runs on Linux, Kubernetes.
Can I use Longhorn for free?
Yes. Longhorn has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Heroku starts at $5/month.
What is Heroku best used for?
Heroku is most often used for application hosting, database as a service, ci/cd pipelines, api deployment. Of those, application hosting and database as a service are not what Longhorn is typically brought in for.
What can Heroku do that Longhorn cannot?
Heroku covers Git-based deployment, Buildpacks, Dynos (containers), Add-ons marketplace. Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, Synchronous replication, Snapshots and backups, Volume expansion.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Heroku: How much does Heroku cost?

Heroku dyno pricing starts at $5 per month USD for the Eco tier (with 30-minute inactivity sleep), $7 per month for Basic (always-on), and scales up to $1,500 per month for Performance-2XL with 126 GB RAM.

Source
Longhorn: Who do we call when it breaks?

Nobody, unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime, which includes commercial support for Longhorn. This is the decisive question for production use.

Heroku: What is the cheapest always-on Heroku plan?

The Basic Dyno at $7 per month USD is Heroku's cheapest always-on container option. It provides 0.5 GB RAM, free SSL, and support for 10 process types.

Source
Longhorn: How much capacity does replication cost?

Full copies, so three replicas means three times the raw capacity. Budget accordingly rather than assuming erasure coding efficiency.

Heroku: How is Heroku Postgres priced?

Heroku Postgres Essential tier (shared resources) starts at $5-$20 per month for 1-32 GB disk. Standard tier (dedicated) ranges $50-$12,000 per month. Premium, Private, Shield, and Advanced tiers offer higher performance at corresponding prices.

Source
Longhorn: Is it suitable for production databases?

For modest workloads yes, but synchronous replication adds write latency and high-transaction databases usually want something faster.

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