Are you looking to explore new and exciting cloud hosting options beyond Heroku? Look no further! Our latest blog post features the top 13 Heroku alternatives that offer a range of features to suit your needs. We've got you covered, from highly scalable platforms to more cost-effective solutions.
If you're a developer or a business owner looking for a cloud hosting platform, you've heard of Heroku. It's a popular Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider that offers an easy-to-use, scalable platform for hosting your applications and websites.
But what if you're looking for something different? Something that suits your needs and offers unique features that Heroku might not have?
In this blog, we will explore the top 13 Heroku alternatives you can consider for your cloud hosting needs. Whether you're looking for a more cost-effective solution, better scalability, or more customization options, there's a platform out there that's perfect for you.
So let’s get started! Here are the top 13 Heroku alternatives to choose from.
DigitalOcean App Platform
DigitalOcean App Platform is a flexible platform that allows you to easily deploy, scale, and manage applications. It simplifies the deployment process by offering a fully-managed platform that can deploy applications in minutes without requiring manual configuration.
With the DigitalOcean App Platform, you can deploy static sites, containerized applications, and databases with just a few clicks. It also provides automatic scaling to ensure your applications can handle traffic spikes.
Overall, the DigitalOcean App Platform is a powerful and easy-to-use alternative to Heroku for deploying and managing your applications.
DigitalOcean App Platform offers a free plan for users who want to test the platform's features before committing to a paid subscription. Here's what's included in their free plan:
Uptime checks: DigitalOcean App Platform's uptime checks monitor your application's health and notify you if your application goes down.
Container registry: You can store and manage your Docker images with the DigitalOcean App Platform's container registry.
Functions: Deploy serverless functions easily on DigitalOcean App Platform's free plan.
App platforms: The free plan allows you to deploy up to 3 static or container-based apps.
Support plans: DigitalOcean App Platform's free plan includes a basic support plan to help you with any issues.
Also Read: What is Containerization in DevOps?
Humalect
Humalect is a free Heroku Alternative and a reliable self-service DevOps Automation platform. It helps you create the best solutions for the most common DevOps scenarios. Humalect offers a pre-configured infrastructure to deploy your application and monitor it.
This provides better visibility into your infra and deployment lifecycles, promises faster release cycles, better cost control through auto scalability, and improved developer productivity.
One of the amazing features of Humalect is that it doesn't lock you in. Everything stays in your cloud account, offering built-in support for creating terraform Dockerfile and YAML templates.
You can also benefit from in-built logging and metrics for quick debugging and integrations with leading tools for deeper insights.
Overall, Humalect can save you from migration debt and help you create scalable infrastructure with full visibility via integrations.
Humalect's FREE FOREVER plan allows you to easily deploy your application on your cloud account without any restrictions. Here's what you will get:
Deploy your application on your cloud account
Unlimited environments
Unlimited users
1 Kubernetes cluster
3 Git repositories
Grafana and Datadog integration
Unlimited deployments
Automated SSL
Custom domains
Unlimited databases
Built-in metrics and logs
Community support
Also Read: Best Practices for K8s
Render
Render is a cloud platform that offers an easy-to-use, scalable platform for hosting your applications and websites.
With Render, you can deploy any application or website, including static sites, databases, and Docker containers.
Render also offers a generous free tier and affordable pricing plans, making it an excellent choice for startups and small businesses.
One of the standout features of Render is its automatic scaling. This means that your applications will automatically scale up or down based on traffic, ensuring you always have the right resources available.
Render also offers automatic SSL certificates, meaning you can secure your applications with just a few clicks.
Render offers a generous free tier with a range of features and services. With Render's free alternative, you get the following:
100 GB of bandwidth per month
100 GB of storage
500 Build Minutes per month
Automatic SSL certificates
Automatic scaling
Unlimited services and deployments
A simple, easy-to-use dashboard
Support popular languages and frameworks, including Node.js, Python, Ruby, and more.
Fly.io
Fly.io is a global platform for deploying and running applications close to users. It provides a seamless experience for developers to deploy their applications in various languages, such as Ruby, Node.js, Python, and many more.
Fly.io takes care of the infrastructure, which allows developers to focus on building their applications and scaling them easily.
The platform is built on top of the edge computing concept, allowing developers to run their applications closer to their end-users, making them faster and more reliable.
Fly.io provides a range of features, including auto-scaling, load balancing, SSL termination, and built-in metrics and logs, making it easy for developers to manage their applications.
Fly.io doesn't offer a free plan but provides free resource allowances that apply to all plans. These free resources are enough to run a small full-stack app, full-time, for free.
The resources included for free on all plans are:
Up to 3 shared-CPU-1x 256mb VMs†
3GB persistent volume storage (total)
160GB outbound data transfer
Google App Engine
Google App Engine is a fully-managed serverless platform for building and deploying web applications and mobile backends. It supports several programming languages like Java, Python, Node.js, Go, and more.
It provides auto-scaling and automatic load balancing, allowing for better resource utilization and application performance. The platform is backed by Google's robust infrastructure, guaranteeing high availability and reliability.
Google App Engine seamlessly integrates with other Cloud services, such as Cloud SQL, Cloud Datastore, Cloud Storage, and Cloud Pub/Sub.
It also integrates with various third-party tools and services, such as Git, Jenkins, and Travis CI, to enable seamless deployment and continuous integration.
Google App Engine offers a free tier plan that provides limited resources for developers to get started with the platform.
28 instance hours per day
0.5 GB of standard storage per month
1 GB egress per day
1000 search operations per day
100 emails per day
Free access to Cloud Build, Cloud Functions, Stackdriver, and Cloud Source Repositories
Supports various programming languages, including Java, Python, PHP, and more
Automatic scaling and load balancing
Free SSL certificate
Access to Google's global network of data centers.
Deta
Deta is a serverless platform that offers a simple and seamless way to deploy and scale apps. With Deta, you can focus on building your app without worrying about infrastructure management.
The platform offers a full-stack solution, including a database, file storage, and authentication. It supports popular programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, and TypeScript.
One of the key features of Deta is its ease of use. The platform is designed to be simple and intuitive, allowing developers to start quickly.
It also provides various tools and services to help developers manage their applications. This includes an online code editor, a command-line interface, and a web-based dashboard.
The platform also integrates with popular developer tools such as Git and VS Code.
Deta offers a free alternative to Heroku for developers looking for a serverless platform to deploy and run their applications. Here are the features included in Deta's free plan:
500 MB of package storage
2000 CI/CD minutes per month
Unlimited public and private repositories
Community Support
Netlify
Netlify is a popular Heroku alternative for web developers seeking a free hosting platform. It offers a range of features for building, deploying, and managing web applications.
With Netlify, users can deploy static websites and serverless functions quickly. It also has a user-friendly interface that makes setting up and managing projects easy.
Netlify offers continuous deployment that automatically updates your website as soon as they are committed to the repository.
With Netlify, you can use your custom domains for your website, which means you can have your website hosted on your domain.
It also integrates with various version control systems such as Bitbucket, GitHub, and, GitLab, allowing developers to easily deploy their code.
With Netlify's pay-as-you-go model, users can start with the free plan and upgrade as they require additional resources or features. The free plan offers the following features:
Global edge network deployment
Live site previews with collaboration UI
Instant rollbacks to any version
Deployment of static assets and dynamic serverless functions
Pay-as-you-go pricing model
Custom domains with HTTPS by default
Continuous deployment and automated builds
Large media and form handling
Analytics and split testing capabilities
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
AWS Elastic Beanstalk is an AWS offering that lets developers deploy, manage, and scale applications easily. It allows developers to focus on writing code and not worry about the underlying infrastructure.
One of the USPs of Elastic Beanstalk is its flexibility, as it supports a wide range of programming languages and frameworks such as Java, .NET, Node.js, Python, Ruby, and more.
This makes it an ideal choice for teams with diverse technology stacks.
Elastic Beanstalk also integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon RDS, Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, and more, to provide developers with complete tools to build and deploy applications.
Unfortunately, AWS Elastic Beanstalk doesn't offer a free plan. However, they offer a 12-month free tier for new AWS customers, including various services such as Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, and more.
Elastic Beanstalk can use these services to create, deploy, and manage applications without incurring additional charges beyond the free tier limits.
Once the free tier is up, users can opt for the pay-as-you-go pricing model, which charges based on the usage of resources.
While this may not be a free plan, it can still be cost-effective for those who want to use AWS Elastic Beanstalk for their application deployment needs.
Also Read: AWS Cost Optimization Tools & Best Practices
Engine Yard
Engine Yard is a cloud platform for deploying and managing Ruby on Rails, Node.js, and PHP applications. It is a fully managed PaaS solution that provides developers the tools to build and deploy their applications quickly and easily.
One of the unique features of Engine Yard is its focus on automation. It automates many of the tasks involved in deploying and managing applications, such as load balancing, scaling, and monitoring, which saves developers time and reduces the risk of errors.
While Engine Yard does not offer a free plan, it offers a 14-day free trial that allows developers to test the platform and see if it meets their needs.
After the trial period, developers can choose from various pricing plans tailored to their specific needs.
Overall, Engine Yard is a powerful alternative to Heroku that provides developers with the tools to build and deploy their applications quickly and easily.
Vercel
Regarding a reliable Heroku alternative, Vercel is one of the top contenders. This platform offers an all-in-one workflow for building, previewing, and deploying static and dynamic sites.
Vercel provides a seamless developer experience with features like hot reloading, instant rollbacks, and automatic SSL certificates.
The platform supports popular front-end frameworks such as React, Vue.js, and Angular, and it also has built-in support for backend languages like Node.js and Go.
With Vercel's Git-based workflow, developers can easily deploy from their Git repositories, and the platform automatically builds and deploys each push.
It also offers a powerful CLI tool for local development and deployment.
Vercel offers a free plan perfect for developers who want to test their projects without incurring additional costs.
Deploy from CLI or personal git integrations
Built-in CI/CD
Automatic HTTPS/SSL
Previews for every git push
Azure App Service
Azure App Service is a cloud-based platform that allows developers to build, deploy, and scale web applications and APIs. It is one of the top alternatives to Heroku due to its flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.
With Azure App Service, developers can easily deploy web applications in .NET, Java, PHP, Node.js, Python, Ruby, etc.
One of the main advantages of Azure App Service is its seamless integration with other Azure services. It includes Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Storage.
This integration allows developers to easily access and manage their data and resources from a single platform. It improves the overall productivity of their development teams.
Azure App Service also offers a free plan that includes the following:
10 web, mobile, or API apps with 1 GB storage each
Free HTTPS and custom domains
Continuous deployment with GitHub, Bitbucket, or Visual Studio
Back4App
Back4App is a serverless platform for building, hosting, and scaling applications. It provides a range of features that make it easy for developers to build and deploy applications quickly, without worrying about infrastructure management.
The platform offers a full-stack solution, including a database, API hosting, and user authentication.
One of the key features of Back4App is its flexibility. The platform supports popular programming languages like JavaScript, Python, and Swift.
It also offers integration with popular developer tools such as Git and GitHub, making it easy for developers to deploy their code.
Back4App offers a free plan for developers who want to try the platform before committing to a paid plan. Here are the features included in Back4App's free plan:
0.25 CPU to power your applications
256 MB of memory for efficient performance
100 GB of data transfer for seamless connectivity
Shared CPU for collaborative and cost-effective computing
Deploy your applications from GitHub with ease
Use custom Docker containers for enhanced flexibility
Get community support to assist with any questions or issues
Host your applications in the USA region for reliable and secure performance
Railway
Railway is a cloud-based platform for developers that simplifies the process of building and deploying applications. It is a Heroku alternative that provides a seamless and user-friendly way to deploy applications.
With Railway, you can focus on your application's development and leave the infrastructure management to the platform.
Railway offers a full-stack solution, including a database, file storage, and authentication. It supports popular programming languages such as Node.js, Python, and Go.
The platform is also designed to be flexible, allowing users to deploy custom Docker containers.
It is well known for its ease of use. The platform is designed to be simple and intuitive, allowing developers to start quickly.
Railway offers a trial plan that allows developers to explore the platform without the hassle of providing credit card details.
This is a great way to fiddle around with the platform and decide if it's the right fit for your needs. Under their trial plan, you’ll get:
Try the platform without needing to provide credit card information
512 MB of RAM and shared CPU/container for your applications
1 GB of disk space, which is split between your services
$5 or 500 hours of usage, whichever limit is reached first
Deploys automatically shut off when the usage limit is reached
Community support available
Comprehensive documentation and access to the Discord community for additional support and resources.
Also Read: Know the Differences between Observability and Monitoring
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Heroku no longer free?
Heroku is no longer free to reduce fraud and abuse. The platform saw many users who would take advantage of the free plan for malicious purposes, such as running spam campaigns, hosting phishing sites, and crypto mining. To prevent this, Heroku implemented paid plans to deter abusive users and ensure a reliable service for its legitimate users.
What can I use instead of Heroku?
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Humalect
Google App Engine
DigitalOcean
Microsoft Azure
Platform. sh
Render
Netlify
Deta
Vercel
What is the AWS equivalent of Heroku?
The AWS equivalent of Heroku is AWS Elastic Beanstalk. It offers a similar platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution for deploying and managing web applications while providing greater flexibility and customization options.
