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Heroku VS Amazon AWS

Compare Heroku VS Amazon AWS and see what are their differences

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Heroku logo Heroku

Agile deployment platform for Ruby, Node.js, Clojure, Java, Python, and Scala. Setup takes only minutes and deploys are instant through git. Leave tedious server maintenance to Heroku and focus on your code.

Amazon AWS logo Amazon AWS

Amazon Web Services offers reliable, scalable, and inexpensive cloud computing services. Free to join, pay only for what you use.
  • Heroku Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05
  • Amazon AWS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-29

Heroku features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Heroku offers an extremely user-friendly interface and a high level of abstraction, making it easy for developers to deploy, manage, and scale applications without worrying about the underlying infrastructure.
  • Quick Deployment
    One of Heroku’s strongest points is the ability to deploy applications quickly using Git. Developers can push their code to Heroku with a simple command, streamlining the entire process.
  • Scalability
    Heroku provides effortless scaling options by allowing developers to add more dynos (containers) with a single command to handle increased traffic and workload.
  • Add-Ons Ecosystem
    Heroku offers a rich ecosystem of add-ons, such as databases, caching, monitoring, and more, which can be easily integrated into applications to extend their functionality.
  • Automatic Updates
    Heroku automatically handles operating system and server updates, allowing developers to focus solely on their application code rather than maintenance tasks.
  • Free Tier
    Heroku offers a free tier with sufficient resources to host small projects and learn the platform without incurring costs, making it accessible for beginners and small-scale applications.

Possible disadvantages of Heroku

  • Cost
    While Heroku offers a free tier, the costs can quickly add up for larger applications and professional use. Paid plans and additional dynos or add-ons can become expensive.
  • Performance
    Heroku’s performance can sometimes be suboptimal compared to other cloud providers, particularly when running high-performance or resource-intensive applications.
  • Limited Control
    Heroku abstracts away a lot of infrastructure management, which can be a downside for developers who need fine-grained control over their environments and configurations.
  • Dyno Sleeping
    Applications running on Heroku’s free tier experience 'dyno sleeping,' where the application goes to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity, causing a delay when it wakes up after receiving a new request.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    Relying heavily on Heroku’s ecosystem and platform-specific features can lead to vendor lock-in, making it challenging to migrate to another platform if needed.
  • Add-On Costs
    The costs for add-ons can also become significant, as many useful features and integrations require paid add-ons, increasing the overall expense.

Amazon AWS features and specs

  • Scalability
    AWS offers highly scalable services, allowing businesses to easily adjust resources based on demand without significant upfront investment.
  • Comprehensive Service Offering
    AWS provides a wide range of services, from compute and storage to machine learning and analytics, catering to diverse business needs.
  • Global Reach
    With data centers located worldwide, AWS enables low-latency access and redundancy, supporting global operations.
  • Strong Security
    AWS has robust security measures, including compliance certifications, encryption, and physical security, ensuring data and infrastructure protection.
  • Pay-as-You-Go Pricing
    AWS offers a flexible pricing model, where users only pay for what they use, helping manage costs effectively.
  • Extensive Integration Options
    AWS integrates with a wide variety of third-party services and APIs, providing seamless integration capabilities for various applications.
  • Innovation
    AWS frequently releases new services and features, staying at the forefront of technology and providing users with cutting-edge tools.

Possible disadvantages of Amazon AWS

  • Cost Management Complexity
    While the pay-as-you-go model offers flexibility, it can be challenging to track and predict costs, especially for large-scale operations.
  • Learning Curve
    AWS has a comprehensive set of services and features, which can be overwhelming for new users to learn and manage effectively.
  • Potential Vendor Lock-In
    Relying heavily on AWS services may result in vendor lock-in, making it difficult to switch providers or migrate workloads in the future.
  • Service Limitations
    Certain AWS services might have limitations or restrictions, which could hinder specific use cases or require workarounds.
  • Support Costs
    AWS offers different support tiers, and premium support options can be expensive for businesses needing immediate and advanced technical assistance.
  • Performance Variability
    Performance can vary based on server load and geographic location, which may affect the consistency and reliability of certain services.
  • Complex Pricing Structure
    AWS's pricing structure can be complicated, with various pricing models and options making it hard to determine the most cost-efficient choice.

Heroku videos

+ Add

What is Heroku | Ask a Dev Episode 14

More videos:

Amazon AWS videos

+ Add

Amazon Web Services vs Google Cloud Platform - AWS vs GCP | Difference Between GCP and AWS

More videos:

  • Review - Are AWS Certifications worth it?
  • Review - AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Certification Will Get You Paid!

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Heroku and Amazon AWS)

Heroku

Amazon AWS

Cloud Computing
37 37%
Cloud Computing
63% 63
Cloud Hosting
61 61%
Cloud Hosting
39% 39
Cloud Infrastructure
0 0%
Cloud Infrastructure
100% 100
Developer Tools
100 100%
Developer Tools
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Heroku and Amazon AWS

Heroku Reviews

  1. mark-mercer
    Useful Cloud Platform

    Great service to build, run and manage applications entirely in the cloud!

    🏁 Competitors: Amazon AWS, Dokku on Digital Ocean, Firebase
    👍 Pros:    Easy user interface|Good customer service|Multi-language cloud application platform
    👎 Cons:    Limitation with some addons|Low network performance
  2. jamestelford
    · Full Stack Developer at OutDev ·
    🏁 Competitors: Docker, Amazon AWS
    👍 Pros:    Powerful development environments|Great value for the money|Great customer support|Paas
10 Top Firebase Alternatives to Ignite Your Development in 2024
Heroku’s focus on simplicity and developer experience makes it a perfect fit for those who want to focus on building their apps, not babysitting servers. Startups and small businesses, in particular, can benefit from Heroku’s ability to accelerate development and deployment, allowing them to get their ideas to market faster.
Source: genezio.com
2023 Firebase Alternatives: Top 10 Open-Source & Free
Heroku Postgres – Majority of businesses like Heroku because of its SQL database support. Yes, PostgreSQL as a service is an appealing product of this PaaS vendor with quick deployment approaches.
Source: digitalcruch.com
5 Free Heroku Alternatives with Free Plan for Developers
Koyeb is a decent alternative to Heroku that you can consider for hosting or deploying your web apps and APIs. It has all the features of Heroku that you will need for your projects. So far, I have not encountered an importer tool for migrating Heroku deployments but I am sure doing that manually will not be that hard. Just like Heroku it offers you an intuitive web UI as...
Source: www.ilovefreesoftware.com
Choosing the best Next.js hosting platform
However, there are a few disadvantages to Heroku. First of all, despite its build pack, Heroku will run your project as a Node.js application. As a result, you will lose some of Next.js’ most interesting features, such as Incremental Static Regeneration. Analytics are replaced by metrics and measured throughput, response time, and memory usage (only on paid plans).
Source: blog.logrocket.com
Top 10 Netlify Alternatives
Heroku is another alternative to Netlify that doesn’t only host static websites but has the ability to host dynamic websites. This PaaS platform was launched in 2007 and conferred highly scalable features to deploy, host and launch applications.
Source: blog.back4app.com

Amazon AWS Reviews

  1. macloughlin
    · AV engineer ·
    The best cloud platform out there

    You could say a lot of things about AWS, but among the cloud platforms (and I've used quite a few) AWS takes the cake. It is logically structured, you can get through its documentation relatively easily, you have a great variety of tools and services to choose from [from AWS itself and from third-party developers in their marketplace]. There is a learning curve, there is quite a lot of it, but it is still way easier than some other platforms. I've used and abused AWS and EC2 specifically and for me it is the best.

    👍 Pros:    Great documentation|Website structure visualization|You have control over everything|Flexibility
    👎 Cons:    Learning curve|A lot of dashboards for different things
Top 15 MuleSoft Competitors and Alternatives
API Gateway private endpoints allow AWS customers to use API endpoints inside their VPC. They can leverage Route 53 resolver endpoints and hybrid connectivity to access APIs and integrated backend services from on-premises clients.
Source: bstrategyhub.com
Best Dedicated Server Providers in India: A Comparative Analysis
Dedicated hosts on Amazon EC2 are physical servers that are completely dedicated to meeting corporate compliance standards. With AWS, you can create EC2 instances on a dedicated server. The flexibility offered by Amazon EC2 is definitely one of its biggest advantages, along with high scalability. Apart from that, it isn’t much better than dedicated servers.
Source: moralstory.org
Best Dedicated Server Providers for E-commerce Businesses in India
The dedicated server options from Amazon Web Services (AWS), a well-known brand in the tech industry, are equally excellent. AWS’s elastic infrastructure can smoothly adjust to your demands whether your e-commerce business encounters variable traffic or you expect quick development. AWS guarantees that the speed and performance of your website will always be unmatched thanks...
Source: pricealertbd.com
The Best Dedicated Server Operating System for UK-Based Business
Cloud computing behemoth AWS is renowned for its extensive infrastructure and scalability choices. You can make use of AWS’s numerous data centers, which are positioned strategically to offer low-latency services all across the UK.
Source: featurestic.com
The Best Dedicated Servers for Enterprise Businesses in India: Scalable and Reliable
The extensive selection of cloud-based solutions offered by AWS is one of its main advantages. AWS provides a wide range of cloud services, including computing power, storage choices, databases, machine learning, analytics tools, and dedicated servers. This adaptability enables businesses to create scalable, flexible, and affordable solutions customized to their needs.
Source: india07.in

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Amazon AWS should be more popular than Heroku. It has been mentiond 443 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Heroku mentions (73)

  • How to deploy your web application? 3 different approaches to consider (+1 bonus)
    Providers include Digital Ocean, Heroku or Render for example. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Heroku Reviews Apps prevent delivering bugs on production
    Review Apps run the code in any GitHub PR in a complete, disposable Heroku application. Review Apps each have a unique URL you can share. It’s then super easy for anyone to try the new code. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • How to keep an HTTP connection alive for 9 hours
    The app is deployed to Heroku and when it came time to switch the mode to email-on-account-creation mode, it was a very simple environment change:. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • How to Process Scheduled Queue Jobs in Node.js with BullMQ and Redis on Heroku
    Heroku is a cloud platform that makes it easy to deploy and scale web applications. It provides a number of features that make it ideal for deploying background job applications, including:. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • I made a Bot.. How do I use it?
    Once you've created it you can host it locally (this means leaving the program running on your computer) or host it through a service online. I haven't personally tried this yet, but I believe you can use a site like heroku.com or other similar services. Source: almost 2 years ago
View more

Amazon AWS mentions (443)

  • How to Host an Express App on AWS EC2 with NGINX (Free Tier Guide)
    Sign in to your AWS account. If you’re new to AWS, you can sign up for the free tier to get started without any upfront cost. - Source: dev.to / 21 days ago
  • Understanding AWS Regions and Availability Zones: A Guide for Beginners
    Amazon Web Services (AWS) has completely changed the game for how we build and manage infrastructure. Gone are the days when spinning up a new service meant begging your sys team for hardware, waiting weeks, and spending hours in a cold data center plugging in cables. Now? A few clicks (or API calls), and yes — you've got an entire data center at your fingertips. - Source: dev.to / 15 days ago
  • AWS S3 Storage Classes Explained: Choosing the Right One
    Choosing the right AWS S3 storage class depends on how frequently you access your data and your cost constraints. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Deploy a Django Rest Api on AWS EC2 using Docker, NGINX, Gunicorn and GitHub Action.
    Let’s start by setting up an EC2 instance to deploy our application. To do this, and you’ll need to open an AWS account (if you don’t already have one). - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • AWS Solution Architect Job Description: Roles, Skills & Responsibilities (2025)
    The demand for cloud computing expertise continues to soar, and at the heart of many successful cloud implementations is the AWS Solution Architect. Amazon Web Services (AWS) dominates the cloud market, making professionals who can design, build, and manage solutions on its platform highly sought after. But what exactly does this role entail? Understanding the typical AWS Solution Architect job description is... - Source: dev.to / 19 days ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Heroku and Amazon AWS, you can also consider the following products

DigitalOcean - Simplifying cloud hosting. Deploy an SSD cloud server in 55 seconds.

Linode - We make it simple to develop, deploy, and scale cloud infrastructure at the best price-to-performance ratio in the market.

Microsoft Azure - Windows Azure and SQL Azure enable you to build, host and scale applications in Microsoft datacenters.

GoDaddy - GoDaddy makes registering Domain Names fast, simple, and affordable. Find out why so many business owners chose GoDaddy to be their Domain Name Registrar.

Bluehost - One of the largest and most trusted web hosting services powering millions of websites. Join Bluehost now and get a FREE domain name!

Google Cloud Platform - Google Cloud provides flexible infrastructure, end-to-security, modern productivity, and intelligent insights engineered to help your business thrive.

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