Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Heroku VS Cyclic

Compare Heroku VS Cyclic and see what are their differences

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.

Cyclic logo Cyclic

Full stack Serverless Hosting - Build, Deploy and Host Full Stack JS/TS/nodejs Apps
  • Heroku Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05
  • Cyclic Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-19

There are no servers, no containers, no images, no hours to count. Each app is deployed entirely on serverless cloud infrastructure.

No Sleep

Even with free tier. Apps do not have to sleep, wake up, spin up or recycle. All front-ends and back-ends are ready on-demand, immediately and at all times.

No Overload

Containers make traffic a constant concern because resources are shared across concurrent requests.

On Cyclic, serverless functions are allocated to each individual request on demand, making it possible for your apps to hyper scale.

On Cyclic free tier, an individual 1GB RAM compute instance handles each separate http request. For a single request, this is about ~2x cpu/memory compared to popular container platforms. In a 10 concurrent request scenario, this comparison results in ~200x or 100GB RAM available system compute - on free tier!

Cloud-scale Database and Storage

Database and storage on free tier. 1GB of AWS S3 file object storage as well as a 1GB AWS DynamoDB NoSQL database are available for all apps. Cyclic makes it simple to use the services without having to set up an AWS account. To make using the AWS database even easier, check out our open source DynamoDB SDK

Worldwide

Apps can be launched around the world to make sure your users see the least latency. Apps can also be launched across the world to minimize downtime with default active-active failover strategy.

Heroku

Website
heroku.com
$ Details
-
Platforms
-
Release Date
-

Cyclic

Website
cyclic.sh
$ Details
free
Platforms
Node JS
Release Date
2021 July

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.

Cyclic features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Cyclic provides a straightforward interface and setup process, making it accessible for developers to deploy and manage apps quickly without extensive configuration.
  • Automated Deployments
    Cyclic supports automated deployments from source code repositories, enabling continuous integration and faster iteration cycles for developers.
  • Scalability
    The platform offers scalability options, allowing applications to handle varying loads without the need for manual intervention.
  • Built-in Monitoring
    Cyclic includes monitoring tools that provide insights into application performance and resource usage, helping developers to proactively manage their services.
  • Cost-Effective
    The service provides various pricing tiers that can be cost-effective for different stages of business growth, offering flexibility in resource usage.

Possible disadvantages of Cyclic

  • Limited Customization
    Cyclic's ease of use can come at the cost of customization, offering fewer options for developers who need extensive configuration capabilities.
  • Dependence on Third-party Integrations
    The platform relies heavily on third-party integrations, which might necessitate additional setup and maintenance efforts from users.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While basic deployment is straightforward, there might be a learning curve associated with some of the more advanced features for inexperienced users.
  • Potential Service Limitations
    Certain features and scalability options might be limited compared to larger cloud providers, which can impact very large or complex deployments.

Analysis of Heroku

Overall verdict

  • Heroku is a solid choice for developers seeking a straightforward, cloud-based solution for deploying and managing applications. However, it may not be the most cost-effective option for large-scale or data-intensive applications.

Why this product is good

  • Heroku is a popular platform as a service (PaaS) due to its ease of use, fast deployment process, and robust support for multiple programming languages. It allows developers to focus on building applications without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. Heroku offers scaling capabilities, a wide variety of add-ons, and a strong developer community.

Recommended for

    Heroku is recommended for startups, small to medium-sized applications, hobby projects, and developers who value ease of use and quick deployment cycles. It is particularly suited for those who are developing web applications in languages such as Ruby, Node.js, Python, and others supported by the platform.

Heroku videos

What is Heroku | Ask a Dev Episode 14

More videos:

Cyclic videos

Cyclic Intro

More videos:

  • Review - Burton [ak] Cyclic GORE-TEX Shell Snowboard Jacket (Men's) | W22/23 Product Review
  • Tutorial - Cyclic mod pack review and tutorial Minecraft, 1.16.5 + 1.17.1
  • Review - Burton Cyclic Jacket Review 2020

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Heroku and Cyclic)
Cloud Computing
97 97%
3% 3
Cloud Hosting
92 92%
8% 8
Developer Tools
92 92%
8% 8
VPS
100 100%
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 Cyclic

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.
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...
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).
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.

Cyclic Reviews

We have no reviews of Cyclic yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Heroku should be more popular than Cyclic. It has been mentiond 73 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 / 8 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 / 12 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 / almost 2 years 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
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Cyclic mentions (21)

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What are some alternatives?

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

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

Railway - Made for any language, for projects big and small.

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

Vercel - Vercel is the platform for frontend developers, providing the speed and reliability innovators need to create at the moment of inspiration.

Amazon AWS - Amazon Web Services offers reliable, scalable, and inexpensive cloud computing services. Free to join, pay only for what you use.

Fly.io - Edge computing is the new frontier.