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Heroku VS Microsoft Azure Functions

Compare Heroku VS Microsoft Azure Functions 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.

Microsoft Azure Functions logo Microsoft Azure Functions

Serverless, also known as FaaS (Function-as-a-Service), is a new approach to application development. FaaS is a form of serverless computing with an infrastructure managed by the provider to upload functions and use them on a pay-per-request basis.
  • Heroku Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05
  • Microsoft Azure Functions Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-09

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.

Microsoft Azure Functions features and specs

  • Scalability
    Azure Functions automatically scale based on demand, allowing you to handle massive workloads without manual intervention.
  • Cost-Effectiveness
    You are billed only for the time your code runs, making it cost-effective compared to maintaining always-on servers.
  • Simplified Deployment
    Azure Functions support a variety of languages and have integrations that simplify deployment and development.
  • Integrations
    Built-in integrations with Azure services, third-party services, and APIs make it easier to build complex workflows.
  • Event-Driven
    Triggers and bindings for a wide range of events (HTTP requests, database changes, event queues) make it versatile for different use cases.

Possible disadvantages of Microsoft Azure Functions

  • Cold Start Latency
    Functions can experience latency issues during 'cold starts' when they haven't been invoked for a while.
  • Debugging Challenges
    Debugging serverless functions can be more challenging compared to traditional applications due to the distributed nature of the architecture.
  • Vendor Lock-in
    Relying heavily on Azure-specific services and integrations may make it difficult to migrate to another platform.
  • Resource Limits
    There are limits on execution time, memory usage, and other resources which can impact performance for some applications.
  • Complexity in Monitoring
    Monitoring and logging require more setup and understanding compared to traditional applications, which might complicate operational workflows.

Heroku videos

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What is Heroku | Ask a Dev Episode 14

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Microsoft Azure Functions videos

No Microsoft Azure Functions videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Heroku and Microsoft Azure Functions)

Heroku

Microsoft Azure Functions

Cloud Computing
94 94%
Cloud Computing
6% 6
Cloud Hosting
89 89%
Cloud Hosting
11% 11
Developer Tools
93 93%
Developer Tools
7% 7
VPS
100 100%
VPS
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 Microsoft Azure Functions

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

Microsoft Azure Functions Reviews

We have no reviews of Microsoft Azure Functions yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Heroku should be more popular than Microsoft Azure Functions. 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 / 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
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Microsoft Azure Functions mentions (22)

  • Azure Functions with Python: Triggers
    Python developers can use Azure Functions to create lightweight, scalable, and efficient serverless applications. In this post, we will focus on triggers. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Deploying Azure Functions with Python: A Step-by-Step Guide
    Azure Functions is a serverless computing service provided by Microsoft Azure, enabling developers to run event-driven code without worrying about server management. In this article, we’ll walk through how to deploy Azure Functions using Python. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • A Brief History Of Serverless
    The FaaS platform gained a lot of popularity which resulted in many competitors. There was OSS providers like OpenFaaS or Fission. There were of course the commercial versions to like Azure Functions and Google Cloud Functions. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Implementing serverless architecture in React Native apps
    Serverless technology helps React Native developers create more robust, adaptable, and efficient mobile applications that meet the demands of today's dynamic digital landscape. By seamlessly integrating cloud functions from providers like AWS Lambda or Azure Functions, developers can tap into a world of possibilities to enrich their mobile apps. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Decoupler and future implications for legacy-proof UI code
    Azure Functions: Here’s the official Azure Functions product page, where you can learn about the features, benefits, and pricing of Microsoft’s serverless computing service. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Heroku and Microsoft Azure Functions, you can also consider the following products

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

Google App Engine - A powerful platform to build web and mobile apps that scale automatically.

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

Amazon S3 - Amazon S3 is an object storage where users can store data from their business on a safe, cloud-based platform. Amazon S3 operates in 54 availability zones within 18 graphic regions and 1 local region.

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

AWS Lambda - Automatic, event-driven compute service

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