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Heroku VS Northflank

Compare Heroku VS Northflank 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.

Northflank logo Northflank

The comprehensive developer platform to build and scale microservices, jobs and managed databases with a powerful UI, API & CLI.
  • Heroku Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05
  • Northflank Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-10

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.

Northflank features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Northflank offers an intuitive and user-friendly interface that makes it easy for developers to manage their applications and infrastructure efficiently without extensive learning curves.
  • Scalability
    The platform provides excellent scalability options, allowing users to scale their applications seamlessly as their business and resource demands grow.
  • Integrated CI/CD
    Northflank includes integrated CI/CD tools, which streamline the build and deployment processes, reducing development time and enhancing productivity.
  • Comprehensive Documentation
    The platform offers extensive documentation, aiding developers in understanding and utilizing all features effectively, which is particularly beneficial for both new and seasoned users.
  • Multi-Cloud Support
    Northflank supports multiple cloud providers, giving users flexibility and choice in hosting their applications in the cloud environment that best suits their needs.

Possible disadvantages of Northflank

  • Pricing Complexity
    Some users may find the pricing structure of Northflank complex or not fully transparent, resulting in possible challenges when estimating costs.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While basic functionalities are quite user-friendly, advanced features may require a steeper learning curve, especially for users who are new to such platforms.
  • Limited Third-Party Integrations
    Compared to some of its competitors, Northflank may have fewer third-party integrations, which could limit its utility for businesses relying heavily on a diverse set of tools.
  • Community Size
    The community around Northflank might be smaller than those of more established platforms, potentially leading to less community support or fewer shared resources.

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

+ Add

What is Heroku | Ask a Dev Episode 14

More videos:

Northflank videos

+ Add

Deploy Retool on Northflank with Postgres

More videos:

  • Review - Deploy Laravel on Northflank - PHP

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Heroku and Northflank)

Heroku

Northflank

Cloud Computing
94 94%
Cloud Computing
6% 6
Developer Tools
89 89%
Developer Tools
11% 11
Cloud Hosting
95 95%
Cloud Hosting
5% 5
Cloud Infrastructure
0 0%
Cloud Infrastructure
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Heroku and Northflank. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

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

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

Northflank Reviews

5 Free Heroku Alternatives with Free Plan for Developers
Northflank is another cloud-based PaaS solution that you can consider after leaving Heroku. It’s not just a platform for deploying your apps but you can use it as a CI/CD pipeline for your software projects. This is a gem of a tool for developers to build jobs & scale microservices, deploy managed databases using a powerful UI, API & CLI app.
Source: www.ilovefreesoftware.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Heroku should be more popular than Northflank. 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)

View more

Northflank mentions (21)

  • Jenkins Alternatives: 10 CI/CD Tools That Don’t Slow You Down
    Northflank simplifies the CI/CD process by removing unnecessary complexity. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Portainer alternatives: What works better for Kubernetes in production?
    Northflank provides a fully managed Kubernetes experience that eliminates manual work and simplifies how teams build, ship, and run applications. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • The CI/CD Tools Chart I Wish I Had When Using Jenkins (Jenkins Alternatives)
    Looking at the chart, you’ll notice some tools focus only on builds, while others handle everything: build, deploy, and release. For example, Northflank takes care of the entire lifecycle and even spins up preview environments, so you can test microservices in containers before pushing to production. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Why Your Kubernetes Workflow Is Broken (And How to Fix It with Northflank)
    Want to dive deeper? Check out Northflank's detailed documentation for step-by-step guides and references. You can also explore more on Northflank's website, where you'll find resources, tutorials, and the latest updates on container orchestration. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Fly.io – Down
    We're moving off them as well after today. Thinking of using Northflank (https://northflank.com/) deployed our AWS. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Heroku and Northflank, 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.

Render - Render is a unified platform to build and run all your apps and websites with free SSL, a global CDN, private networks and auto deploys from Git.

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.

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