AWS vs Heroku | Which is the Best?

Cloud services are getting more popular among development teams and businesses day by day. Indeed, cloud platforms allow companies to emphasize core competencies rather than investing energies in software, hardware and server infrastructure.

In this regard, if we discuss the leading cloud platforms, IaaS or PaaS vendors, then Heroku and AWS are on the top. Therefore, this article will provide a detailed overview of Heroku vs AWS and their features & pricing models.

Overview of Cloud Computing Benefits 

Cloud computing promises the carting of computing aid over the cloud or the internet. This computing assistance consists of networking, servers, software, hardware, storage, analytics and databases. Cloud computing confers a variety of benefits to businesses and programmers, but we are only discussing the significant advantages below:

Reduces the Cost

The major advantage of utilizing a cloud computing platform is its inexpensive nature compared to conventional means to administer and maintain infrastructure. Undoubtedly, cloud computing enables businesses to waive the cost of on-premises data centers, software and hardware.

Similarly, companies don’t have to pay the expenses of hardware maintenance and upgrade expenses. In this regard, Cloud computing saves electricity costs that businesses invest in running and powering the on-site IT infrastructure. 

Increases Speed

Cloud computing platforms confer numerous development, database, server and infrastructure resources on the demand of businesses. Therefore, the availability of such computing tools definitely improves the development speed of projects.

It overcomes the time to market and enhances work efficiency because development teams can build, run and operate more tasks in less time. Opportunity and capacity planning are also advantages of cloud computing.

Highly Scalable

The majority of businesses are choosing cloud computing means to deal with their IT systems over traditional on-premises infrastructures because of their scalability. Indeed, cloud computing allows developers to extend their projects horizontally and vertically according to their needs.

In this regard, it doesn’t only increase the storage, bandwidth and further computing resources within a few clicks but also enables you to pick the desired server location.

Improves Performance & Productivity

Cloud computing vendors guarantee performance improvement because they don’t rely on conventional and single data centers. So, using more data centers and advanced hardware enables them to lift the performance of hosted applications.

On the other hand, when development teams emphasize the core competencies, it also enhances the productivity of projects. Hereof, businesses save the time they consume on racking and stacking. 

Secure & Stable

Although cloud computing is considered less safe compared to on-premises computing, but the reality is different. When you choose cloud computing platforms, experts of that service provider try to fix any vulnerability as soon as possible to secure your applications. 

The key technologies that computing vendors utilize to prevent security risks are multi-factor authentication, encryption, cloud firewall, identity providers and Identity and access management (IAM). By the same token, disaster recovery and regular backups make cloud computing a reliable way to build, deploy and host applications.     

Overview of Cloud Computing Market Size

The Cloud computing market is burgeoning rapidly because of its beseeching features. According to a report by MarketsAndMarkets, the share of the global cloud computing industry will reach 947.3 billion USD in 2026.

In 2021, this ratio was only 445.3 billion USD. It means that the global cloud computing industry, which includes PaaS, IaaS, SaaS and BaaS services, has the ability to grow with a 16.3% annual growth rate. 

Similarly, if we talk about the top cloud market vendors, then AWS is leading. Yes, Amazon Web Services (AWS) occupies a 33% share of the cloud infrastructure market, according to a recent survey by Statista.

This survey also claims that Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud take up the 2nd and 3rd positions in terms of market share in the second quarter of 2022. 

In short, we can say, the three leading cloud services, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, control 62% of the cloud infrastructure market. 

Differences between IaaS and PaaS

Here are the key differences between IaaS & PaaS:

What is Heroku?

Heroku is one of the top Platform as a Service (PaaS) vendors that commenced its journey in 2007. Its container-based and PaaS products aid the development teams, and businesses create, extend and deploy advanced applications.

Yes, with this PaaS platform, developers can emphasize the core competencies rather than worry about infrastructure, servers, database and hardware maintenance. 

In this regard, Heroku receives more than 60 billion requests a day and has helped in building 13 million applications. Moreover, it provides 200 add-on services, 2.8 million managed data stores and backs all commonly used programming languages.

Therefore, it is considered the prime choice of businesses whether it is a startup company of 2 employees or a large enterprise of 10k members.

The prominent companies that benefit from Heroku for various tech stacks are Quikly, PensionBee, Salesforce and Cambly. 

Heroku History

Initially, Heroku was created by Adam Wiggins, Orion Henry and James Lindenbaum. Yes, in 2007, these three experts developed Heroku to back Rails-hosted projects. However, Heroku was commercially introduced with complete support for Ruby in April 2009. 

After providing commercial support and interesting features, Heroku hosted 35k apps in October 2009, and this figure reached 60k in May 2010. The same year, Heroku commenced conferring two of its most appealing products, PostgreSQL database support and Heroku Add-on. Undoubtedly, it was a significant milestone in this PaaS platform’s history and finally, Salesforce accrued Heroku in December 2010. 

Heroku accomplished many achievements after becoming a part of Salesforce. Likewise, this container-based service started supporting Python, Java, Scala and Node.js in 2011. Similarly, 2011 was the lucky year when Heroku released its most engaging product, ‘Heroku Postgres’ autonomously. Moreover, Heroku provided backing for PHP and Docker in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

On the other hand, if we talk about the recent history of Heroku, then it owns a massive number of users because of its free-tier services. Withal, Heroku is opening a new chapter and shutting down all of its freemium support from November 28, 2022. 

Advantages of Using Heroku

Heroku grants several benefits to its users for app development, but we are discussing the major advantages of utilizing Heroku below:

Simplicity

Whether you are a startup, DevOps engineer, an experienced developer or a big enterprise, the deployment process is super simple and easy to use Heroku.

This cloud based PaaS solution has the ability to mask all complicated functionalities of networking, storage and servers. In this regard, you just have to perform a few clicks to deploy your application through the user-friendly web interface of Heroku. 

By the same token, developers just have to emphasize core tasks and the code while using Heroku because it takes care of all other operations. Moreover, it is also seamless to update software or create a new version with the elementary control system of Heroku. 

Stability

Another reason for Heroku’s popularity among developers is its stable nature. Yes, an experienced team of technical and administrative experts is responsible for the continuous and error-free running of Heroku operations.

With Standard Support, you find 12 hours of support on all 5 working days. However, Premium Support is provided 24/7 to sort out all kinds of users’ problems.

By the way, Heroku teams also identify and fix the majority of app failure and crash problems on their own. Yes, it is Heroku Runtime that is liable for successfully operating and continuous running of your application. So, you don’t have to worry about the stability of the platform when you use Heroku.  

Security

A secure environment and the use of authoritative safety practices are also attractive advantages of using Heroku. To deal with vulnerabilities, Heroku doesn’t only upgrade its hardware and servers regularly, but it also complies with a variety of international safety standards.

First of all, you should be aware that Heroku uses the data centers of AWS to host its infrastructure safely. Therefore, the backing of AWS keeps all of its physical infrastructure intact. Secondly, to deal with further safety standards, Heroku also complies with PCI Level 1, SOC 1, ISO 27001, FISMA etc. 

Scalability

Heroku uses highly scalable containers named ‘Dynos’ to run applications. In this regard, businesses benefit from the horizontal scaling of Heroku Dynos to enhance instances. Yes, when your application or software project grows, you can simply increase your memory, CPU and further resources. 

Similarly, if you don’t want to increase your instances manually, then you can also choose the option of autoscaling with Heroku. In this way, this PaaS platform has the ability to extend resources according to the needs of your app automatically.

Uniformity

The uniformity of cloud platforms improves efficiency, which is also an important reason to choose them. Like other PaaS platforms, Heroku is uniform and continuous in its services and operations. The quality of its services remains the same for all types of your applications.

Heroku Core Features

We are presenting the core features of the Heroku platform below:

Runtime

Heroku Runtime is basically one of the top products of this PaaS vendor that comes under the ‘Heroku Platform’ category. This is responsible for executing and administering applications. To perfume these duties, this product of Heroku deals with applications in smart and lightweight containers that are called ‘dynos’. 

Similarly, the Runtime feature also conducts vertical and horizontal scaling, HTTP routing, SSL certificate management, and app deployment through Docker.

Continuous Delivery

Continuous Delivery is another phenomenal feature of Heroku that promises fast and quality development, good collaboration between development teams and elimination of vulnerabilities. Furthermore, Continuous Delivery (CD) keeps the deployment, testing and hosting persistent. 

Continuous Integration

Continuous Integration, or Heroku CI, is another attractive property of this PaaS platform. It provides developers with a visual interface to set up, deploy, test and re-run applications through a proper Heroku Flow. In this regard, it only takes a few clicks to examine the performance of your app in dynos. You also don’t need standard configuration to structure, administer and test your program when you use Heroku CI.

Managed Databases

Every developer wants to approach data spontaneously, and Heroku doesn’t disappoint its users hereof. Yes, Heroku offers 3 types of managed and open-source data services to deal with such apps. With Heroku Postgres, Apache Kafka and Heroku Data for Redis, developers don’t need to worry about the data framework and can smoothly build data-driven applications. 

Operational Experience

Businesses know that building and deploying an application on a credible platform is not everything because its health and performance also matter.

So, Heroku confers Operational Experience (OpEx) to detect and fix errors that hurt the health or performance of an app. In this regard, Heroku OpEx provides features like runtime metrics, app analytics , management tools, and auto scaling.   

Heroku Pricing

Heroku grants the following types of pricing plans to its users:

Free

This container-based service provider gets much acceptance among the developers’ community because of its free tier. This plan allows the programmers to benefit from 500 to 1k dyno hours in a month for free. Unluckily, businesses and the programming community will not be able to access the free features of Heroku from November 28, 2022. 

Indeed, Heroku plans to commence a new chapter of its services. So, you will have to pay for every service of Heroku. In this regard, you will have to pay a starting cost of $7 for dynos, $9 for Heroku Postgres and $15 for Redis monthly.

Hobby

Hobby is a beginner-level plan of Heroku that is suitable for startups and small projects. This plan costs $0.01/hour to businesses, and its monthly charges depend on the product that you are using. 

Standard

This pricing program of Heroku is compatible with SMEs and small businesses that are willing to run and deploy their medium-sized apps with Heroku. For lightweight applications, Standard charges start from $0.03/hour.

Performance

If you are planning to run high-traffic applications on Heroku, then you should consider using a Performance plan. The hourly rates of this plan are $0.34 and $0.69 under its M and L programs, respectively. 

Private

On the other hand, if you are a large enterprise and want dedicated resources, then you must pick the Private program of Heroku. It is basically a custom plan, and you can contact the sales team to inquire about quotes. 

What is AWS?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s leading cloud computing platform that Amazon launched in 2006. AWS provides over 200 products to its users that cover different cloud computing models, including PaaS, IaaS, CaaS and SaaS.

The renowned companies that use AWS for various tech stacks are Disney, Samsung, Vanguard Group and Medlife. 

AWS History

Although Benjamin Black and Chris Pinkham started working on AWS infrastructure in 2003, this cloud platform was officially launched in 2006. This cloud computing vendor got around 180k signups from developers after one year of release. This milestone gave much courage to the AWS team, and they introduced Simple DB and Elastic Block Store services in 2007 and 2008. 

Amazon Web Services finally issued its certification in 2013, which was great news for software engineers. Currently, with 410 spots of presence, it has 87 infrastructure zones worldwide. Moreover, businesses can also utilize its services in 245 countries or territories of the world.  

Advantages of Using AWS

Here are the significant benefits of using AWS:

Cost Effective

AWS is a cost-effective platform whether you are using it for a short-term project or willing to benefit from it for a long-period venture. If you are a startup and not aware of its products, then you can simply choose its free-tier services that could always be free or with a time limit. 

Similarly, this cloud computing platform enables users to only pay for used instances through its Pay-as-you-go pricing model. Its charges are also very reasonable compared to rivals.

Broad Range of Products and Services

Another advantage of using AWS is its wide range of products. Yes, you can find 200+ products on a single platform. These products cover categories including compute, databases, storage, content delivery, networking, analytics, identity compliance, security and machine learning.

Security

The team of global security experts takes care of the physical infrastructure and software & operational complexities of AWS. By the same token, the robust backing of Amazon also makes AWS a secure platform for the programming community.  

Reliable

AWS is a tested and reliable cloud computing service provider because of its highly scalable properties. It works equally well whether you utilize it for a small app or a high-traffic program. Also, it takes only a few clicks to reduce and extend instances. 

Multiple Regions

The availability of physical servers and teams in different regions of the world also makes AWS a preferred choice among users. Hereof, AWS has a global infrastructure in 27 areas of the world, including the US, UK, Australia, Brazil and India. 

AWS Core Features

The following are the features of Amazon Web Services:

Computing

AWS delivers its high performing compute services with more than 500 instances through its Amazon EC2 product. This cloud vendor uses advanced processors, operating systems and ethernet networking of 400 Gbps to serve businesses with leading compute facilities. 

Storage

The giant companies of the world prefer to use the storage services of AWS to build data lakes and regain critical data through Amazon S3. The leading companies that benefit from the storage product of AWS are Nasdaq, Georgia-Pacific and Ryanair. 

This is the primary object storage service of this cloud platform that helps in data storage, migration and control. 

IAM

Access and control have great significance when it comes to running applications securely. Identity & Access Management (IAM) enables businesses to grant user permission and control to different teammates. With this property, companies can also extend their workforce and resources anytime. 

Containers

If you want a fully managed container service to create, deploy and run your application, then you can consider using Amazon Elastic Container Service. This product of AWS is not only full of modern features but also reduces the container cost by up to 50% compared to other container-based services. 

AWS Pricing

We are classifying the pricing plans of AWS into 3 following types:

Free-Tier

Users can use more than 100 products of AWS for free under the free-tier model of this cloud vendor. Some of these services come with ‘always free’ and ‘free trial’ tags. Similarly, a few AWS products could also be used for free for 12 months after registering on this platform. 

Pay As You Go

Fortunately, a variety of AWS services could also be accessed through a pay-as-you-go pricing policy. In this regard, customers just have to pay for desired products and instances that are important for their project. They can also utilize AWS Pricing Calculator to estimate the cost of their project hereof.

Reserved Instances

On the other hand, if you are considering AWS for long-term commitments, you can also optimize the cost through discount offers. You simply need to visit the ‘AWS Cost Optimization’ page in this regard and can click on the ‘start saving today’ button that will lead you to the AWS Cost Explorer page. By the same token, users can also benefit from different cost-saving practices that are available on the cost optimization page.

AWS vs Heroku Comparison

Now that we’ve had a high-level overview of each platform, let’s dive into some of the key differences between AWS and Heroku.

1. Services

As we mentioned above, AWS is a comprehensive cloud platform that offers a wide range of services, including storage, compute, networking, databases, developer tools, and more. In contrast, Heroku specializes in hosting and managing web applications.

2. Ease of Use

AWS can be complex to use and requires some technical expertise. In contrast, Heroku is much easier to use and is a great platform for developers who are new to cloud computing.

3. Pricing

AWS prices are based on the services you use, with some services being more expensive than others. In contrast, Heroku prices are based on the amount of resources your application needs, such as the number of dynos (virtual machines) and add-ons.

4. Support

AWS offers 24/7 customer support, with options for both online and phone support. Heroku also offers 24/7 customer support, but only offers online support.

5. Security

AWS has a number of security features, including identity and access management, data encryption, and network security. Heroku also has a number of security features, including application firewalls and SSL certificates.

6. Scalability

Both AWS and Heroku are highly scalable platforms, allowing you to easily increase or decrease the resources your application needs.

7. Integration

AWS offers a wide range of integrations, including third-party applications, on-premises applications, and other AWS services. Heroku also offers a wide range of integrations, including third-party applications and Heroku Add-ons.

8. Monitoring

AWS offers a range of monitoring tools, including Amazon CloudWatch and AWS Trusted Advisor. Heroku also offers a range of monitoring tools, including the Heroku Dashboard and New Relic.

9. Logging

AWS offers a number of logging options, including Amazon CloudWatch Logs and AWS CloudTrail. Heroku also offers a number of logging options, including the Heroku Logging Add-on and Papertrail.

10. Regions

AWS offers a larger number of regions and has more than 25 regions worldwide. On the other hand, Heroku support only 2 regions (USA/Europe) on their regular plans. More regions are available on the Private Spaces plan.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this guide will help you choose the right option regarding Heroku vs AWS.

However, if we talk about the notable differences, then Heroku is a PaaS platform, but AWS also offers PaaS, IaaS and SaaS services. Similarly, AWS provides more than 100 products under the free-tier category, but Heroku is ending all of its free services on November 28, 2022.

Withal, this detailed guide about the difference between Heroku and AWS would assist startups, developers, and all sizes of businesses in picking the better option according to their needs. 

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