Digital Ocean App Platform vs Heroku

This article will compare the differences and similarities between Digital Ocean App Platform vs Heroku according to its features and pricing.

Every developer dream of writing code, clicking a button, and automatically deploying and running the code at scale for a billion users.

However, deploying a web application to a production environment sounds challenging. Traditionally, a web server is required to be set up, in addition to a supporting software, operating system and libraries. This is followed by deploying a code, configuring it and monitoring it well to ensure efficient operation. 

Most developers do not want to be deeply involved in ‘operations,’ so the ideal alternative is to use a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering.

The platforms do not need any configuration, instead enable developers to simply push new code to the repository while being automatically deployed to the production environment.

In this article, let us compare the two of the most popular platforms by exploring the features, pricing and more. 

What is Digital Ocean App Platform?

Digital Ocean App Platform is the latest cloud hosting platform to have joined the league. The app platform helps users build, deploy and scale static sites easily and quickly, like other PaaS solutions.

In addition, it offers cloud computing technologies to developers and businesses. Through the services, the companies can scale and deploy applications effortlessly.

They can run parallel to one another across various cloud servers without affecting the performance of one another. 

Features

  • Fully managed solution: 

Digital Ocean App Platform offers the ability to easily and quickly build, manage, deploy and scale apps. It protects the app features from DDoS attacks.

The app handles the provisioning, managing infrastructure, operating databases, along with several other dependencies. It has been built by recognizing the points that the user encounters, resulting in faster production of code. 

  • In-house infrastructure: 

Digital Ocean has its own infrastructure, which facilitates low optimization of costs and resources. The platform lets users scale apps horizontally and vertically. The apps are made available during vertical and horizontal scaling. Each time the user rolls out any changes, it results in zero downtime deployments. 

  • Supports rollback to previous deployments: 

Digital Ocean App Platform supports rollbacks to previous deployments. This makes it easier for apps to recover from accidental deployment.

The feature is available in basic and professional tiers. You can roll the most recent deployment for apps on the basic tier. Additionally, for apps on the professional tier, you can roll back to ten most successful deployments. 

  • Allows addition of serverless components: 

Developers can build or enhance the apps by adding serverless components with Digital Ocean App Platform. 

  • App platform integration with Glitch: 

Users can also deploy the apps developed in Glitch to Digital Ocean App Platform with only a few clicks. It lets users build modern apps, without the involvement of local development environment. Furthermore, the platform allows users to code, auto-deploy, and collaborate within one’s browser. 

Pricing

Digital Ocean swears by simplicity and offers an affordable pricing system, allowing users to control costs. The pricing is divided into three distinct halves, namely ‘Starter’, ‘basic’, and ‘Professional’. 

  • Starter

This plan is free and ideal for trying App platform while deploying static sites. One can quickly build and deploy three static sites for free. However, any additional site costs $3.00 per month. 

  • Basic

The plan starts at $5.00 per month and is ideal for prototyping apps. 

  • Professional

Starting at $12.00 per month, it is good for deploying production apps.

What is Heroku?

Heroku is a cloud-based development platform and is the fastest way to travel from just an idea to an URL. The platform supports development in Java, Node.js, Scala, Python, Ruby on Rails and Clojure.

Formed in 2007, Heroku originally supported Ruby on Rails; however, later, it proceeded with others. It is largely used for deploying, scaling, and managing modern apps.

The platform is a flexible, elegant, and easy-to-use solution for developers to get their apps to the market. 

Being fully managed, it allows developers to focus on the core product without causing any distraction to maintaining hardware, server or infrastructure.

It provides tools, services, workflows, and polyglot support to enhance developers’ productivity. 

Features

  • Heroku Shield for HIPAA: 

Heroku Shield comes with a series of platform services, including Connect, Private Spaces, Postgres, Apache Kafka, and Private Dynos, offering additional security features. 

  • Private spaces:

A private space is an isolated network group of apps and data services comprising a dedicated runtime environment.

With Spaces, developers can build modern apps supporting robust Heroku developer experience while acquiring enterprise-grade secure modern topologies.

This further enables the Heroku applications to connect to on-premises systems on the corporate network and several other cloud services. 

  • Enables easy sync of data: 

Users can utilize Heroku Connect to sync data between Heroku Postgres and Salesforce deployment. Being easily configured with UI, it enables smooth running of apps without any need for complex coding configuration. 

  • Resource utilization management: 

Heroku enables unified tracking across the application portfolios in order to improve resource management and consumption.

  • Add-on controls: 

The add-on controls can be provisioned to standardize technology used by the team to build applications. It lets the admins control the add-ons to be used in apps. 

Pricing

Heroku significantly reduces the amount of development time incurred on tooling, maintenance and DevOps.

Apart from a free plan, the subscription usually starts at $7 per dyno per month, which is ideal for personal projects. The professional plan starts at $25 per month while ranging up to $500 per dyno per month. 

Digital Ocean App Platform vs Heroku

Digital Ocean App PlatformHeroku
Launch Date20202007
CategoryPaaSPaaS
Parent CompanySalesforceIndependent (IPO)
Core FeaturesFast deployment
Built in security
Scalability
Container platform
Databases
Continuous integration
Free TierYesYes
Pricing$7/month – Hobby
$25/month – Production
$250/month – Advanced
Basic – $5/month
Professional – $12/month


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