Top 10 Alternatives to Heroku in 2022

Are you looking for alternatives to Heroku in 2022? Here is an in-depth analysis of the best ten Heroku alternatives. The list includes Back4App, Elastic Beanstalk, Firebase, Engine Yard, etc.

Many people might not have been familiar with Heroku’s name because they may never have experienced the term PaaS, aka, Platform as a Service.

So, we will first elaborate shortly on the PaaS since many developers in the market don’t have many resources to establish or develop any high-class project from scratch.

They have the capabilities and skills to do something extraordinary, but they don’t make this happen because of a resource shortage.

In this case, PaaS helps such developers a lot by offering any resource they want for some temporary duration. It is like renting something for some time and returning it to the owner.

In the PaaS field, Heroku is one of the best pioneers that offer such services to developers. It provides clouds for the developers that they can utilize and get any resource they want.

Heroku offers multiple products, including Dynos, Databases, Collaboration Tools, Marketplace, etc.

There are some particular reasons why people are not satisfied with this platform’s services, and now they are searching for some reliable alternatives to Heroku.

Want to discover the best Heroku like services in 2022?

Why are Developers Searching for Heroku Alternatives?

Well, there are lots of reasons why developers are now looking for Heroku alternatives, and some of them are as follows:

Heroku Price

One of the most important things developers look for in Heroku’s alternatives is the price. This platform has become quite expensive right now, and a percentage of the general developer population cannot afford its services.

In this case, they only become able to get some limited services that reach upper limits entirely before completing the project. It is why developers are looking for alternatives to get better services at a low cost that they can also afford.

Please read the article Heroku Pricing Explained to learn more about Heroku’s pricing structure.

Heroku Sleeping Apps

Another reason developers are looking for a Heroku alternative is the sleeping apps.

Undoubtedly, this platform offers many unique features for the developers to utilize that can help them improve the performance and reliability of their projects.

Still, at the same time, Heroku makes the applications sleep those you have developed, or we can say that they are hosted over there.

When an application on Heroku has only one web dyno, and that dyno doesn’t get any transactions in 1 hour, the dyno goes to sleep. The dyno administrator will automatically wake up the web dyno to run the web process type when someone accesses the application.

It causes a short delay for this first request, but subsequent requests will perform typically. In this case, developers face many problems, which is why they are searching for alternatives to Heroku.

Latency 

Heroku uses AWS as an infrastructure provider, but it runs its services only in two regions. These regions are the USA and Europe.

So, if your app needs a global scale or has end-users from Asia, Australia, and South America, latency may be an issue using Heroku.

If you need to deploy your app in other regions, it’s required to upgrade to a Private Space. Unfortunately, the price is not available on the website, and the user needs to contact sales for further information.

Top 10 Alternatives of Heroku

You can utilize multiple platforms as an alternative to Heroku, while some of the best ones among all are as follows. These are the best Heroku alternatives:

Back4app

Back4app is one of the best open-source platforms that you can utilize to replace Heroku. It is one of Heroku’s best alternatives because it offers many unique features that you will not find in Heroku.

The platform works with web apps and mobile applications. It offers simple web hosting for web applications and APIs and SDKs for mobile apps.

Additionally, it’s cheaper and has a generous free tier to start. That is why you will be pleased to begin using the service offering Back4app. Please read the complete list of features at Back4app Features to know more.

Pricing

• Free Tier available 
• Paid plans at $25/mo

Core Features

• Scalable datastore
• GraphQL API
• REST API
• Cloud Code
• Push and Email Notifications
• Authentication
• Scale automatically 
• Other features: real time, cloud computing, custom domains

Elastic Beanstalk

Elastic Beanstalk is another of the best alternatives you can use against Heroku. It is also known as AWS, and many general populations are already using it. It offers many unique features that you will not find in Heroku.

All of such issues you were facing while using Heroku will not appear because this platform is designed after considering all the developers’ essential requirements and needs.

Pricing

• Free of charge
• You only pay for AWS resources like EC2 and S3

Core Features

• Support multiple programming languages
• Multiple deployment options
• Application health, monitoring, and logging
• Scaling

Please read the article Heroku vs. Elastic Beanstalk to understand the differences between Beanstalk and Heroku better.

Google App Engine

Google App Engine is another of the best platforms you can use as an alternative to Heroku.

This platform allows the developers to develop and launch a scalable application that you can expand in the future as per your need. It facilitates the developers by offering them all the essential services in this modern era.

Pricing

• Free quota
• Consumption based pricing

Core Features

• Open and flexible
• Popular programming languages
• Fully managed service

To better understand the differences between Beanstalk and Heroku, please  read the article App Engine vs Heroku.

Dokku

Dokku is another of the best online platforms you can use as an alternative to Heroku. It is a self-hosted Platform as a Service PaaS.

It is quite a straightforward platform and offers many simple techniques to develop applications, which are not easy to make in Heroku.

Additionally, all of those restrictions imposed by the Heroku on a particular developer are not imposed by the Dokku. That’s why it is quite an effective and efficient platform compared to Heroku.

Pricing

• Starting at $5/mo Digital Ocean

Core Features

• Powered by Docker
• Multi cloud
• Easy Git Deploys
• Multiple plugins

Please read the article Dokku vs. Heroku for more information about both platforms. 

Firebase

Firebase is another one of the best platforms to be used as an alternative to Heroku.

It offers many incredible advantages and features to the developers so that they don’t feel any inconvenience while using this whole platform. A significant number of developers have started using Firebase instead of Heroku.

Pricing

• Free tier
• Paid plans under the Pay as you go model

Core Features

• Realtime database
• Scalable hosting 
• Analytics 
• Storage
• Messaging

Please read the article Firebase vs. Heroku for more information about both platforms. 

 Engine Yard

Engine Yard is a PaaS – Platform as a Service leader in Ruby DevOps. The features include horizontal and vertical scaling, constant security updates, and copying the environment for testing purposes.

The support runs 24/07, and pricing starts at $25 per month. Engine Yard is similar to Heroku in many aspects, and it’s an excellent choice for Ruby on Rails deployment.

Pricing

Here is the pricing of this PaaS like Heroku:

• Free tier
• Paid plans under the Pay as you go model

Core Features

• Code deployment
• Autoscaling
• Automated backups
• App monitoring
• Multi AWS zone deployment 

 Open Shift

It is a Kubernetes-based Paas platform run by Red Hat. It’s a quick way for Enterprises and developers to make, deploy, and scale containerized applications in the public cloud.

Pricing

• Free tier
• Paid plans starting at $50/region/month

Core Features

• Docker containers
• Runtime packing
• Code and Push
• Continuous integration

Netlify

Netlify is a fit-to-purpose solution to deploy and run websites. It’s a fully managed solution, and it allows to run apps without managing the infrastructure, DevOps engineers and under a scalable environment.

Pricing

• Free tier
• Paid plans starting at $19/user/month

Core Features

• Build
• Functions
• Workflow
• Edge

Please read the article Heroku vs Netlify for more information about both platforms. 

CapRover

It is an open-source framework that lets you build your PaaS service in a couple of minutes. The solution works for several programming languages like Ruby, NodeJS, PHP, etc.

Pricing

• Free to download

Core Features

• CLI
• Web GUI
• Docker

Vercel

It’s a great option to deploy web projects using Next.JS, React, Vue, Angular, etc. The platform is frontend and developer-focused, and it’s the company behind Next.JS.

Pricing

• Free tier
• $20/member

Core Features

• Build
• Serverless Functions
• Edge Network

Heroku Alternatives Comparison Table

Here is a summary of services similar to Heroku:

Conclusion

Well, the above has described some of the alternatives to Heroku. They are pretty effective and work well as an alternative to Heroku. So, consider all the above-described options and use them if you are tired of using Heroku.

Would you like to know more about how to increase app development productivity? Please discover how a Baas can help you.  

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