Heroku

Heroku is one of the original platforms as a service. Launched in 2007 and bought by Salesforce in 2010, it made git push heroku main a familiar way to put a web app online: you send your code, Heroku detects the language, builds it with a buildpack and runs it on dynos, its managed containers. There are no servers to patch and scaling is a command or a slider.

Heroku has always traded control for convenience. In February 2026 it also changed course: it moved to a sustaining engineering model, focusing on stability, security, reliability and support rather than new features.

Key features

• Dynos and buildpacks. Apps in Node.js, Ruby, Java, PHP, Python, Go, Scala, Clojure or .NET are built and run without server setup; web dynos can autoscale on response time.
• Managed data. Heroku Postgres (with pgvector), Heroku Key-Value Store and Apache Kafka on Heroku are run for you.
• Elements Marketplace. Add-ons for databases, object storage, logging, monitoring and email attach to an app with one command.
• Pipelines and review apps. Promote builds from staging to production and spin up a temporary app for each pull request.
• Private Spaces and Shield. Network-isolated environments in ten regions, with Shield options for regulated data.
• AI. Managed Inference and Agents gives apps access to hosted models with per-token pricing.

Who it is for

Heroku suits developers and small teams who want to ship a web app or API quickly and keep running it with little operations work, and companies that link apps to Salesforce data. It is less suited to teams that need fine-grained infrastructure control, low-cost hosting at scale or a vendor still adding major features.

Pricing at a glance

There is no free plan. The Eco plan is US$5 a month for a shared pool of 1,000 dyno hours, a Basic dyno is US$7 a month, Standard-1X and Standard-2X dynos are US$25 and US$50, and Performance dynos start at US$250. Heroku Postgres starts at US$5 a month (Essential-0) and Key-Value Store at US$3 (Mini). Costs are prorated to the second up to each item's monthly maximum. Private and Shield dynos need a Private Space. Prices as checked on 10 October 2026; confirm on the vendor's pricing page.

Things to consider

• Sustaining engineering. Heroku says it remains supported and production-ready, but it is not introducing new features, and Enterprise contracts are no longer offered to new customers.
• Costs add up. Each dyno, database and add-on is priced separately, which can cost more than running a virtual server yourself.
• Few regions. The Common Runtime runs only in the United States and Europe.
• Dynos run whether busy or idle. Usage is wall-clock time for any dyno scaled above zero.

Getting started

1. Check dyno and add-on prices on the pricing page and create an account with a payment method.
2. Install the Heroku CLI, run heroku create in your project and push your code.
3. Attach Heroku Postgres or other add-ons and set configuration variables.
4. Set up a pipeline with review apps, using the Dev Center guides.