Heroku vs DigitalOcean App Platform
A side-by-side, data-driven comparison of Heroku and DigitalOcean App Platform — pricing, free tiers and capabilities.
DigitalOcean App Platform undercuts Heroku on price and gives you an easy path down to raw Droplets, while Heroku offers a more polished add-on marketplace and truly zero-config dynos.
At a glance
- DigitalOcean App Platform has a free tier — note: Free tier covers static sites only; web services, workers, jobs and databases require a paid plan; Heroku does not.
- At a medium always-on instance, Heroku is ~$50/mo vs DigitalOcean App Platform ~$25/mo — DigitalOcean App Platform is the cheaper estimate.
Specs side by side
| Heroku | DigitalOcean App Platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Managed PaaS | Managed PaaS |
| Pricing model | tiered | tiered |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Managed database | Yes | Yes |
| Regions | 2 | 10+ |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| Docker-native | Yes | Yes |
| Git deploy | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | No | No |
Estimated cost
Estimated monthly cost of a single always-on service — estimates, not quotes. Try the calculator for your own traffic. “—” means no verified price for that tier.
| Heroku | DigitalOcean App Platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Small (~0.5 vCPU / 512MB–1GB) | $25 | $5 (lower) |
| Medium (~1 vCPU / 2GB) | $50 | $25 (lower) |
| Large (~2 vCPU / 4GB) | $250 | $50 (lower) |
| Egress ($/GB) | — | $0.02 |
Pros & cons
Our editorial assessment — not vendor-stated facts. Last reviewed 2026-07-16.
Heroku
Pros
- Low operational overhead: deploy with a single git push, no servers to manage
- Mature, well-documented workflow with pipelines, review apps, and one-click add-ons
- Broad first-class language support through buildpacks
- Integrated managed Postgres and key-value store reduce the need to wire up external services
- Backed by Salesforce, with a large ecosystem and deep community knowledge base
Cons
- No free tier since November 2022; the cheapest Eco dynos also sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity
- Costs scale up quickly at higher tiers compared to raw IaaS or cheaper PaaS alternatives
- Common Runtime region availability is limited (primarily US and Europe); broader regions require Private Spaces
- In February 2026 Salesforce moved Heroku to a sustaining engineering model focused on stability and maintenance rather than new features, and stopped offering Enterprise contracts to new customers, signaling slower innovation (existing credit-card pricing and billing are unaffected)
DigitalOcean App Platform
Pros
- Simple Git-to-deploy workflow with minimal configuration via buildpacks or a Dockerfile
- Tight integration with DigitalOcean managed databases, object storage, and networking
- Predictable container-based pricing that is generally cheaper than hyperscaler PaaS
- Automatically manages TLS certificates, CDN, DDoS mitigation, and OS patching
- Supports web, worker, cron, and static components within a single application
Cons
- The free tier covers only static-site apps; any web service, worker, job, or database requires a paid plan
- Included outbound bandwidth allowances are modest and overages are billed per GiB, less generous than static-focused hosts like Netlify or Cloudflare Pages
- Fewer data-center regions than hyperscale clouds, which can affect global latency and data-residency options
- Less low-level control and build customization than self-managed Kubernetes or Droplets, trading flexibility for simplicity
Bottom line
Pick Heroku for legacy apps and teams that want zero-ops dynos. Pick DigitalOcean App Platform for teams that want a PaaS with an easy path to full IaaS.
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Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between Heroku and DigitalOcean App Platform?
- Heroku: Widely credited with popularizing "git push to deploy". As of 2026 it is in a sustaining-engineering mode with no new features, pushing many teams to evaluate alternatives. DigitalOcean App Platform: DigitalOcean’s PaaS layer for building, deploying and scaling apps and static sites, backed by DO’s broader cloud (Droplets, managed DBs, Spaces).
- Is Heroku or DigitalOcean App Platform cheaper?
- For a medium always-on instance, Heroku is about $50/mo and DigitalOcean App Platform about $25/mo, so DigitalOcean App Platform is the cheaper estimate. Actual cost depends on your usage — try the calculator.
- Does Heroku have a free tier?
- No.
- Does DigitalOcean App Platform have a free tier?
- Yes. Free tier covers static sites only; web services, workers, jobs and databases require a paid plan.
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