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Source-backed analysis14

Review basis

Research-based review: the AppDuo Editorial Team compiled it from official pages, documentation, app stores, press and user feedback, without hands-on testing. Every claim links to a source with the date it was checked.

14 reference sources

Information updated Nov 11, 2026

How we review
Heroku logo

Heroku Review

Salesforce's PaaS: deploy with git push, now in sustaining mode

Editorial Team6.8/10Write the first review

By Official AppDuo editorial team · Updated

  • Web
  • API
Paid · $5.00/mo
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Decide at a glance

Our verdict

Heroku is still a simple way to get an app online for small and mid-sized projects, from $5/month. The trade-offs: since Feb 2026 it only gets sustaining engineering, Standard dynos cost far more than the entry plans, and a June 2025 outage left many customers down for up to 24 hours.

Best for: Developers and small teams who want git-push deploys without managing servers

Skip it if: Organisations that need a new Enterprise contract, which Heroku no longer offers to new customers

Pros

  • Simple deploys: git push, pipelines, Review Apps, GitHub integration
  • Low entry price: Eco dyno $5/month, Postgres Essential-0 $5/month
  • Managed Postgres, Key-Value Store, Kafka and an add-on marketplace

Cons

  • Sustaining engineering only since Feb 6, 2026: Heroku is focusing on stability and security, not new features
  • Standard dynos (from $25/month) and above cost far more than Eco/Basic
All pros and cons · Who is it for?

More pros

  • Private and Shield Spaces for stricter security needs

More cons

  • A June 10–11, 2025 outage left many customers down for up to 24 hours; a 2022 breach exposed GitHub OAuth tokens and hashed passwords
  • No free tier; interface and docs in English only

Best for

  • Existing Heroku projects that value stability over new features

Skip it if

  • Anyone looking for a free tier, which Heroku dropped in 2022

Experience & key features

Heroku is a Salesforce-owned PaaS launched in 2007. Apps run in containers called dynos and are deployed with git push. It began with Ruby only; per Wikipedia it now also supports Java, Node.js, Scala, Clojure, Python, PHP and Go.

Beyond dynos, Heroku sells Postgres, Key-Value Store, Kafka, Heroku Connect and an add-on marketplace. The pricing page also lists AI inference billed per token, query or image. Teams, Review Apps and the GitHub integration cover collaboration.

Pricing and value

Eco dynos cost $5/month for a shared 1,000 hours. Other dynos are prorated by run time up to a monthly cap: Basic $7, Standard-1X $25, Performance-M $250. Postgres starts at $5 (Essential-0). Costs climb quickly once you need always-on dynos with higher-tier databases. The free tier is gone: per Wikipedia, Heroku announced in August 2022 that free plans would end, citing fraud and abuse.

Current direction

On Feb 6, 2026 Heroku announced a move to a sustaining engineering model focused on stability, security, reliability and support. Customers paying by card in the dashboard, existing and new, see no change; Enterprise contracts are no longer offered to new customers. Heroku said it is focusing investment on helping organisations build enterprise-grade AI. Anyone choosing Heroku for a long-lived project should weigh this and compare Render, Railway or Vercel.

Screenshots

Dashboard image from Heroku's official site
Dashboard image from Heroku's official site
Databases view image from Heroku's official site
Databases view image from Heroku's official site

Plans & pricing

Prices last verified Nov 11, 2026

Eco dyno

Personal

$5/mo

$5/month for a pool of 1,000 dyno hours shared by all Eco dynos in an account, charged whether or not you use it. Web dynos sleep after 30 minutes without traffic and use no hours while asleep. Personal accounts only; not available to Enterprise customers.

Basic dyno

Personal

$7/mo

Up to $7/month, prorated to the second (about $0.01/hour). Always on, 0.5 GB RAM.

Standard-1X

Business

$25/mo

Up to $25/month, 0.5 GB RAM, with preboot and zero-downtime deploys. Standard-2X is up to $50/month with 1 GB RAM.

Performance-M

Business

$250/mo

Up to $250/month, 2.5 GB RAM, dedicated compute with autoscaling. The largest size (Performance-2XL) is $1,500/month with 126 GB RAM. Limited to customers with an established payment history.

Heroku Postgres Essential-0

Personal

$5/mo

$5/month, 1 GB storage, 20 connections, no row limit, encryption at rest; up to 4 hours of downtime a month. Essential-1 is $9 (10 GB), Essential-2 $20 (32 GB).

Free plan limits
The pricing page lists no free dyno or database plan. Only Basic Support and the Heroku Connect Demo Edition are free.
Free trial
No free trial
Cancellation & refunds

The pages opened state no refund policy. Dynos are prorated by run time up to a monthly cap; the Eco plan charges the full $5 for any month you subscribe, even mid-month.

Privacy

Heroku's security page says staff do not access customer data or apps in normal operations; access for support or legal reasons requires customer approval or a government mandate and is logged. Storage for deprovisioned databases is kept for a week, then destroyed. Infrastructure runs in AWS data centers accredited for ISO 27001, SOC 1/2 and PCI Level 1. The security page says customers can encrypt stored data in their own apps; the pricing page lists encryption at rest for Postgres Essential. Parent company Salesforce states it does not sell personal data under the CCPA and offers a Data Processing Addendum; the Salesforce privacy statement does not mention Heroku specifically. In 2022 Heroku had an incident exposing GitHub OAuth tokens and hashed customer passwords (see incidents).

Official pricing page

Heroku alternatives

DigitalOcean logo7.8/10

DigitalOcean

Simple cloud with transparent pricing for developers and small teams

Paid
Netlify logo7.3/10

Netlify

Web deploy platform from Git, AI agents or drag-and-drop, billed in credits

Freemium
All alternatives

Controversies & incidents

Issues documented by the press, regulators, courts or the vendor itself. Every item is sourced; unproven claims are labelled as allegations. Last researched: Nov 11, 2026

  • Medium impactConfirmedOther ·

    Heroku moves to sustaining mode, stops new Enterprise contracts

    Heroku announced a focus on stability and security instead of new features and stopped offering Enterprise contracts to new customers.

    Read the full account

    Per the official post dated Feb 6, 2026, Heroku moved to a sustaining engineering model focused on stability, security, reliability and support. Customers paying by card in the dashboard, existing and new, see no change in pricing or service; existing Enterprise contracts are honored. Heroku cited investment in enterprise-grade AI as the reason. It has not detailed the long-term effect on its roadmap.

    Vendor response

    Heroku says it remains an actively supported, production-ready platform.

    Sources:Heroku blog: An Update on Heroku (2026-02-06)Wikipedia: Heroku

  • Medium impactResolvedOutage ·

    Outage of up to 24 hours on June 10–11, 2025

    Per Heroku, an automated OS update cut dynos' outbound connectivity, causing up to 24 hours of downtime for many customers.

    Read the full account

    Heroku's summary says impact began at 06:00 UTC on June 10 and the incident was declared resolved at 05:50 UTC on June 11. Causes: an automated OS update ran on production infrastructure when it should have been disabled, a legacy networking script applied routes only at boot so connectivity was not restored, and internal tools and the status page ran on the affected infrastructure, slowing both response and communication. Heroku said no customer data was lost.

    Vendor response

    Heroku apologised, acknowledged that communication during the incident did not meet its standards, disabled the automated upgrade service and said backup communication channels were planned.

    Sources:Heroku blog: summary of June 10 outage

  • Low impactConfirmedOther ·

    Heroku ended its free plans in 2022

    Heroku announced the end of free plans, citing fraud and abuse, then launched low-cost replacement plans.

    Read the full account

    Per Wikipedia, Heroku announced in August 2022 that free plans would end, citing fraud and abuse. On Nov 7, 2022 the $5 Eco dyno, $5 Essential-0 Postgres and $3 Mini Key-Value plans became generally available. Users on free plans had to move to paid plans or other platforms.

    Sources:Wikipedia: HerokuHeroku blog: new low-cost plans (2022)

Show 1 more
  • Medium impactResolvedSecurity ·

    2022 exposure of GitHub OAuth tokens and hashed passwords

    Per Heroku, an intruder obtained customers' GitHub integration OAuth tokens and cloned some private repositories; Heroku later reset customer passwords. Its communication about the incident drew customer criticism.

    Read the full account

    Heroku's review says an intruder accessed a database and downloaded customers' GitHub integration OAuth tokens on April 7, 2022, then on April 9 downloaded some of Heroku's private repositories. GitHub alerted Salesforce on April 13; on April 15 Heroku revoked all GitHub integration tokens and notified customers whose repositories had been cloned. Usernames and hashed, salted passwords were also taken, so Heroku rotated customer accounts on May 5. On May 16 Heroku found that a database holding Review Apps and Heroku CI config vars had also been downloaded. The investigation concluded on May 30, with no unauthorized access by this actor since April 14. The Record (May 6, 2022) reported that password-reset emails initially gave no reason, drawing customer criticism, and quoted experts questioning Heroku's data management before the breach.

    Vendor response

    Heroku acknowledged that containment steps such as cutting the GitHub integration and rotating credentials affected customers and may have caused inconvenience; it tightened access controls and recommended enabling MFA. Salesforce said nothing is more important to it than the security of customer data.

    Sources:Heroku blog: April 2022 incident reviewThe Record: Heroku faces backlash over handling of stolen user credentials (2022-05-06)Wikipedia: Heroku

Frequently asked questions

Does Heroku still have a free plan?

No. The current pricing page lists no free dyno or database; the cheapest options are Eco dynos and Postgres Essential-0 at $5/month each.

Is Heroku being shut down?

Heroku says it remains an actively supported, production-ready platform, but since Feb 6, 2026 it has been in sustaining mode without new features. None of the pages opened announce a shutdown.

How do Eco and Basic dynos differ?

Eco is $5/month for a shared 1,000-hour pool, and web dynos sleep after 30 minutes without traffic. Basic is up to $7/month and stays on.

Does Heroku support Vietnamese?

Heroku does not offer a Vietnamese interface; the site and docs are in English.

Review evidence & sources14

Scores

Ease of use
8.0
Why this score

Deploys run through git push heroku main, with pipelines, Review Apps and GitHub integration. TrustRadius's review summary (7.5/10, 178 ratings) also singles out easy deployment and fast setup. English-only interface keeps the score from going higher.

Features
7.5
Why this score

Dynos, Postgres, Key-Value Store, Kafka, add-ons, Private Spaces and AI inference billed per token, query or image. Since Feb 2026 Heroku is no longer aiming to ship new features.

Value for money
6.5
Why this score

Eco/Basic are cheap ($5–7) but Eco dynos sleep after 30 minutes without traffic; Standard-1X is up to $25 and Performance-M $250 a month. No free tier, and TrustRadius reviewers note costs rise at scale.

Performance
6.5
Why this score

Heroku reported that the June 10–11, 2025 incident caused up to 24 hours of downtime for many customers, triggered by an automated OS update on production hosts. Heroku disabled the update service and said permanent controls were planned.

Support
6.0
Why this score

Dev Center docs and free Basic Support; Standard, Premier and Signature plans have no listed price. Heroku admitted its communication during the 2025 incident fell short and its status page went down too; in 2022, The Record reported customer criticism of how Heroku communicated about the breach.

Privacy & security
6.5
Why this score

Certified infrastructure and clear data-access rules, but the 2022 incident exposed GitHub OAuth tokens, hashed passwords and Review Apps/Heroku CI config vars; Heroku had to reset customer passwords.

What users say

Sources

Specs & compatibility
Developer
Salesforce
Headquarters
United States
Launched
2007
Category
Development

Capabilities

  • Public API
  • Integrations
  • Real-time collaboration
  • AI features

Platforms

  • Web
  • API

Interface languages

  • English

Integrations

  • GitHub
  • Heroku Postgres
  • Heroku Key-Value Store
  • Apache Kafka
  • Heroku Connect (Salesforce)
  • Add-ons Marketplace

Support

  • Help center
  • Email

Change history

  1. Company.Moves to a sustaining engineering model; stops offering Enterprise contracts to new customers.
  2. Update.Global outage lasting into June 11; many customers down for up to 24 hours.
  3. Feature.At KubeCon Paris Heroku announces moving its platform to Kubernetes.
Full change history (7)
  1. Price.Low-cost Eco dyno, Essential Postgres and Mini Key-Value plans become generally available.
  2. Limits.Heroku announces the end of free plans.
  3. Company.Salesforce acquires Heroku for $212 million.
  4. Launch.Development begins; Ruby only at first.
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