Who should choose Heroku?

Teams that want classic paas for shipping apps

Who should choose AWS?

Teams that want amazon web services cloud platform

Software comparison - Hosting Platforms

Heroku vs AWS: 2026 Comparison

Heroku trades scale and cost control for developer experience and simplicity; AWS scales to any workload but demands ops knowledge and architecture discipline. For early-stage teams, Heroku gets you live faster. For growth-stage teams optimizing unit economics, AWS usually wins. [free tools](/tools) and [compare](/compare) pricing at your scale.

Comparison dimensions

Dimension	Heroku	AWS	Winner
DX & Deploys	8/10Heroku's git push deploy is legendary. No CI/CD setup needed; zero to live in 2 minutes. For small teams and MVPs this is unbeaten.	8/10AWS has EC2, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy—powerful but require you to stitch them together. Fargate abstracts some of this but still steeper than Heroku's one-liner.	Tie
Performance	7/10Heroku's fixed dyno model means noisy neighbors and less predictable perf under load. Fine for indie projects; problematic at scale.	8/10AWS gives you raw compute power and tuning knobs. Better steady-state perf at scale but you own the optimization.	AWS
Pricing	7/10Heroku costs $50-500/month per small app. Scales fast from free tier into painful monthly bills as traffic grows.	8/10AWS scales with your usage, often cheaper at high volumes. t3.small instances run $8/mo; RDS Micro DBs are similarly low-cost. Requires discipline.	AWS
Scaling	8/10Heroku's horizontal scaling is one slider. Add dynos and go. Zero infrastructure knowledge required.	8/10AWS auto-scaling (Elastic Load Balancer, ASGs) is powerful and cost-aware but demands CloudFormation or Terraform chops.	Tie
Integrations	9/10Heroku offers 150+ pre-built add-ons: Postgres, Redis, SendGrid, NewRelic. Batteries included; pay a premium for convenience.	8/10AWS integrates with RDS, ElastiCache, SNS, SES—same things but DIY-friendly. Better for teams already in the AWS ecosystem.	Heroku
Support	8/10Heroku support is responsive but you're bound by their offering. Custom networking, DDoS protection or compliance edge cases hit limits fast.	8/10AWS support tiers range from Community to 1-hour Enterprise. Vendor lock can be steep but you're not outgrowing it.	Tie

DX & Deploys

Heroku: Heroku's git push deploy is legendary. No CI/CD setup needed; zero to live in 2 minutes. For small teams and MVPs this is unbeaten.

AWS: AWS has EC2, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy—powerful but require you to stitch them together. Fargate abstracts some of this but still steeper than Heroku's one-liner.

Performance

Heroku: Heroku's fixed dyno model means noisy neighbors and less predictable perf under load. Fine for indie projects; problematic at scale.

AWS: AWS gives you raw compute power and tuning knobs. Better steady-state perf at scale but you own the optimization.

Pricing

Heroku: Heroku costs $50-500/month per small app. Scales fast from free tier into painful monthly bills as traffic grows.

AWS: AWS scales with your usage, often cheaper at high volumes. t3.small instances run $8/mo; RDS Micro DBs are similarly low-cost. Requires discipline.

Scaling

Heroku: Heroku's horizontal scaling is one slider. Add dynos and go. Zero infrastructure knowledge required.

AWS: AWS auto-scaling (Elastic Load Balancer, ASGs) is powerful and cost-aware but demands CloudFormation or Terraform chops.

Integrations

Heroku: Heroku offers 150+ pre-built add-ons: Postgres, Redis, SendGrid, NewRelic. Batteries included; pay a premium for convenience.

AWS: AWS integrates with RDS, ElastiCache, SNS, SES—same things but DIY-friendly. Better for teams already in the AWS ecosystem.

Support

Heroku: Heroku support is responsive but you're bound by their offering. Custom networking, DDoS protection or compliance edge cases hit limits fast.

AWS: AWS support tiers range from Community to 1-hour Enterprise. Vendor lock can be steep but you're not outgrowing it.

Best for Heroku

Teams that want classic paas for shipping apps
Users prioritizing scaling
Growth-stage teams

Best for AWS

Teams that want amazon web services cloud platform
Users prioritizing dx & deploys
Growth-stage teams

Decision notes

Choose Heroku if shipping fast matters more than cost optimization. Choose AWS if you're building for scale and compliance. [compare](/compare) AWS EC2 + RDS cost vs. Heroku at your traffic projection.

Export/import support between Heroku and AWS
Team onboarding and learning curve
Pricing at your seat count
Integration coverage for your stack

Frequently asked questions

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