AWSvsHeroku

Platform58

Platform48

Score Comparison

Overall

Pricing

Usability

Performance

Support

Reliability

Onboarding

Security

Integrations

AWSHeroku

Signals Comparison

Pricing

AWS

Unpredictable billing with surprise charges(9/10)
Free tier traps - Aurora, RDS, and Elastic IP charges(8/10)
Data egress fees add up quickly(8/10)
Cost optimization requires dedicated expertise(7/10)

Heroku

Free tier eliminated in November 2022(10/10)
Costs escalate quickly with scale(9/10)
Billing continues after account deletion(8/10)
Eco dynos sleep after 30 minutes(6/10)
Limited payment options - credit card only(4/10)

Usability

AWS

Overwhelming complexity with 260+ services(8/10)
IAM policies are complex and error-prone(8/10)
Console slow and difficult to navigate(6/10)

Heroku

GitHub deployment errors and log tracking issues(6/10)

Reliability

AWS

Major October 2025 outage - 15 hours downtime(10/10)
US-East-1 single point of failure for many services(8/10)

Heroku

June 10, 2025 outage - 15+ hours of downtime(10/10)
Entering sustaining engineering mode - no new features(9/10)
Multiple major outages in June 2025(9/10)
Status page ran on affected infrastructure(8/10)

Support

AWS

Enterprise Support required - $5,000+/month minimum(9/10)
Basic support is documentation-only(7/10)

Heroku

Customer support described as 'comically bad'(8/10)

Security

AWS

Unauthorized charges from compromised credentials(9/10)

Heroku

No signals

Customization

AWS

No signals

Heroku

Limited infrastructure control - vendor lock-in(8/10)

Pricing Comparison

AWS

Free Tier (12 months)

Free

Users: N/A

Storage: 5GB S3, 30GB EBS

Limits: 12-month limit, only specific instance types, basic support only (documentation)

Aurora NOT included, Elastic IPs charged when stopped, data egress fees, many services NOT free tier eligible

EC2 On-Demand (t3.micro)

Popular

$7.49/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: EBS separate

Limits: Shared tenancy, basic support unless upgraded

EBS storage extra, data egress $0.09/GB, EBS snapshots, CloudWatch logs, NAT Gateway if needed

EC2 On-Demand (t3.medium)

$30.37/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: EBS separate

Limits: Each service billed separately

All infrastructure costs extra: load balancers, databases, storage

Enterprise Support

$5000/mo

Users: Unlimited

Storage: N/A

Limits: Required for production SLAs, Developer/Business support discontinued Dec 2025

Minimum $5,000/mo or % of AWS spend, additional for premium services

Heroku

Eco Dynos

$5/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: N/A

Limits: Sleeping dynos, not suitable for production, no custom domains on some plans

Dynos sleep after 30 min inactivity (10-30s wake time), hours shared across ALL apps

Basic Dynos

Popular

$7/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: N/A

Limits: No memory scaling, no autoscaling, basic monitoring only

Database separate (Mini Postgres $5/mo), add-ons extra, each dyno billed separately

Standard-1X

$25/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: N/A

Limits: Still single-tenant, no dedicated resources

Standard-2X is $50/mo, databases charged separately, add-ons accumulate

Performance-M

$250/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: N/A

Limits: Still limited compared to raw cloud VMs at similar prices

Performance-L is $500/mo, Shield (compliance) adds more, enterprise pricing opaque

Feature Comparison

Feature	AWS	Heroku
Infrastructure
Compute (EC2) Industry-leading
Kubernetes (EKS)
33 Global Regions
Deployment
Git Push Deployment Heroku pioneered this
Container Support Docker support
Storage
Object Storage (S3) 11 9s durability
Databases
Managed Postgres Mini $5/mo
Managed Databases (RDS) Multiple engines
Managed Redis $3/mo start
Compute
Serverless (Lambda)
Integrations
Add-on Marketplace Extensive options
CI/CD
Review Apps
AI
AI/ML Services (Bedrock)
Scaling
Autoscaling Standard+ only
Pricing
Free Tier Removed Nov 2022
Simple Pricing Notoriously complex
Security
90+ Compliance Certifications
Platform
New Features Development Sustaining mode Feb 2026
Support
Free Technical Support Requires paid plan
Availability
Always-On ($5) Eco dynos sleep

Signals Comparison

Pricing

AWS

Unpredictable billing with surprise charges(9/10)
Free tier traps - Aurora, RDS, and Elastic IP charges(8/10)
Data egress fees add up quickly(8/10)
Cost optimization requires dedicated expertise(7/10)

Heroku

Free tier eliminated in November 2022(10/10)
Costs escalate quickly with scale(9/10)
Billing continues after account deletion(8/10)
Eco dynos sleep after 30 minutes(6/10)
Limited payment options - credit card only(4/10)

Usability

AWS

Overwhelming complexity with 260+ services(8/10)
IAM policies are complex and error-prone(8/10)
Console slow and difficult to navigate(6/10)

Heroku

GitHub deployment errors and log tracking issues(6/10)

Reliability

AWS

Major October 2025 outage - 15 hours downtime(10/10)
US-East-1 single point of failure for many services(8/10)

Heroku

June 10, 2025 outage - 15+ hours of downtime(10/10)
Entering sustaining engineering mode - no new features(9/10)
Multiple major outages in June 2025(9/10)
Status page ran on affected infrastructure(8/10)

Support

AWS

Enterprise Support required - $5,000+/month minimum(9/10)
Basic support is documentation-only(7/10)

Heroku

Customer support described as 'comically bad'(8/10)

Security

AWS

Unauthorized charges from compromised credentials(9/10)

Heroku

No signals

Customization

AWS

No signals

Heroku

Limited infrastructure control - vendor lock-in(8/10)

Pricing Comparison

AWS

Free Tier (12 months)

Free

Users: N/A

Storage: 5GB S3, 30GB EBS

Limits: 12-month limit, only specific instance types, basic support only (documentation)

Aurora NOT included, Elastic IPs charged when stopped, data egress fees, many services NOT free tier eligible

EC2 On-Demand (t3.micro)

Popular

$7.49/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: EBS separate

Limits: Shared tenancy, basic support unless upgraded

EBS storage extra, data egress $0.09/GB, EBS snapshots, CloudWatch logs, NAT Gateway if needed

EC2 On-Demand (t3.medium)

$30.37/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: EBS separate

Limits: Each service billed separately

All infrastructure costs extra: load balancers, databases, storage

Enterprise Support

$5000/mo

Users: Unlimited

Storage: N/A

Limits: Required for production SLAs, Developer/Business support discontinued Dec 2025

Minimum $5,000/mo or % of AWS spend, additional for premium services

Heroku

Eco Dynos

$5/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: N/A

Limits: Sleeping dynos, not suitable for production, no custom domains on some plans

Dynos sleep after 30 min inactivity (10-30s wake time), hours shared across ALL apps

Basic Dynos

Popular

$7/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: N/A

Limits: No memory scaling, no autoscaling, basic monitoring only

Database separate (Mini Postgres $5/mo), add-ons extra, each dyno billed separately

Standard-1X

$25/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: N/A

Limits: Still single-tenant, no dedicated resources

Standard-2X is $50/mo, databases charged separately, add-ons accumulate

Performance-M

$250/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: N/A

Limits: Still limited compared to raw cloud VMs at similar prices

Performance-L is $500/mo, Shield (compliance) adds more, enterprise pricing opaque

Feature Comparison

Feature	AWS	Heroku
Infrastructure
Compute (EC2) Industry-leading
Kubernetes (EKS)
33 Global Regions
Deployment
Git Push Deployment Heroku pioneered this
Container Support Docker support
Storage
Object Storage (S3) 11 9s durability
Databases
Managed Postgres Mini $5/mo
Managed Databases (RDS) Multiple engines
Managed Redis $3/mo start
Compute
Serverless (Lambda)
Integrations
Add-on Marketplace Extensive options
CI/CD
Review Apps
AI
AI/ML Services (Bedrock)
Scaling
Autoscaling Standard+ only
Pricing
Free Tier Removed Nov 2022
Simple Pricing Notoriously complex
Security
90+ Compliance Certifications
Platform
New Features Development Sustaining mode Feb 2026
Support
Free Technical Support Requires paid plan
Availability
Always-On ($5) Eco dynos sleep