Heroku vs Render

Side-by-side — pricing, strengths, tradeoffs, and fit.

Heroku

Cloud application platform

Render

Unified cloud for web services, static sites, databases, and cron — a Heroku successor.

At a glance

· Not enough data·From Contact sales
Free TierEnterprise
● Established·From $7/mo

Overview

One-liner

Cloud application platform

One-liner

Unified cloud for web services, static sites, databases, and cron — a Heroku successor.

Maturity

Not enough data

Maturity

Established

Open source

✕ No

Open source

✕ No

Pricing

Free tier

✕ None

Free tier

✓ Available

Free static sites and limited free web services

Starts at

Contact sales

Starts at

$7/mo

Model

Flat rate

Model

Usage-based

Enterprise

✕ None

Enterprise

✓ Available

Best for

✓ Best for

Teams with existing Heroku deployments, Salesforce ecosystem users, or developers who prefer the original PaaS experience

✓ Best for

Full-stack apps needing backend + DBOne platform for services and Postgres
Heroku replacementsFamiliar PaaS with modern pricing

Not ideal for

✕ Not for

New projects — better alternatives (Railway, Render, Fly.io) now exist at lower cost with better DX

✕ Not for

—

Strengths

↑ Strengths

Git-based deploys
10+ language buildpacks
Add-on marketplace
Heroku Postgres

↑ Strengths

Full-stack PaaS
Simple, predictable pricing
Easy Heroku migration

Weaknesses

↓ Weaknesses

—

↓ Weaknesses

Cold starts on free tier
Fewer global regions than hyperscalers
Full Heroku profile →Full Render profile →