Heroku Alternatives: 10 Platforms to Deploy Apps (2026)

Heroku made deploying an app as simple as git push heroku main, and for years it was the default place to run a Rails, Django, or Node.js app. It still works, but its free tier ended in 2022, the jump from hobby dynos to production tiers is steep, and in February 2026 Heroku announced it is moving to a “sustaining engineering” model focused on stability rather than new features, and stopped offering Enterprise contracts to new customers. This guide covers what changed at Heroku, ten alternatives with pricing checked on each vendor’s site in November 2026, and how to move an app over.

TL;DR

• Best overall: Render. The closest to Heroku’s experience: git push deploys, web services, workers, cron jobs, and managed Postgres, with a free tier and web services from $7 a month.
• Best usage-based pricing: Railway, from $5 a month including $5 of usage, with a small always-free plan.
• Best for static sites and frontends: Static.app, if your Heroku app only served HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, from $6 a month with unlimited traffic.
• Best for global apps: Fly.io, which runs your containers close to users in 18 regions.
• Best self-hosted Heroku: Coolify or Dokku, on your own server.

What changed at Heroku

• No free tier since November 2022. The cheapest option is the Eco plan, $5 a month for personal accounts, with dynos that sleep after 30 minutes without traffic.
• Steep jumps between tiers. Basic dynos are $7 a month, but production features such as horizontal scaling and metrics start with Standard at $25 to $50 per dyno, and Performance dynos at $250.
• Sustaining engineering. On February 6, 2026, Heroku said it is “transitioning to a sustaining engineering model focused on stability, security, reliability, and support,” and that Enterprise contracts are no longer offered to new customers. Existing contracts are honored, and pricing for card-paying customers hasn’t changed. There is no shutdown date.

Heroku isn’t going away, and for an existing app that works, staying is reasonable. But for a new project, or a growing bill, the alternatives below are worth comparing.

Heroku alternatives at a glance

Platform	Free option	Cheapest always-on app	Managed Postgres from	Workers and cron	Best for
Render	Free web service (sleeps), Postgres for 30 days	$7/mo	$6/mo	Yes	Closest to Heroku
Railway	$5 trial, then $1/mo credit	$5/mo Hobby (incl. $5 usage)	Usage-based	Yes	Pay for what you use
Static.app	7-day trial	$6/mo (static sites)	None	No	Static sites and frontends
Fly.io	$1 credit for 7 days	About $2.19/mo (256 MB)	$38/mo	Yes	Apps close to users
DigitalOcean App Platform	3 static sites	$5/mo	$7/mo dev, $15.15 managed	Yes	Simple pricing, one cloud
Northflank	Sandbox, always on	About $2.70/mo smallest	Compute plus disk	Yes	Free tier that doesn’t sleep
Koyeb	1 small instance	Pro $29/mo plus compute	$29.76/mo	Yes	Global serverless containers
Google Cloud Run	Monthly free allowance	Pay per use	Cloud SQL (separate)	Jobs	Containers that scale to zero
Coolify	Free self-hosted	$5/mo cloud plus your servers	Self-hosted	Yes	Self-hosted Heroku
Dokku	Free	Your server	Plugin	Yes	Heroku on one VPS

The best Heroku alternatives, reviewed

1. Render: best overall Heroku alternative

What it is. A platform for web services, background workers, cron jobs, static sites, and managed Postgres and Key Value, deployed from Git or a Docker image.

Why it replaces Heroku. It maps almost one to one: web dynos become web services, worker dynos become background workers, Heroku Scheduler becomes cron jobs, and Heroku Postgres becomes Render Postgres. A render.yaml blueprint describes the whole app, like an app.json with more control.

Pricing. A free web service has 512 MB and sleeps after 15 minutes idle, taking about a minute to wake. Paid web services start at $7 a month. Postgres starts at $6 a month, and the free Postgres database expires after 30 days. Regions are Oregon, Ohio, Virginia, Frankfurt, and Singapore.

The catch. The free tier is for testing only, and team features need the $25-a-month Pro workspace. Our Render alternatives guide covers the other direction. For a head-to-head, see Render vs Railway.

2. Railway: best usage-based pricing

What it is. A deployment platform that runs services, databases, cron jobs, and volumes on a visual canvas, billed by the actual CPU and memory you use.

Why it replaces Heroku. Small apps cost less than a Heroku dyno, because you pay for usage rather than fixed dyno sizes, and databases such as Postgres, MySQL, and Redis deploy in one click.

Pricing. A 30-day trial with $5 of credit, then a free plan with $1 of credit a month. Hobby is $5 a month including $5 of usage, and Pro is $20 a month per workspace with unlimited seats. Usage costs $10 per GB of RAM and $20 per vCPU a month.

The catch. Usage billing is harder to predict than a fixed dyno price, and there are four regions: California, Virginia, Amsterdam, and Singapore.

3. Static.app: best for static sites and frontends

What it is. A static website host where you publish a folder or ZIP by drag-and-drop, with free SSL, forms, cookieless analytics, and password protection.

Why it replaces Heroku. Many Heroku apps exist only to serve a static site, a marketing page, documentation, or a single-page app built with React or Vue, often behind a tiny Express server. If your app compiles to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, including a Next.js static export or Nuxt’s generate, Static.app hosts it without a server, with flat pricing and unlimited traffic. Built-in forms replace the endpoint many sites only kept for a contact form.

Pricing. A 7-day free trial without a card. Starter is $6 a month, or $5 billed yearly, for 2 sites with custom domains. Medium is $12 for 7 sites, and Large $18 for 30.

The catch. Static only: there’s no server runtime, database, or background workers, so an app with an API needs one of the platforms above for its backend.

4. Fly.io: best for global apps

What it is. A platform that runs your app as lightweight virtual machines (Machines) in 18 regions, deployed from a Dockerfile with the flyctl command line.

Why it replaces Heroku. You can run the same app in several regions near your users, and the smallest machine costs a fraction of a Heroku dyno. Process groups handle web and worker processes.

Pricing. New accounts get $1 of credit for 7 days. A shared-CPU machine with 256 MB costs about $2.19 a month, and invoices under $5 aren’t charged. Managed Postgres starts at $38 a month with high availability.

The catch. It’s more hands-on than Heroku, and managed Postgres is expensive for small apps.

5. DigitalOcean App Platform: simplest pricing

What it is. DigitalOcean’s managed platform for web services, workers, jobs, and static sites, deployed from GitHub, GitLab, a container registry, or a Dockerfile, with buildpack support.

Why it replaces Heroku. It reads Heroku-style buildpacks, so many apps deploy without changes, and pricing is fixed per container.

Pricing. Three static sites are free. Web services start at $5 a month for 512 MiB. A development database is $7 a month, and managed PostgreSQL starts at $15.15.

The catch. The development database has no backups, so production apps need the managed database.

6. Northflank: best free tier that doesn’t sleep

What it is. A platform for services, jobs, and databases that can run on Northflank’s cloud or in your own AWS, GCP, or Azure account.

Why it replaces Heroku. Its free Sandbox gives you 2 services, 2 jobs, and a database that stay on, with no sleeping, and no card required. Cron jobs and preview environments are built in.

Pricing. Billed per second: $0.01667 per vCPU-hour and $0.00833 per GB-hour, so the smallest service costs about $2.70 a month.

The catch. The interface has more options than Heroku’s, which takes some learning.

7. Koyeb: global serverless containers

What it is. A serverless platform that deploys from GitHub or a Docker image to regions in the US, Europe, and Asia, with autoscaling and scale-to-zero.

Why it replaces Heroku. Git push deploys, workers, and managed Postgres, with apps that scale down when idle.

Pricing. One small free instance per organization, which scales to zero after an hour idle and isn’t meant for production. The Pro plan is $29 a month plus compute, from about $1.61 a month per small instance. Koyeb has announced it is joining Mistral AI.

The catch. The entry paid plan is more expensive than Render’s or Railway’s for a single small app.

8. Google Cloud Run: containers that scale to zero

What it is. Google Cloud’s service for running containers, billed per 100 milliseconds of use, with jobs for scheduled tasks.

Why it replaces Heroku. For apps with uneven traffic, you pay nothing while idle, and the monthly free allowance covers 180,000 vCPU-seconds and 2 million requests.

Pricing. Pay per use above the free allowance. Postgres comes from Cloud SQL, a separate product.

The catch. It’s part of Google Cloud, so setup involves IAM, regions, and several services.

9. Coolify: best self-hosted Heroku

What it is. An open-source, self-hosted platform that turns your own servers into a Heroku-like dashboard, deploying from Git with Nixpacks, a Dockerfile, or Docker Compose, plus one-click databases.

Why it replaces Heroku. You get push-to-deploy, databases, and SSL on a server you rent for a few dollars a month, with no per-app pricing.

Pricing. Free to self-host. Coolify Cloud manages it for you from $5 a month for 2 servers, plus your own servers.

The catch. You’re responsible for the servers, backups, and security updates. Our Coolify vs Dokploy comparison covers Coolify and its closest rival.

10. Dokku: Heroku on a single server

What it is. The original open-source “mini-Heroku”: git push to your own server, with Heroku buildpacks or a Dockerfile, a Procfile, and plugins for Postgres and Redis.

Why it replaces Heroku. It’s the closest workflow to Heroku’s, down to buildpacks and the Procfile, so many apps move with no code changes.

Pricing. Free. You pay only for the server.

The catch. It runs on one server, so scaling and high availability are up to you.

AWS App Runner, once a common pick, has closed to new customers, and AWS now recommends Amazon ECS instead.

Which Heroku alternative should you choose?

• You want Heroku’s experience with less cost: Render.
• You want to pay only for what your app uses: Railway.
• Your app is a static site or frontend: Static.app.
• Your users are around the world: Fly.io.
• You want buildpacks to keep working: DigitalOcean App Platform or Dokku.
• You want a free tier that doesn’t sleep: Northflank.
• You’d rather run your own server: Coolify or Dokku.

How to move an app off Heroku

1. Check the Procfile. Each process type (web, worker) becomes a service on the new platform.
2. Copy config vars. heroku config -s prints them in a format you can paste into the new platform’s environment settings.
3. Move the database. Take a backup with heroku pg:backups:capture, download it with heroku pg:backups:url, and restore it with pg_restore into the new Postgres.
4. Replace add-ons. Heroku Scheduler becomes cron jobs, Redis becomes the platform’s Key Value or a managed Redis, and email and logging add-ons usually work as standalone services.
5. Switch DNS once the new app passes your checks, and keep Heroku running for a day in case you need to roll back.

After the move, set up uptime monitoring on the new URL so you know if anything breaks.

FAQ

What is the best alternative to Heroku?

Render is the best overall alternative, with Heroku-style web services, workers, cron jobs, and managed Postgres, a free tier, and web services from $7 a month. Railway is better for usage-based pricing, and Fly.io for apps that run in several regions.

Is there a free alternative to Heroku?

Render has a free web service that sleeps after 15 minutes, Northflank’s free Sandbox keeps 2 services always on, and Railway gives $1 of credit a month after its trial. Coolify and Dokku are free if you run your own server.

Is Heroku shutting down?

No. In February 2026 Heroku announced a move to a sustaining engineering model focused on stability and support rather than new features, and stopped offering Enterprise contracts to new customers. Existing apps keep running, and pricing for card-paying customers hasn’t changed.

Does Heroku still have a free tier?

No. Heroku’s free dynos ended in November 2022. The cheapest option is the Eco plan at $5 a month for personal accounts, with dynos that sleep after 30 minutes idle, or Basic at $7 a month for an always-on dyno.

Can I host a static site on Heroku?

You can, but it needs a small web server and a paid dyno. A static host such as Static.app, Cloudflare Pages, or Netlify serves static sites without a server and is simpler and usually cheaper.