Heroku review
by Heroku (Salesforce)Frontend and app hosting
Git-push app platform from Salesforce: dynos from $5 a month, no bandwidth or seat charges, SSO for Heroku Teams, and a sustaining engineering model since February 2026.
- Paid only
- Self-serve
- Usage-based
- Public prices
What you're paying for
- Saves engineering time (main value)
- Worth the price
- Compliance included
Push code and run it on managed dynos with no bandwidth or seat charges, from $7 a month for an always-on Basic dyno.
Heroku handles the runtime, OS patching and certificates below your code: you push from Git and scale dynos. Pricing is the dynos and add-ons you run, prorated to the second, with no charge for requests or data transfer (bandwidth is soft-limited at 2 TB per app a month). Heroku Teams add members without a seat charge and support SAML SSO, and Shield Private Spaces support HIPAA workloads.
- No bandwidth or seat chargesData transfer is not billed (soft limit 2 TB per app a month), and Heroku Teams charge nothing per member; only dynos and add-ons are billed.Evidence: Limits, Heroku Teams and usage and billing docs (2026-10-15)
- Platform maintenance handledThe pricing page lists container orchestration, automatic OS patching and automated certificate management from the Eco dyno up.Evidence: Pricing page (2026-10-15)
- SSO without an enterprise contractThe SSO docs say SSO is available for Heroku Teams, which any Heroku user can create with a credit card.Evidence: SSO and Heroku Teams docs (2026-10-15)
- Best for
- Small teams with steady traffic that want a managed runtime with a predictable dyno bill and no bandwidth charges.
- Good to know
- Heroku has no free plan, keeps only the last 1,500 log lines, and is now in a sustaining engineering model with no new Enterprise contracts.
How Heroku compares
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Frontend and app hosting: what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | Heroku | Cloudflare Workers | Render | Netlify |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Saves engineering timePush code and run it on managed dynos with no bandwidth or seat charges, from $7 a month for an always-on Basic dyno. | Worth the priceA full-stack app platform for $5 a month per account, with no data transfer charges, free static asset requests and dashboard SSO on every plan. | Saves engineering timeManaged web services, Postgres and Key Value behind one workspace plan, with unlimited seats and audit logs from the $25 Pro plan. | Saves engineering timeDeploys, previews, functions, forms and a database in one credit balance, with unlimited team members on Pro for $20 a month. |
| Overall score | 6.2 | 8.6Best | 7.7 | 7.3 |
| Free option | Paid only | Free plan | Free plan | Free plan |
| Card to start | –Not measured | –Not measured | –Not measured | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $5/mo | $5/mo | $25/mo | $9/mo |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Usage-based | Seat + usage | Tiered |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing units | Dynos and add-ons, prorated to the second | Requests that run code and CPU time | Workspace plan and instances, then bandwidth and build minutes | Credits (bandwidth, requests, compute, deploys) |
| Free plan | None; Eco dynos $5/mo for personal apps | 100,000 requests/day; commercial use not addressed | Hobby: 1 member, 750 free instance hours; not for production | 300 credits/mo, commercial use allowed |
| 3 developers, 10M requests, 1 TB/mo | $7 on one Basic dyno, computed | $5.12 on Workers Paid, computed | $178.25 on Pro, computed | $155 on Pro, computed |
| Data transfer | Not billed; 2 TB per app soft limit | Not charged | 25 GB on Pro, then $0.15/GB; 1 TB on Scale | 20 credits per GB (about $0.13 at the Pro pack rate) |
| Seats for people who deploy | Heroku Teams: no seat charge, up to 25 members | No per-member charge listed | Unlimited on Pro, no seat charge | Unlimited members on Pro |
| SAML SSO | Heroku Teams, no extra charge | Dashboard SSO free on all plans | Scale ($499/mo) | Enterprise |
| Spend cap | None stated | Budget alerts only; they do not pause usage | Spend limit for build minutes only; usage emails | Stops at your credits unless auto recharge is on |
| SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 | Both (reports by request) | Both | Both (documents on Pro, under NDA) | Both |
| HIPAA BAA | Shield Private Space (up to $3,000/mo), by ticket | Not stated | Scale, with 20% added to usage | Enterprise add-on |
| Runtime logs, entry paid plan | Last 1,500 lines, up to 1 week; drains to export | 7 days (Logpush to export) | 14 days (log streams to export) | 7 days |
| Audit logs | Enterprise accounts only, not sold to new customers | All plans, kept 18 months | Pro (workspace), at least 90 days | Pro, 7-day history |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, Heroku covers our scenario for $7 and charges neither seats nor bandwidth. It scores lower on this rubric for having no free plan, no stored logs and no audit trail for new customers, and it is now in a sustaining engineering model. | From its public pages, Cloudflare Workers costs the least here by a wide margin for traffic-heavy apps, with SSO and audit logs on every plan. Plan for budget alerts that notify rather than stop, and an adapter for Next.js. | From its public pages, Render suits teams that want services and databases managed together, with no seat charges and audit logs on Pro. Bandwidth is the cost to watch: 1 TB a month adds $146.25 on Pro. | From its public pages, Netlify suits teams with modest traffic: unlimited members on Pro, a free plan you may use commercially and spending that stops by default. Bandwidth is billed in credits, so data-heavy apps cost more here than on the other two. |
Evidence: Heroku: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Cloudflare Workers: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Render: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Netlify: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Score
- Pricing clarity and spend control
- 7.0 / 10, Good
- 1 meter to estimate (dyno hours); no spend control stated
- Free tier
- 0.0 / 10, Fair
- no permanent free plan
- Price for 3 developers, 10M requests and 1 TB
- 10.0 / 10, Excellent
- $7/mo: one always-on Basic dyno ($7) in a Heroku Team with no seat charge; requests and data transfer are not billed (computed); assumes one Basic dyno (0.5 GB) serves all 10M requests, static assets included, and 1 TB stays within the 2 TB per-app bandwidth soft limit
- Compliance documents
- 9.0 / 10, Excellent
- own SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, reports for enterprise customers or on request, HIPAA BAA on a self-serve plan
- Team seats and SSO
- 10.0 / 10, Excellent
- no per-seat charge; SSO included on self-serve plans; free read-only access
- Logs and audit trail
- 1.0 / 10, Fair
- runtime logs 0 days on the entry paid plan, self-serve export or longer retention, audit logs not listed
Review
Review from public pages
Written from Heroku's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 15, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
What the public pages show
We read Heroku's pricing and compliance pages, Dev Center articles on usage and billing, limits, logging, Heroku Teams, SSO, Private and Shield Private Spaces and security resources, the Elements page for Private Spaces, and Heroku's blog on Oct 15, 2026; we did not sign up for this review. Heroku bills dynos and add-ons by the second, up to a monthly maximum per dyno: Eco is $5 for 1,000 shared hours (personal apps only, sleeping after 30 minutes idle), Basic $7, Standard-1X $25 and Performance dynos from $250. There is no free plan.
On February 6, 2026, Heroku posted that it is transitioning to a sustaining engineering model focused on stability, security, reliability and support, that customers paying by card see no change in pricing or service, and that Enterprise Account contracts are no longer offered to new customers. Updates since then include fine-grained access control (August 2026) and team-owned API tokens (September 2026).
Two details stood out. Heroku Teams have no seat charge and support SAML SSO, but creating a team requires a credit card. And logs are not stored: Cedar apps keep the last 1,500 lines for up to a week, Fir apps keep no history, and the docs point to log drains or add-ons for retention.
Strengths
- A low, fixed price at our scenario
$7 a month by our arithmetic: one always-on Basic dyno, with requests and data transfer not billed.
vs Render: Cloudflare Workers comes to $5.12, Vercel to $80 and Render to $178.25 for the same scenario.
- No bandwidth charge
The limits page soft-limits bandwidth at 2 TB per app a month, and the pricing pages list no data transfer fee.
vs Render: Render charges $0.15 per GB beyond its plan allowance; Netlify bills 20 credits per GB.
- SSO for Heroku Teams
SAML SSO is available to Heroku Teams, which have no seat charge for up to 25 members.
vs Render: Vercel’s SAML SSO is a $300-a-month add-on; Render puts it on the $499 Scale plan.
- A HIPAA path without Enterprise
Shield Private Spaces, available to verified Heroku Teams, support a BAA requested through a support ticket; the space costs up to $3,000 a month.
Things to know
- Sustaining engineering model
Heroku said on February 6, 2026 that it is focusing on stability and support rather than new features, and no longer offers Enterprise Account contracts to new customers.
Workaround: The same post says customers paying by card keep the same pricing and service.
- No free plan
The cheapest option is Eco at $5 a month for personal apps; Eco dynos are not available to Teams and sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity.
- Logs are not stored
Heroku keeps the last 1,500 log lines, for up to a week on Cedar apps and none on Fir; the docs describe Logplex as built for routing logs, not storing them.
Workaround: Log drains and logging add-ons keep logs longer.
- No audit trail or spend cap for new customers
Audit trails are an Enterprise Account feature, which new customers can no longer buy, and the pages describe no spending cap.
Pricing reality
Heroku bills each dyno and add-on by the second, up to a monthly maximum: Basic $7, Standard-1X $25, Standard-2X $50, Performance-M $250. Requests and data transfer are not billed, and Heroku Teams have no seat charge. Data services are add-ons (Heroku Postgres Essential-0 is $5). Private Spaces cost up to $1,000 a month and Shield Private Spaces up to $3,000, plus their dynos.
For our scenario we compute $7 a month: one always-on Basic dyno serving all 10 million requests, with 1 TB inside the 2 TB per-app soft limit. The pricing page lists no CDN, so static assets are served by the dyno in this figure. A HIPAA setup starts with a Shield Private Space plus Shield dynos (from $150).
Exit path
Heroku Postgres supports manual and scheduled backups that can be downloaded and stored outside Heroku, except on Shield plans. Cedar apps can build with Cloud Native Buildpacks, per Heroku’s October 2026 update.
Compared with
- Pick Heroku when
- Your app moves a lot of data, or you want SAML SSO without a $499 plan.
- Pick Render when
- You want a free tier to try things, and audit logs and 14-day log retention on the $25 Pro plan.
- Pick Heroku when
- You run a long-lived server app and want no bandwidth or seat charges.
- Pick Vercel when
- You build with Next.js, want a hard spending stop, or want a free plan for personal projects.
Choose it if
- You run a server app with steady traffic and want a fixed dyno bill.
- Your app moves a lot of data and you do not want bandwidth charges.
- You want SAML SSO for a small team without an enterprise contract.
Look elsewhere if
- You need audit logs or an enterprise contract as a new customer.
- You want a free plan.
- You need stored runtime logs without a drain or add-on.
Bottom line
From its public pages, Heroku covers our scenario for $7 and charges neither seats nor bandwidth. It scores lower on this rubric for having no free plan, no stored logs and no audit trail for new customers, and it is now in a sustaining engineering model.
Plan limits at a glance
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Billing units | Dynos and add-ons, prorated to the second |
| Free plan | None; Eco dynos $5/mo for personal apps |
| 3 developers, 10M requests, 1 TB/mo | $7 on one Basic dyno, computed |
| Data transfer | Not billed; 2 TB per app soft limit |
| Seats for people who deploy | Heroku Teams: no seat charge, up to 25 members |
| SAML SSO | Heroku Teams, no extra charge |
| Spend cap | None stated |
| SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 | Both (reports by request) |
| HIPAA BAA | Shield Private Space (up to $3,000/mo), by ticket |
| Runtime logs, entry paid plan | Last 1,500 lines, up to 1 week; drains to export |
| Audit logs | Enterprise accounts only, not sold to new customers |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 15, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for Heroku yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 15, 2026.
We have not published API calls for Heroku yet.
Heroku lists 5 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Eco dynos, costs $5/mo.
- HerokuLowest priceEco$5/mo1,000 dyno hours a month shared across Eco dynos; personal apps only
- Sleeps after 30 minutes of inactivity
- Not available to Heroku Teams
- HerokuBasic$7/dyno/moAlways on, 0.5 GB; prorated to the second
- Free SSL
- 10 process types
- HerokuStandard-1X$25/dyno/mo0.5 GB; Standard-2X (1 GB) is $50
- Horizontal scaling
- App metrics and threshold alerts
- Preboot and zero-downtime deploys
- HerokuHeroku TeamsNo seat chargeUp to 25 members per team; credit card required to create a team
- SAML SSO
- Fine-grained app permissions (view, deploy, operate, manage)
- HerokuShield Private Space$3,000/moMonthly maximum, for verified teams; Shield dynos from $150
- HIPAA BAA through a support ticket
- PCI compliance
- Keystroke logging and space-level log drains
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-15.
Source: heroku.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.