Alternatives · Web Hosting
Heroku alternatives
As of Nov 12, 2026, the highest-graded Heroku alternative is Railway (2.6 GPA). The best free one is Render (2.4 GPA).
Heroku compared with 5 alternatives: Render, Railway, Fly.io, DigitalOcean and Vercel.
Heroku is a paid product, starting at $5 per month for an Eco dyno plan. 3 of the 5 alternatives are free or have a free plan. 2 more offer a free trial.
Listings checked up to Nov 12, 2026 · Where the facts come from
Black Friday: is there a Heroku sale?
At a glance
Price against what you get
Heroku starts at $5 a month and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. None of the 5 alternatives on this chart both scores higher and starts lower.
Render and Railway score higher without starting lower. Fly.io and DigitalOcean start lower without scoring higher.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
How each one differs from Heroku
Render
Cloud hosting for web services, databases and workers
- Render starts at $25 per month plus compute (Pro workspace).
- Render has a free plan, which Heroku lacks.
- Render also covers workflow automation.
Suits: Teams moving off Heroku-style platforms that want services and Postgres in one place
Railway
App and database hosting billed by the second for usage
- Railway starts at $5 minimum usage per month (Hobby).
- Railway also lists iOS and Android apps.
- Railway also covers AI agents.
Suits: Side projects and prototypes that run only part of the time
Fly.io
Virtual machines and databases in 18 regions, billed per second
- Fly.io starts at $2.19 per month for the smallest Machine, pay as you go.
- Fly.io also covers AI agents.
Suits: Developers who want VMs placed in several regions
DigitalOcean
Cloud servers, app hosting and managed databases for developers
- DigitalOcean starts at $4 per month (Droplet), billed per second.
- DigitalOcean has a free plan, which Heroku lacks.
Suits: Developers who want plain virtual machines with a predictable monthly cap
Vercel
Git-based hosting for front-end and full-stack web apps
- Vercel starts at $20 per month for 1 deploying seat (Pro).
- Vercel has a free plan, which Heroku lacks.
- Vercel also covers web analytics and page speed.
- Vercel does not cover databases, which Heroku does.
Suits: Front-end teams shipping Next.js and other framework apps from Git
Limits worth knowing in Heroku
- No free plan is listed on the pricing page; the lowest dyno price is $5 a month.
- Eco dynos are for personal accounts only and sleep after 30 minutes without traffic.
- Databases are priced separately from dynos: Postgres Essential-0 is $5 a month for 1 GB of storage.
- Dyno prices are per dyno, so running several dynos multiplies the monthly cost.
Common questions
What are the alternatives to Heroku?
The alternatives to Heroku in this directory are Render, Railway, Fly.io, DigitalOcean and Vercel. Each one has a side-by-side comparison with Heroku.
Is there a free alternative to Heroku?
Yes. Render, DigitalOcean and Vercel have a free plan alongside paid ones.
Which Heroku alternatives work on Android?
The Heroku listing does not include an Android app. Railway lists one.
Which Heroku alternatives work on iOS?
The Heroku listing does not include an iOS app. Railway lists one.
When were these prices checked?
Every listing on this page was checked on Nov 12, 2026, against the pages it cites. Vendors change prices without notice, so confirm on their site before you buy.