List of questions to check if heroku is really expensive for your project

June 8, 2021

For most of us, heroku is a really useful tool because it does so much for us, but in some cases it could look like it is really expensive…

… Is it really expensive? Does it worth the time it saves on tooling, maintenance, devops, etc? Would you be able to replace it with AWS or other provider?

I really don’t know. I think it really depends on you, your team and your current project.

But if you are reading this article is because maybe you have a project where you are wondering if it really worth the price.

So, here I want to share with you a list of questions, to help you decide if heroku is reall expensive for your project or not.

What do you need?

Do you even care about all the features in heroku or you just want something to play?
How important is a backup system?
How important is to just git push?
How important are automatic OS updates?
How important are automatic security updates?
How important are review apps?
How important are the semi-automatic scaling?
How many addons do you depend on that will be hard to setup with other cloud provider?
Do you need high complience level requirements that heroku already can give you?

What do you know?

Do you know how to run your app in another cloud provider?
Do you know how to do a deployment setup for another cloud provider?
Do you know how to setup a backup system in another cloud provider?
Do you know how to do and keep track of OS updates?
Do you know how to do and keep track of security updates?
Do you know how setup a review apps system?
Do you know how setup a resource scaling system?

Current bill

Is your current bill larger than the bill of the other provider plus the salary cost of at least one senior devops?
Are you aware that even hire two senior devops, for the migration from heroku can end in a fail as a project?
Do you want to do all the required work to avoid the bill?
Have you tried to pitch to you client, boss or the person who pays the bills how much does a migration will cost? (the other provider bill, plus the salary cost of at least one senior devops, even if this person if you)

A rule of thumb

Normally Heroku will be more expensive than doing the work yourself on other provider, but it will almost always going to be cheaper than hiring a devops person to do on other provider what Heroku does for you.

You can think of heroku as “hosting + devops”.

So, if you know some devops and are comfortable handling an emergency without a devops person, AWS or other providers will probably be cheaper than Heroku.

If you would need to hire someone to handle devops or it will take much from your own time and you don’t want it, I think that you are better using Heroku even if it looks “expensive”.

Weekly tips and tools for Ruby on Rails developers

I send an email each week, trying to share knowledge and fixes to common problems and struggles for ruby on rails developers, like How to fetch the latest-N-of-each record or How to test that an specific mail was sent or a Capybara cheatsheet. You can see more examples on Most recent posts or All post by topic.