Best Heroku Alternatives in 2026: Hosted PaaS, Free Tiers and Self-Hosted Options

The best Heroku alternatives depend on whether you want someone else to run the servers. Render and Railway are the closest hosted replacements, Scalingo suits teams that want Heroku-style Git deploys on European infrastructure, and Coolify, Dokku and Dokploy let you run your own PaaS on a server you control.

Heroku is a managed platform where you deploy code to containers it calls dynos, with managed data services and add-ons around them. This guide starts with hosted platforms, moves to self-hosted ones, then covers the best PaaS choices by use case, which free options exist and what to check before you migrate.

Why people look for Heroku alternatives

Heroku is a commercial PaaS where developers deploy, run and scale apps without managing servers. The reasons teams compare it with other options are practical.

• No free plan. Heroku stopped offering free dynos, Heroku Postgres and Heroku Data for Redis plans in November 2022, according to its own changelog. A hobby project now needs a paid plan.
• Dyno-based tiers. Its pricing page lists Eco, Basic, Standard, Performance, Private and Shield dyno tiers, billed as monthly subscriptions. The cheapest Eco tier sleeps after a period of inactivity, so always-on apps need a higher one.
• Data and add-ons are separate products. Databases, caching and other services come as managed data services and add-ons, each with its own plan, which makes the total harder to forecast than a single price.
• Closed source, no self-hosting. Enlisted lists Heroku as proprietary with no self-hosted version, so moving away means moving to another host or to your own servers.
• Region and data-residency needs. Teams that must keep data in a specific region, such as Europe, look at providers built around that.

How we picked

Each platform does Heroku's core job: it takes an app from a Git repository or container image and runs it without you assembling the servers by hand. Enlisted weights active development on GitHub, licence and self-hosting for open-source entries, and the pricing model, free options and managed databases for hosted ones. The descriptions come from the catalogue and vendor docs. See how Enlisted ranks tools for the method.

1. Render: best all-round hosted replacement

Render is a managed cloud platform that hosts web services, static sites, private services, background workers and cron jobs, with managed Postgres and Key Value databases, all deployed from a Git repository. Where Heroku splits work across dynos and add-ons, Render puts services and databases in one dashboard and API.

It lists private networking, autoscaling, persistent disks, preview environments, zero-downtime deploys and Docker support, and it publishes migration guides for Heroku. Enlisted lists workspace plans with compute billed on top, and Render's docs describe free instance types, covered in the free section below.

• Best for: teams that want the closest Heroku-style experience with a free way to start.
• Watch out for: free web services spin down after inactivity, so they suit prototypes more than production.

2. Railway: best for fast deploys and usage-based billing

Railway is a hosted platform that deploys web apps, servers and databases from a repository or container image. It reads the code, applies suitable settings and shows the whole stack on a visual canvas, with preview environments, private networking and automatic SSL.

Its pricing page lists a free trial and a free plan with a small monthly usage credit, and bills CPU, memory and disk usage per second rather than selling fixed-size dynos.

• Best for: side projects and startups that want quick deploys with the database next to the app.
• Watch out for: usage-based bills are harder to predict than fixed dyno prices, so watch your resource use as an app grows.

3. Fly.io: best for running containers close to users

Fly.io is a cloud platform that turns container images into Fly Machines, hardware-isolated virtual machines that boot quickly and run in data centers near your users. It adds managed Postgres, private networking, autoscaling and zero-downtime deploys.

Fly's docs say it bills Machines by the second, with no monthly platform fee, and that new organizations get a limited trial but no ongoing free tier. It is closer to infrastructure than a git-push PaaS, because you work with Machines, regions and volumes.

• Best for: apps that benefit from running in several regions.
• Watch out for: more moving parts than a Heroku-style dashboard, and there is no free tier for new organizations.

4. Scalingo: best Heroku-style deploys on European infrastructure

Scalingo is a European PaaS that follows the same push-to-deploy workflow popularized by Heroku, running on European infrastructure. A Git repository is built, deployed, scaled and monitored by the platform, with autoscaling based on metrics and zero-downtime rolling deploys.

It supports Ruby on Rails, PHP, Node.js, Python, Java, Go and other stacks, and operates managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB and Elasticsearch with backups, point-in-time recovery and failover options. Enlisted lists pay-as-you-go containers and no free plan. Clever Cloud is another French PaaS with usage-based pricing.

• Best for: teams migrating from Heroku that need European hosting or data residency.
• Watch out for: it is closed source and hosted only, and Enlisted lists no free plan.

5. DigitalOcean App Platform: best if you also need servers

DigitalOcean is a cloud provider with virtual servers, managed databases, storage and Kubernetes, and App Platform is its PaaS for deploying applications. The advantage is staying in one account: start on App Platform, then add a virtual server or managed database from the same provider.

Enlisted lists App Platform as starting at no cost, with other products such as servers, Kubernetes and databases priced separately, so check which workloads the entry tier covers. DigitalOcean's managed databases cover PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, MongoDB and Kafka.

• Best for: teams that want a PaaS plus the option to drop down to plain servers.
• Watch out for: it is a broad cloud provider, so there are more products and billing lines than in a single-purpose PaaS.

6. Vercel: best for front-end and Next.js apps

Vercel is a platform for deploying front-end and full-stack applications, from the company that maintains Next.js. It lists Git-based deployments with CI/CD, a global content delivery network, serverless compute, observability and security tools. Enlisted lists a free Hobby plan for personal projects and a paid Pro plan with a trial.

Netlify is the closest alternative, with Git-based builds, deploy previews, serverless functions, an edge network and a free plan. Both are aimed at web front ends rather than a classic Heroku setup of web processes, workers and a database.

• Best for: Next.js and other front-end projects that need deploy previews and a CDN.
• Watch out for: check how background jobs and databases would run before moving a back-end-heavy Heroku app, and note it is closed source.

7. Coolify: best open-source, self-hosted all-rounder

Coolify is an open-source, self-hostable alternative to Heroku, Vercel and Netlify. It manages servers, applications and databases on hardware you control, and the only requirement is SSH access, so a VPS, a bare-metal machine or a Raspberry Pi can be a target. If you stop using Coolify, the resources it deployed keep running.

Apps can be built from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket or Gitea with Nixpacks, Railpack, a Dockerfile, Docker Compose or a prebuilt image. It adds hundreds of one-click services, pull-request previews, rollbacks, automatic HTTPS and backups. The code is Apache-2.0, self-hosting is free, and Enlisted also lists a paid Coolify Cloud.

• Best for: developers who want a Heroku-like dashboard on their own VPS.
• Watch out for: you maintain the servers, updates and backups.

8. Dokploy: best Docker Compose-friendly self-hosted PaaS

Dokploy is an open-source, self-hostable PaaS for deploying apps, databases and Docker Compose stacks on a VPS you control, installed with a single command. It creates MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MariaDB, libsql and Redis databases, schedules backups to external storage, and can cluster several nodes with Docker Swarm.

One-click templates cover open-source apps, Traefik handles routing and load balancing, and live monitoring shows resource use. Enlisted lists a paid cloud with a trial, and the licence is listed as Other.

• Best for: teams that already deploy with Docker Compose and want a dashboard on top.
• Watch out for: the licence is listed as Other, so read it before commercial use.

9. Dokku: best mini-Heroku on a single server

Dokku is an extensible, open-source PaaS that runs on a single server of your choice, released under the MIT licence. Its docs describe git push deployment, support for Heroku buildpacks and Dockerfile deploys, and nginx routing for web processes, along with background processes and cron tasks.

The install targets Ubuntu and Debian on AMD64 and arm64, and the listing mentions scheduler support for Docker, Kubernetes and Nomad. It is the nearest thing to running Heroku's workflow on your own hardware.

• Best for: small production apps and personal projects on one VPS that rely on Heroku buildpacks.
• Watch out for: it runs on a single server by default, so plan how you will handle scale and failover.

10. CapRover: best web GUI on Docker Swarm

CapRover is a self-hosted app and database deployment platform that uses Docker Swarm, nginx and Let's Encrypt behind a web interface and a CLI. It runs apps in Node.js, Python, PHP, ASP.NET, Ruby and Go, plus databases such as MariaDB, MySQL, MongoDB and Postgres, and one-click apps such as WordPress.

The project says there is no lock-in: if you remove CapRover, your apps keep working. Enlisted lists the licence as Other and shows no pricing.

• Best for: developers who want a simple web GUI to put several apps on one server.
• Watch out for: the licence is listed as Other, so check it first, and you run the server yourself.

11. Kamal: best for deploying containers to your own servers

Kamal is a deployment tool, released under MIT, that deploys containerized web apps to bare-metal or cloud servers over SSH. A proxy component called kamal-proxy switches requests between containers without downtime, and it works across multiple servers.

It was built originally for Rails apps but works with any web app that can be packaged in a Docker container. It is a deployment tool rather than a platform with a built-in dashboard, so plan how you will handle databases, backups and monitoring on those servers.

• Best for: teams comfortable with Docker and a command line who want to deploy to plain VMs.
• Watch out for: there is no hosted option, and you run the infrastructure.

More Heroku alternatives worth a look

• Northflank: deploys services, jobs and databases from Git, on its cloud or in your own cloud account, with a free Sandbox tier.
• Sevalla: application, database and static-site hosting from the team behind Kinsta, with free static sites.
• Piku: a tiny git push PaaS inspired by Dokku that reads a Procfile and runs on cloud VMs or a Raspberry Pi.
• Kubero: a GPL-3.0 self-hosted PaaS for Kubernetes that deploys containers without Helm charts.
• Openship: a self-hostable, Apache-2.0 deployment platform with built-in CI/CD, with an optional managed cloud.
• Google Cloud Run and Azure App Service: managed platforms from the big clouds, worth a look if you already have an account.

Which Heroku alternative should you choose?

See every Heroku alternative in the catalogue, the Render alternatives page, or the hosting category.

Is there a free PaaS? Free tiers compared

Heroku ended free dynos and databases in 2022, so people searching for a free PaaS now look at three kinds of option. Free tiers change often, so confirm current limits on each vendor's pricing page.

• Hosted free tiers for prototypes. Render's docs describe free web services that spin down after inactivity, free Postgres databases that expire after a set period, and static sites that are free. Railway lists a free trial and a small free plan, Northflank has a free Sandbox tier, and Vercel and Netlify have free plans for front-end projects. Sevalla hosts static sites for free.
• No free tier. Fly.io says new organizations have no ongoing free tier, only a limited trial, and Scalingo has no free plan listed in Enlisted.
• Free software on a paid server. Coolify, Dokku, CapRover, Kamal and Piku cost nothing to install, but you pay for the VPS and your own time. A small VPS can host several apps, which is often cheaper than several paid PaaS plans.

Free hosted tiers are for testing. Sleeping services and expiring databases are fine for a demo and a bad fit for something customers use.

Moving off Heroku: what to check first

Before you pick, list what your Heroku app actually uses.

1. Build method. Dokku supports Heroku buildpacks and Dockerfiles, Coolify builds with Nixpacks, Railpack or a Dockerfile, and Piku reads a Procfile. A Dockerfile is the most portable starting point.
2. Database and add-ons. Heroku Postgres and add-ons have to be replaced with a managed database elsewhere or one you run. Check backups and point-in-time recovery on the new host.
3. Background workers and cron. Not every host treats workers and scheduled jobs as first-class services, so confirm yours does.
4. Region and compliance. If data location matters, check where each provider runs your app and database.
5. Operations. Self-hosting means you handle updates, backups and monitoring; the Datadog alternatives guide covers monitoring tools. If you also host code yourself, see the GitHub alternatives guide.