AWS IoT Core vs. Heroku Platform

End-to-end encryption is an amazing feature because we use IoT to connect to various devices in order to gather data/ stats in real-time. We're able to publish solutions with ease and at a faster rate because of AWS IoT Core. However, its inability to interact with other IoT tools is a big con that I would like them to improve upon.

Incentivized

Heroku is very well suited for startups looking to get a server stack up and running quickly. There is little to no overhead when managing your instances. However, you'll need a background in basic DevOps or system management to make sure everything is set up correctly. In addition, it's easy to accidentally go crazy on pricing. Make sure you're only creating the server instances you need to run the base application and set up an auto-scaler plugin to handle peaks.

Incentivized

• AWS IoT Core integrates power analytics and an AI solution for sensor data processing.
• Great protocol support including HTTPs and MQTT required to connect resource constraint IoT devices to cloud
• High security standards during data transmission
• Scalability and a great user community

Incentivized

• Heroku has a very simple deployment model, making it easy to get your application up-and-running with minimal effort. We can focus on our efforts the unique aspects of our application.
• The robust add-on marketplace makes it easy to try out new approaches with minimal effort and investment -- and when we settle on a solution, we can easily scale it.
• Heroku's support is quite good -- their staff is quite technical and willing to get into the weeds to diagnose even complicated problems.

Incentivized

• Ability to integrate with Ethercalc software solution
• Ability to introduce NFC toolchains and systems which could be utilized in iot modular gateway solutions like drones
• Ability to reduce latency as the solution scales is very much needed
• Hybrid solution which can integrate other existing iot solutions into AWS iot core

Incentivized

• Large price jumps between certain resource tiers (2x Dyno for $50 per month versus Performance Dyno for $250). Free Postgres next jumps to $50 per month.
• Marketing/Branding to non-technical stakeholders. As the years pass, I've had to fight more to convince stakeholders on the value of Heroku over AWS.
• Improve Buildpack documentation. This is one area where Heroku's documentation is fairly confusing.

Incentivized

Heroku is easy to use, services a ton of functions for you out of the box, and provides a means to get a software product off the ground and managed quickly and easily. The tools provide allows a small to medium size org to move very quickly. The CLI tools provided make managing an entire technical infrastructure simple.

Incentivized

I give AWS IoT Core's overall usability this rating because it is very easy to use and is enjoyed by all of our staff. The only problem is that it sometimes glitches and it freezes a lot. So overall, the usability of AWS IoT Core is very good, and we will continue to use it.

Incentivized

Easy to use web based console and easy to use command line tools; deployment is done directly from a GIT repository. What more could you ask for? The one thing that keeps me from giving it a 10 is that custom build packs are almost incomprehensible. We used one for a while because we needed cairo graphics processing. Fortunately, I was able to figure out a different way to do what we needed so that we could get off the custom build pack.

Heroku availability correlates pretty strongly to AWS US EAST availability. We had a couple of times where there was a Heroku-specific issue but not for the last 7-8 months.

The only issue that I ever have is that about 1 out of 20 deployments (git push) will hang and need to be cancelled and done again.

It covers all the aspects of IoT services required for an IoT company. It supports all the industry-wide protocols for secure data transmission and integrates powerful AL and ML technology for data analytics. For data storage, Amazon S3 is a great solution. Strong tech support and user community. Since it is widely used as compared to other products, there is an abundance of training and learning material on the web.

Incentivized

I've used it for many years without facing any major problem. It's not hard at all to get used to it, it's documentation is outstanding and simple. We are close to 2020 and I don't think most of the existing companies or startups should still face old problems such as wasting time deploying code and calculate computing resources.

Incentivized

Be ready to pay a bit more than expected in the beginning if you're migrating from a big server. The application is probably not ready for the change and you have to keep improving it with time.

It's also important to consider that you can't save anything to the disc as it will be lost when your application restarts, so you have to think about using something like S3.

Incentivized

Azure IoT service provides more or less the same services as compared to AWS IoT core, however the costing of AWS lead us to continued usage of IoT core over Azure IoT services. Also, considering our existing technology stack is on AWS, it was a natural selection for better integration and ease of use.

Incentivized

Heroku is the more expensive option for hosting compared to some of the cloud platforms we investigated, but it's worth it for us because of the plug-and-play nature of Heroku deployment. We can be up and running in a few minutes and know with precision how much it will cost us each month to run the application, unlike Amazon Web Services where you have to go to great pains to configure it correctly or else you might end up with a shocking monthly bill. Overall, spending the time to configure Amazon Web Services or one of its competitors is likely the more affordable and powerful choice, because you have control over so many specifics of the configuration. But it also requires the burden of continuing to maintain and update your AWS instance, whereas with Heroku they take care of security fixes and platform upgrades. It's a great service and we are happy to pay the extra cost for the value-adds Heroku provides.

Incentivized

• Gives confidence to prototype iot solutions across lots of devices in little time
• Ability to meet requirements for managing a variety of communication protocols
• Learning iot analytics and visualization for faster insights enablement
• Onboarding devices and managing quickly without building inhouse solutions

Incentivized

• It has been critical in seamlessly operating our platform with runs all of our programs.
• It has been impressive with its ability to scale quickly which results in the growth of our work.
• It allows for tracking of different features which allows for quick problem solving which saves us time.