AWS Lambda vs. Heroku Platform

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AWS Lambda
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
AWS Lambda is a serverless computing platform that lets users run code without provisioning or managing servers. With Lambda, users can run code for virtually any type of app or backend service—all with zero administration. It takes of requirements to run and scale code with high availability.
$NaN
Per 1 ms
Heroku Platform
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
The Heroku Platform, now from Salesforce, is a platform-as-a-service based on a managed container system, with integrated data services and ecosystem for deploying modern apps. It takes an app-centric approach for software delivery, integrated with developer tools and workflows. It’s three main tool are: Heroku Developer Experience (DX), Heroku Operational Experience (OpEx), and Heroku Runtime. Heroku Developer Experience (DX) Developers deploy directly from tools like…
$85
per month
Pricing
AWS LambdaHeroku Platform
Editions & Modules
128 MB
$0.0000000021
Per 1 ms
1024 MB
$0.0000000167
Per 1 ms
10240 MB
$0.0000001667
Per 1 ms
Production
$25.00
per month
Advanced
$250.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AWS LambdaHeroku Platform
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AWS LambdaHeroku Platform
Considered Both Products
AWS Lambda
Chose AWS Lambda
We really did not evaluate them against other products except a little Google research, we are a centralized AWS customer so it was a smooth and simple (even if blind) decision for us.
Heroku Platform
Chose Heroku Platform
Heroku has the advantage of simplifying the development and integration with some services (which in Heroku they call addon) wherein other platforms, certainly for those who don't have much experience, it will take much more development time.
Features
AWS LambdaHeroku Platform
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
AWS Lambda
9.0
7 Ratings
2% above category average
Heroku Platform
-
Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.77 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)9.33 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
AWS Lambda
5.3
6 Ratings
13% below category average
Heroku Platform
-
Ratings
Dashboards5.96 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports5.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports4.65 Ratings00 Ratings
Function as a Service (FaaS)
Comparison of Function as a Service (FaaS) features of Product A and Product B
AWS Lambda
8.5
7 Ratings
4% above category average
Heroku Platform
-
Ratings
Programming Language Diversity9.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Runtime API Authoring8.17 Ratings00 Ratings
Function/Database Integration8.77 Ratings00 Ratings
DevOps Stack Integration8.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform-as-a-Service
Comparison of Platform-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
AWS Lambda
-
Ratings
Heroku Platform
8.1
43 Ratings
1% above category average
Ease of building user interfaces00 Ratings7.626 Ratings
Scalability00 Ratings8.343 Ratings
Platform management overhead00 Ratings7.642 Ratings
Workflow engine capability00 Ratings8.429 Ratings
Platform access control00 Ratings7.142 Ratings
Services-enabled integration00 Ratings8.141 Ratings
Development environment creation00 Ratings8.738 Ratings
Development environment replication00 Ratings8.737 Ratings
Issue monitoring and notification00 Ratings8.241 Ratings
Issue recovery00 Ratings8.438 Ratings
Upgrades and platform fixes00 Ratings8.443 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AWS LambdaHeroku Platform
Small Businesses
IBM Cloud Functions
IBM Cloud Functions
Score 7.9 out of 10
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AWS LambdaHeroku Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(52 ratings)
7.0
(47 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(6 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(17 ratings)
9.2
(17 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(20 ratings)
8.7
(19 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
AWS LambdaHeroku Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
Lambda excels at event-driven, short-lived tasks, such as processing files or building simple APIs. However, it's less ideal for long-running, computationally intensive, or applications that rely on carrying the state between jobs. Cold starts and constant load can easily balloon the costs.
Read full review
Salesforce
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.
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • No provisioning required - we don't have to pay anything upfront
  • Serverless deployment - it gets executed only when request comes and we pay only for the time the request is getting executed
  • Integrates well with AWS CloudWatch triggers so it is easy to setup scheduled tasks like cron jobs
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Salesforce
  • 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.
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • Developing test cases for Lambda functions can be difficult. For functions that require some sort of input it can be tough to develop the proper payload and event for a test.
  • For the uninitiated, deploying functions with Infrastructure as Code tools can be a challenging undertaking.
  • Logging the output of a function feels disjointed from running the function in the console. A tighter integration with operational logging would be appreciated, perhaps being able to view function logs from the Lambda console instead of having to navigate over to CloudWatch.
  • Sometimes its difficult to determine the correct permissions needed for Lambda execution from other AWS services.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • 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.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
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.
Read full review
Usability
Amazon AWS
I give it a seven is usability because it's AWS. Their UI's are always clunkier than the competition and their documentation is rather cumbersome. There's SO MUCH to dig through and it's a gamble if you actually end up finding the corresponding info if it will actually help. Like I said before, going to google with a specific problem is likely a better route because AWS is quite ubiquitous and chances are you're not the first to encounter the problem. That being said, using SAM (Serverless application model) and it's SAM Local environment makes running local instances of your Lambdas in dev environments painless and quite fun. Using Nodejs + Lambda + SAM Local + VS Code debugger = AWESOME.
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Salesforce
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.
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Reliability and Availability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
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.
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Performance
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
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.
Read full review
Support Rating
Amazon AWS
Amazon consistently provides comprehensive and easy-to-parse documentation of all AWS features and services. Most development team members find what they need with a quick internet search of the AWS documentation available online. If you need advanced support, though, you might need to engage an AWS engineer, and that could be an unexpected (or unwelcome) expense.
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Salesforce
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.
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Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
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.
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Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
AWS Lambda is good for short running functions, and ideally in response to events within AWS. Google App Engine is a more robust environment which can have complex code running for long periods of time, and across more than one instance of hardware. Google App Engine allows for both front-end and back-end infrastructure, while AWS Lambda is only for small back-end functions
Read full review
Salesforce
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.
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Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • Positive - Only paying for when code is run, unlike virtual machines where you pay always regardless of processing power usage.
  • Positive - Scalability and accommodating larger amounts of demand is much cheaper. Instead of scaling up virtual machines and increasing the prices you pay for that, you are just increasing the number of times your lambda function is run.
  • Negative - Debugging/troubleshooting, and developing for lambda functions take a bit more time to get used to, and migrating code from virtual machines and normal processes to Lambda functions can take a bit of time.
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Salesforce
  • 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.
Read full review
ScreenShots