Azure App Service vs. Dokku

You may easily deploy your apps to Azure App Service if they were written in Visual Studio IDE (typically.NET applications). With a few clicks of the mouse, you may already deploy your application to a remote server using the Visual Studio IDE. As a result of the portal's bulk and complexity, I propose Heroku for less-experienced developers.

Incentivized

If you have your own in-house servers or have a cloud server with the freedom to configure any PaaS that you want, then Dokku is for you. So far, I have never run into a scenario where Dokku was not able to fit my needs, after deploying many different types of applications with varying frameworks, languages, and connected services. If you already have a PaaS available, however, Dokku may not be for you.

Incentivized

• Extremely easy to deploy and update from Visual Studio
• It integrates seamlessly with other Azure PaaS resources
• It has an in-depth integration with AppInsights, so you can understand errors and their root cause easily.
• Easy to create and delete, what is not the same case in a IaaS resource
• It escalates based on CPU workload and some other resource variables.
• Configuration changes are almost immediate
• Offers an excellent abstraction from hardware backend of the platform
• That's updated very often, saving time and the risk of a self-performed update over a IaaS
• That's really easy to develop for Web Apps
• It supports Function Apps and Web Apps into the same "cost black box"

Incentivized

• Dockerfile deployments are an incredibly simple and straightforward way to spin up applications.
• The docker-options plugin allows endless direct configuration of options passed to different docker lifecycle stages.

Incentivized

• Jumps between resource sizes can get expensive
• You may wind up putting a lot of eggs in one basket--not necessarily a con but something to keep in mind (most of your data will likely be managed and processed through Microsoft products/services if you fully commit to Azure App Service).
• Learning new technology. If you're moving from on-premises to Azure App Service (or any cloud solutions), you'll likely have to rethink how things are done to achieve the same end results (and/or resources may become expensive quickly).

Incentivized

• Dokku might overreach on its assumptions about how you want to host your app, using its own VHOSTS plugin by default. This may be a pro or a con depending on what you want.
• Proxy port configuration can be somewhat difficult, with Dokku resetting any pre-deployment configuration to "smart" defaults on the first deployment.

Incentivized

I have given this rating because Azure App Service performs very well in terms of speed, reliability, and reducing overhead, and improves overall team productivity, with a little scope for improvement in complex testing scenarios and configurations, scalability concerns in a large setup, and similar tracking and audit needs.

Incentivized

Microsoft has always been known for providing a high standard in terms of customer support and Azure App Service (and as a matter of fact the whole Azure Platform) is no exception. Azure App Service never caused us any issues and we only contacted their customer support for questions regarding server locations and pricing. I feel pretty satisfied with how they treat their customers.

Incentivized

Dokku is incredibly well documented and also takes advantage of the documentation and community of Heroku, being essentially the same thing, but in the case that you encounter an actual bug or issue, it can take time for a fix to make it into a new version. Since you manage Dokku yourself, there is no support team to call for help.

Incentivized

When we chose it, we did so because of its integration with Microsoft applications; now we need to integrate with AI, and Azure doesn't offer a good integration. That is the main reason to change it. It is still great to develop Windows- and Microsoft-based applications, but if we need to integrate with AI, Google wins by far.

Incentivized

Dokku is essentially the same thing as Heroku, except maintained by you on the platform of your choice. If you have any experience using Heroku, then you will feel right at home using Dokku. Dokku is an entirely free to use PaaS, requiring only that you have a platform to deploy it on, making it far more versatile than Heroku in my opinion.

Incentivized

• Deployment of ASP.NET apps at the organization has been sped up.
• An option to offer access to the version control system on a third platform so that we could easily deploy our apps.
• Because of Azure App Service's scalability capabilities, the costs of running the services are kept to a minimum. As a result, we may save hundreds of dollars each month compared to the expenses of traditional servers by using fewer resources during slack periods.

Incentivized

• Since there's no investment besides a little time to set up, the return has been overwhelmingly positive.
• Deploying a new app is incredibly quick and easy.

Incentivized