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
Kubernetes
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Kubernetes is an open-source container cluster manager.
Kuberbetes is an easily scalable docker based option which should need minimal DevOps, however, it has a pretty high learning curve with many decisions that need to be addressed as well as monitoring, logging and security concerns.
Heroku is an all in 1 package for deploying and running your services. It provides an easy to use setup and run for 90% of cases. If you have a more complicated infrastructure, you'd definitely need to move to another hosting provider. But if as long as you can operate within …
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.
K8s should be avoided - If your application works well without being converted into microservices-based architecture & fits correctly in a VM, needs less scaling, have a fixed traffic pattern then it is better to keep away from Kubernetes. Otherwise, the operational challenges & technical expertise will add a lot to the OPEX. Also, if you're the one who thinks that containers consume fewer resources as compared to VMs then this is not true. As soon as you convert your application to a microservice-based architecture, a lot of components will add up, shooting your resource consumption even higher than VMs so, please beware. Kubernetes is a good choice - When the application needs quick scaling, is already in microservice-based architecture, has no fixed traffic pattern, most of the employees already have desired skills.
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.
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.
Local development, Kubernetes does tend to be a bit complicated and unnecessary in environments where all development is done locally.
The need for add-ons, Helm is almost required when running Kubernetes. This brings a whole new tool to manage and learn before a developer can really start to use Kubernetes effectively.
Finicy configmap schemes. Kubernetes configmaps often have environment breaking hangups. The fail safes surrounding configmaps are sadly lacking.
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.
The Kubernetes is going to be highly likely renewed as the technologies that will be placed on top of it are long term as of planning. There shouldn't be any last minute changes in the adoption and I do not anticipate sudden change of the core underlying technology. It is just that the slow process of technology adoption that makes it hard to switch to something else.
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.
It is an eminently usable platform. However, its popularity is overshadowed by its complexity. To properly leverage the capabilities and possibilities of Kubernetes as a platform, you need to have excellent understanding of your use case, even better understanding of whether you even need Kubernetes, and if yes - be ready to invest in good engineering support for the platform itself
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.
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.
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.
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.
Most of the required features for any orchestration tool or framework, which is provided by Kubernetes. After understanding all modules and features of the K8S, it is the best fit for us as compared with others out there.
