Heroku Platform vs. MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

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

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is best tool in the market for developing APIs with complex structures communicating with various different types of applications including web applications as well as legacy applications. Also applications including database connectivity for fetching and updating data in the DB tables. I cant think of any scenario which MuleSoft Anypoint Platform could not be used for developing the integrations.

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

• API Manager provides easy API Policy Governance. You do not have to manage multiple platforms for managing the policies.
• Supports hybrid Mule EBS environments. You can configure both CouldHub-based and on-premise-based API using Mulesoft API manager in a similar manner.
• It's very easy to implement API proxy.
• User friendly UI.
• Single platform to manage all.

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

• Has more features than what we really need so we're paying for more than we use. Sort of like paying for an Abrams tank when all we really need is a Toyota Corolla.
• Not a value product, tends to be expensive.
• Takes a while for developers to learn to use Mulesoft Anypoint.

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

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.

There’s a lot of learning curve at the beginning when it comes to building the code and everything. In terms of usability, I’d say once you get used to it, it’s fine — but it’s not very easy during the initial stages.

Incentivized

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.

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

Anypoint Platform support is very responsive. There is also a huge knowledge base and an active online forum where answers to most questions can be found. When needed support engages the engineering group so adequate solutions or workarounds are always provided.

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

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

Once we have moved all of our system integration APIs to the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, we will need to communicate with a wide variety of external systems. All of our business and service logic is stored in the aforementioned core systems. Anypoint Platform (and all of our APIs) makes it easy to connect to various other platforms. In order to link to these many other systems, connectors and/or components are utilized, and they are simple to configure and integrate.

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.

• Mulesoft can be used to provide an integration platform to a large number of systems like Salesforce, ODBC, JDBC, SAP, Mongo DB, etc.
• An excellent option to develop microservices and real-time integrations.
• Not as robust in handling large data volumes, Informatica is better in that respect.

Incentivized