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
Zoho Creator
Score 8.9 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Zoho Creator is a low-code application development platform for building enterprise-class applications that run on mobile, tablet, and web. It is designed to allow users to create custom forms, configure workflows, build pages, and deploy apps quickly.
$8
per month per user
Pricing
Heroku Platform
Zoho Creator
Editions & Modules
Production
$25.00
per month
Advanced
$250.00
per month
Standard
$8
per month per user
Professional
$20
per month per user
Enterprise
$25
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Heroku Platform
Zoho Creator
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
—
Add-ons:
Customer Portal: $100/month onwards
Premium Support : 20% of license fees
Enterprise support: 25% of license fees
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.
If you are using some application of Zoho and want some more functionality into it, Use Zoho creator to develop a separate app as per requirement and integrate it with your Zoho App. Small organization can use creator to make apps but it can be used for small range of storage, For Large organization , it may be not feasible.
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.
In C6, the new setup of permissions is not logical. Admins now have access to every application rather than specific applications, which impacts data confidentiality.
In C6, the new feature for having multiple environments is very limited as it does not work for ZOHO Creator applications that are linked to other Zoho Creator applications in the same workspace - which is not logical at all.
In C6, the revised permissions for Developers do not allow the developer to assign permissions to users or to publish forms, reports, pages, etc....which again is not logical.
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.
Today Zoho Creator is included in our current plan from Zoho One, but if it was needed to pay apart it should be done because the software we created became very important for our team. The use of Zoho Creator contributes to endorse the Zoho One subscription year after year.
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.
Its quite easy if one has the need, interest and passion to build applications and solutions through low-code. One example would be, that my finance head who has absolutely nothing to do with tech and apps, is now able to create apps and manage Zoho Creator all by himself. So its all about the interest and how much time we put to learn the tool. Having said that, its quite easy to learn the tool and create anything that's within our scope of knowledge.
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.
In an earlier comment, I mentioned Zoho's excellent uptime. I have been using the system for over 6 years, and have experienced only momentary outages, and of those, only a hand full over the years. It is extremely reliable
We do not integrate Zoho with other systems at this time, but rarely are searches, database exports, record edits or creation tasks ever slow enough to notice. It is quite usable
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.
I recommend Zoho Creator very often. A lot of companies go big earlier than they need to and spend way too much on SalesForce & Marketo. I worked for a small company with some limited budget that pivoted to sell it's product to the Enterprise. Zoho Creator was incredibly easy to set up, intuitive to use, and contains all the most essential features that most users need and seek in SalesForce. We integrated with MailChimp & Unbounce and were able to be incredibly useful in acquiring leads, nurturing them, and tracking pipeline in Zoho Creator. Our small sales team found it very easy to use and loved it.
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.
Even if it is a easy to use platform, it got some issues on the implementation that could easily handle by IT teams. In our scenario this team don't exist anymore, and the business/marketing team had their expectations that it was quickier to be implemented. So, consider a professional help on this implementation could be cost more (of cource) but it would be helpful to manage the issues and expectations.
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.
I could use Excel to do what I need but prefer to use Zoho Creator for the main reasons of being very secure, fast, easily accessible, cloud based, etc. The CSV import option is a huge time saver, I can import CSV or TXT files directly into Zoho Creator in seconds
Zoho is incredibly versatile. Much thought was put in to the way the platform functions. I've yet to face a situation where Zoho would not be able to do what I needed. That being said, because of its power, it can also be a bit intimidating technically. Simple needs are simple. More complex needs are ... more complex! Overall, it's a powerful, robust platform
With using Zoho Creator we are able to build apps that we may otherwise pay a pretty penny for. We may risk some features we could get from a 3rd party app but the fact that the data we do collect can easily syn with our CRM and Accounting systems makes up for this.
Negatively speaking, it takes time to fine tune and really craft your application. I am not a coder, nor do I have a coding background, so patience is key as you design and build out your application.
