Heroku alternatives
At the entry plan, Heroku costs $5 a month. 1 hosting platform costs less, from $2.19 (Fly.io). Ranked by price at the size you pick, with free plans, price hikes and how to switch.
Alternatives to Heroku at the entry plan, cheapest first
- Fly.io: $2.19/mo, $34 a year less than Heroku (Smallest Machine, 256 MB). Free plan: none. Last price hike: Oct 2026.
- Cloudflare Workers: $5/mo (Workers Paid, $5 minimum). Free plan: 100k requests a day.
- DigitalOcean Apps: $5/mo (512 MiB shared container). Free plan: 3 static sites.
- Railway: $5/mo (Hobby: $5 incl. $5 usage). Free plan: 30-day trial, then $1/mo credit. Last price hike: Aug 2023.
- Hetzner Cloud: $7.49/mo CX23 $6.49 listed but sold out (CPX02: 1 vCPU, 1 GB (EU)). Free plan: none. Last price hike: Jun 2026.
- Netlify: $9/mo (Personal: $9, 1,000 credits). Free plan: 300 credits/mo (~15 GB bandwidth). Last price hike: Sep 2025.
- Vercel: $20/mo (Pro: $20 incl. 1 seat and $20 credit). Free plan: Hobby, non-commercial only.
- Render: $25/mo (Pro workspace, $25 flat). Free plan: Hobby workspace, 5 GB bandwidth. Last price hike: Apr 2026.
Prices at every size
- Heroku: the entry plan $5/mo, a small app $7/mo
- Fly.io: the entry plan $2.19/mo, a small app $5.69/mo
- Cloudflare Workers: the entry plan $5/mo, a small app $5/mo
- DigitalOcean Apps: the entry plan $5/mo, a small app $6/mo
- Railway: the entry plan $5/mo, a small app $12/mo
- Hetzner Cloud: the entry plan $7.49/mo, a small app $8.09/mo (CX23 $6.49 listed but sold out)
- Netlify: the entry plan $9/mo, a small app $20/mo
- Vercel: the entry plan $20/mo, a small app $20/mo
- Render: the entry plan $25/mo, a small app $21.25/mo
Cheapest paid plan per month (per seat where plans are seat-based).
How to move from Heroku to Fly.io
- 1. Connect your repo to Fly.io. Use Fly.io's import tool, or ask their support to run it for you.
- 2. Copy environment variables and secrets. Look for Export in Heroku's settings.
- 3. Recreate cron jobs, workers, redirects and headers. These live in Heroku's dashboard or config files and are the part people forget.
- 4. Deploy to a preview URL and test. Run through sign-up, payments and anything that relies on webhooks against the Fly.io preview.
- 5. Lower your DNS TTL, then switch. Drop the TTL to 5 minutes a day ahead, then point your domain at Fly.io. If something breaks, point it back.
- 6. Watch for 48 hours, then remove the Heroku project. Check logs and error rates on Fly.io, then delete the project on Heroku so it stops billing.
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Everything about Heroku's own prices and price hikes: Heroku.