Heroku vs Cloudways
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Heroku and Cloudways.
Quick Verdict
3.4/5
Heroku
0 reviews
3.9/5
Cloudways
0 reviews
Cloudways is rated higher (3.9 vs 3.4). Heroku pioneered platform-as-a-service in 2007. Owned by Salesforce. Supports 10+ languages, huge addon marketplace (150+ addons). Removed free tier in 2022 but remains popular for ease of use. Eco plans restart. Managed hosting layer that sits on top of DigitalOcean, AWS, GCP, Vultr, or Linode. You get managed control with one-click staging, Breeze caching, and 24/7 support.
Heroku The original PaaS — still the easiest deploy | Cloudways Managed cloud hosting on your choice of provider | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.4 (0 reviews) | 3.9 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | From $5/mo✓ | From $11/mo |
| Best for | Time-poor developers and small teams who want git-push deploys, a huge add-on ecosystem and zero server operations, and who accept premium per-unit pricing for it | Agencies, freelancers and SMBs running WordPress/WooCommerce/Magento/Laravel who want managed cloud hosting with provider choice and no ops staff |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 1 vCPU |
| RAM | 1 GB | 1 GB |
| Storage | — | 25 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | 1 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | — | 99.99% |
| Data-center count | 12 | — |
| €/vCPU/mo | — | €11.00 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | €5.00✓ | €11.00 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | useuDublinFrankfurtLondonMontreal+6 | United StatesUnited KingdomGermanyNetherlandsSingaporeAustralia+1 |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | managed optionus datacentereu datacenterapi access | managed optionddos protectionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter |
| Visit Heroku → | Visit Cloudways → | |
Heroku
Pros
- + Still the smoothest deploy workflow in the market — git push and done
- + Large add-on marketplace and mature language buildpack support
- + Transparent dyno pricing with clear tiers from $5 to $1,500/month
- + Automated OS patching, free SSL, unified logs and instant scaling
- + Private Spaces and Shield options for network isolation and compliance
Cons
- - Poor price-performance versus raw VPS compute
- - No free tier since 2022; Eco dynos sleep and meter hours
- - 2026 engineering pivot to stability — new features and new Enterprise contracts paused
- - 2022 security breach remains part of the track record
- - Only two Common Runtime regions, and region choice does not guarantee data residency
Cloudways
Pros
- + Choose the underlying cloud (DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, GCP) and region per server
- + Entry pricing from $11/month on DigitalOcean with hourly billing and no contract
- + Managed stack with free migration, staging/cloning, automated backups, caching and 24/7 human support
- + Unlimited sites and visits per server on Flexible plans
- + Autonomous line adds real autoscaling, Cloudflare Enterprise CDN and a no-credit-card 3-day trial
Cons
- - Management markup of roughly $5-$35/month over buying the same server direct
- - No formal uptime SLA on the Flexible line
- - AWS/GCP plans include only 1-2 GB transfer; overage at $0.12/GB (AWS) adds up fast
- - Root-level control is limited — no custom kernels, bare metal, GPUs or own object storage
- - Owned by DigitalOcean since 2022 while reselling competing clouds — a roadmap consideration
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