Compare / Heroku vs Azure App Service
Heroku vs Azure App Service
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — Heroku checked 2026-08-06, Azure App Service checked 2026-08-06.
The short version
Heroku wins more of our comparison points, but Azure App Service still fits if teams in the Microsoft ecosystem — .NET shops, enterprise-adjacent projects, or anyone whose employer already pays for Azure describes you.
Price Heroku
Heroku is cheaper at every stage we model — about $50/mo even for a growing project.
Ease Heroku
Heroku is easier to get running: git push heroku main; buildpacks detect the stack and the platform handles the rest.
Free tier Azure App Service
Azure App Service has a free tier; Heroku doesn't.
Features Tie
Feature coverage is even: each wins 3 of the 15 rows we track.
What developers say about this matchup
We couldn't find a substantive first-person discussion comparing this exact pair. We leave the section empty instead of filling it with vendor marketing or generic SEO comparisons.
At a glance
| Heroku | Azure App Service | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Teams that already know Heroku and value its mature workflow over price. | Teams in the Microsoft ecosystem — .NET shops, enterprise-adjacent projects, or anyone whose employer already pays for Azure. |
| How deploys work | git push heroku main; buildpacks detect the stack and the platform handles the rest. | Connect GitHub Actions from the portal, push to a local git remote, or run `az webapp up` — runtime stacks for Node, Python, .NET, PHP, and Java are built in. |
| The tradeoff | You pay a platform premium — comparable raw compute costs a third as much elsewhere. | Capable and git-friendly, but you pay PaaS prices per plan and navigate the most complicated tier system here. |
| Free tier | None | F1 Free tier: 1 GB RAM, 60 CPU-minutes/day, no custom domain or SLA. Plus a $200/30-day new-account credit. |
What you'd realistically pay
Heroku Azure App Service
| Project stage | Heroku | Azure App Service | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just starting | ≈$5/mo Eco — One Eco dyno (512 MB) that sleeps after 30 idle minutes; an always-on Basic dyno is $7, and an Essential-0 Postgres adds $5. | ≈$13.14/mo B1 Basic (Linux) — 1 core, 1.75 GB RAM, 10 GB storage, custom domains and SSL, 99.95% SLA. West Europe pricing. | Heroku |
| Steady traffic | ≈$25/mo Standard-1X — Adds horizontal scaling and zero-downtime deploys; database still extra. | ≈$32/mo B1 + managed PostgreSQL — ~$13 B1 Linux plus ~$19 for the cheapest PostgreSQL Flexible Server (B1ms + 32 GiB storage). | Heroku |
| Growing | ≈$50/mo Standard dynos + add-ons — Two Standard-1X dynos; realistic totals depend heavily on add-ons. | ≈$84/mo P0v3 + managed PostgreSQL — ~$65 Premium P0v3 (1 vCPU, 4 GB, autoscale and slots) plus ~$19 for managed PostgreSQL. | Heroku |
Heroku pricing notes
- Dynos are prorated to the second up to the monthly maximum.
- Heroku Postgres starts at $5/month (Essential-0, 1 GB storage); the Redis-compatible Key-Value Store starts at $3/month (Mini, 25 MB).
Azure App Service pricing notes
- Prices are West Europe, per App Service Plan (~730 h/month); they vary by region.
- Windows plans cost roughly 4× Linux at the Basic tier because the license is baked in.
- Bandwidth: first 100 GB/month free, then about $0.087/GB.
- Savings plans and reservations cut Premium prices by up to ~55%.
Our ratings
Ease of use Heroku
Pricing clarity Heroku
Free tier Azure App Service
Scaling
Control
Feature by feature
Heroku wins 3, Azure App Service wins 3, with 9 even.
Deploy workflow
| Heroku | Azure App Service | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | Yes git push heroku main is the original deploy story; GitHub integration too. | Yes GitHub Actions wired from the portal, local git push, or ZIP deploy. |
| Preview deploys | Yes Review Apps create a running app per pull request. | Partial Deployment slots (Standard tier and up) give staging environments, but no automatic PR previews. |
| Official CLI | Yes The heroku CLI covers deploys, logs, scaling, and add-ons. | Yes `az webapp up` deploys an app in one command. |
| Instant rollbacks | Yes heroku releases:rollback reverts to any previous release instantly. | Partial Slot swaps revert instantly on Standard+; Basic and Free redeploy the old build instead. |
Platform
| Heroku | Azure App Service | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Yes Custom domains with automated certificate management on paid dynos. | Yes Custom domains with managed certificates from the B1 tier up. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | No No built-in CDN — pair with Cloudflare or Fastly yourself. | Partial Azure Front Door / CDN integrate but are separate billed services. |
| Serverless functions | No Dynos are long-running processes; there is no function product. | Partial Azure Functions is a sibling product and can even run on the same plan, but it is not part of App Service itself. |
| Docker containers | Yes Deploy container images through the Heroku container registry. | Yes Custom containers are first-class on Linux plans. |
| SSH / shell access | Partial heroku run bash gives a one-off shell in a fresh dyno, not the live one. | Partial Browser and CLI SSH into the app container — not a VM you own. |
| EU hosting region | Yes Common Runtime offers a Europe region at the same prices. | Yes West Europe, North Europe, Germany, France, Sweden, Poland, Italy, Spain, and more. |
Runtime & operations
| Heroku | Azure App Service | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | Partial Built-in autoscaling requires Performance-tier dynos; standard dynos scale manually. | Partial Rule-based autoscale from the Standard tier; smarter automatic scaling needs Premium. |
| Scale to zero | Partial Eco dynos sleep after 30 idle minutes; Basic and Standard run continuously. | No Paid plans bill continuously; only the free F1 tier unloads idle apps (with cold starts). |
| Scheduled jobs | Yes Heroku Scheduler (free add-on) runs tasks on a schedule. | Yes WebJobs run scheduled and background tasks inside the plan. |
| Managed database | Yes Heroku Postgres and Key-Value Store are fully managed add-ons. | Yes Azure Database for PostgreSQL/MySQL from ~$19/month, plus SQL Database and Cosmos DB. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Partial Log stream and basic metrics included; serious monitoring means add-ons. | Yes Application Insights is deeply integrated — but ingestion bills per GB. |
Watch out for
Heroku
- There is no free tier.
- Compute is expensive for what you get: Standard-1X costs $25/month for 512 MB of RAM.
- Databases and other add-ons bill separately and can dominate the total.
Azure App Service
- A Windows B1 plan costs ~$55/month versus ~$13 for the same tier on Linux — and default tooling sometimes nudges you toward Windows.
- You pay per App Service Plan, not per app: a second plan doubles the bill even if both are nearly idle.
- The free F1 tier has a hard 60 CPU-minutes/day quota that silently stops your app when exhausted.
- Ride-along services (Application Insights ingestion, Defender for Cloud) show up as surprise line items.
- The spending cap only exists on credit subscriptions (free trial, MSDN) — pay-as-you-go has alerts only.
Read the full reviews: Heroku and Azure App Service. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.