Compare / Heroku vs Deno Deploy
Heroku vs Deno Deploy
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — Heroku checked 2026-09-15, Deno Deploy checked 2026-09-15.
The short version
Deno Deploy wins more of our comparison points, but Heroku still fits if teams that already know Heroku and value its mature workflow over price describes you.
Price Deno Deploy
Deno Deploy is cheaper at every stage we model — about $30/mo even for a growing project.
Ease Tie
Both take similar effort to get a first deploy live.
Control Heroku
Heroku gives you more control over the stack — the flip side of the convenience trade.
Free tier Deno Deploy
Deno Deploy has a free tier; Heroku doesn't.
Features Deno Deploy
Deno Deploy comes out ahead on 5 of the 15 features we track, versus 2.
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 | Deno Deploy | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Teams that already know Heroku and value its mature workflow over price. | JavaScript and TypeScript sites, full-stack framework apps, and APIs that benefit from built-in previews, databases, cron, caching, and telemetry. |
| How deploys work | git push heroku main; buildpacks detect the stack and the platform handles the rest. | Connect GitHub for builds on every push or run deno deploy from the CLI; framework presets configure common JavaScript stacks automatically. |
| The tradeoff | You pay a platform premium — comparable raw compute costs a third as much elsewhere. | It runs the Deno runtime, not Node itself, and its two-region managed footprint and metered Active CPU, memory, and egress trail broader competitors for heavy traffic. |
| Free tier | None | Free: 1M requests, 20 GiB egress, 10 Active CPU hours, 150 GiB-hours of memory time, 10 active apps, 5 custom domains, and 1 GiB of KV storage per month. |
What you'd realistically pay
Heroku Deno Deploy
| Project stage | Heroku | Deno Deploy | 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. | Free Free — A small app can stay inside the monthly allowance; it pauses if any enforced Free limit is exhausted. | Deno Deploy |
| Steady traffic | ≈$25/mo Standard-1X — Adds horizontal scaling and zero-downtime deploys; database still extra. | ≈$20/mo Pro — Includes 5M requests, 200 GiB egress, 50 Active CPU hours, and 750 GiB-hours of memory time. | Deno Deploy |
| Growing | ≈$50/mo Standard dynos + add-ons — Two Standard-1X dynos; realistic totals depend heavily on add-ons. | ≈$30/mo Pro + request usage — A representative 10M-request month is $20 plus $10 request overage, before any CPU, memory, storage, or egress overage. | Deno Deploy |
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).
Deno Deploy pricing notes
- Pro overages are $2 per million requests, $0.20 per GiB of egress, $0.10 per Active CPU hour, and $0.025 per GiB-hour of memory.
- Active CPU bills only while code runs — waiting on requests or network I/O does not consume the CPU meter.
- Pro includes 5 GiB of sandbox volume storage and 5 GiB of Deno KV; extra storage and KV operations have separate usage rates. Free has no volume storage.
- Free has no paid overage: applications pause when an allowance is exhausted. Free and Pro do not include a reliability SLA.
Our ratings
Ease of use
Pricing clarity
Free tier Deno Deploy
Scaling
Control Heroku
Feature by feature
Heroku wins 2, Deno Deploy wins 5, with 8 even.
Deploy workflow
| Heroku | Deno Deploy | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | Yes git push heroku main is the original deploy story; GitHub integration too. | Yes Link GitHub and every pushed commit triggers an integrated build with streamed logs and caching. |
| Preview deploys | Yes Review Apps create a running app per pull request. | Yes Every Git branch has its own timeline and URL, and every revision receives an immutable preview URL. |
| Official CLI | Yes The heroku CLI covers deploys, logs, scaling, and add-ons. | Yes The deno deploy command creates, configures, and deploys applications from a terminal or CI pipeline. |
| Instant rollbacks | Yes heroku releases:rollback reverts to any previous release instantly. | Yes A timeline can be locked to any previous revision to restore it without rebuilding the application. |
Platform
| Heroku | Deno Deploy | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Yes Custom domains with automated certificate management on paid dynos. | Yes Custom domains include automatic Let’s Encrypt certificates; wildcard domains require Pro or higher. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | No No built-in CDN — pair with Cloudflare or Fastly yourself. | Yes A built-in HTTP edge cache respects standard cache headers and supports tag-based global invalidation. |
| Serverless functions | No Dynos are long-running processes; there is no function product. | Yes JavaScript and TypeScript applications run in isolated serverless environments that start on demand. |
| Docker containers | Yes Deploy container images through the Heroku container registry. | No Deno Deploy builds source code for its own Deno runtime and does not accept arbitrary Docker images. |
| SSH / shell access | Partial heroku run bash gives a one-off shell in a fresh dyno, not the live one. | No There is no interactive SSH shell; use build logs, runtime logs, traces, metrics, or the CLI. |
| EU hosting region | Yes Common Runtime offers a Europe region at the same prices. | Yes Applications can run in the managed Europe execution region, although database residency depends on the selected database. |
Runtime & operations
| Heroku | Deno Deploy | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | Partial Built-in autoscaling requires Performance-tier dynos; standard dynos scale manually. | Yes The platform automatically starts multiple isolated application instances across or within regions as traffic requires. |
| Scale to zero | Partial Eco dynos sleep after 30 idle minutes; Basic and Standard run continuously. | Yes Idle apps shut down after about 20–30 seconds per the pricing page, so memory time stops while scaled to zero. |
| Scheduled jobs | Yes Heroku Scheduler (free add-on) runs tasks on a schedule. | Yes Deno.cron jobs are discovered at deploy time, scheduled by the platform, and monitored in the dashboard. |
| Managed database | Yes Heroku Postgres and Key-Value Store are fully managed add-ons. | Yes Provision Deno KV or managed Prisma Postgres, or attach an externally hosted PostgreSQL database. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Partial Log stream and basic metrics included; serious monitoring means add-ons. | Yes Logs, OpenTelemetry traces, request and outbound-call metrics, filtering, and dashboards are included. |
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.
Deno Deploy
- Applications run on Deno rather than Node itself. Node and npm compatibility is broad, including native add-ons and subprocesses, but framework-specific edge cases still exist.
- The managed platform currently has two execution regions, the US and Europe; Deploy Classic had a broader footprint before it shut down in July 2026.
- Free and Pro have no published reliability SLA; a 99.95% SLA is reserved for Enterprise.
- Free-tier apps pause when the monthly allowance is exhausted; there is no paid overage on Free.
- Active CPU bills only while code runs, not while waiting on I/O, but Free includes only 10 Active CPU hours per month.
Read the full reviews: Heroku and Deno Deploy. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.