Compare / Heroku vs OVHcloud VPS
Heroku vs OVHcloud VPS
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — Heroku checked 2026-08-06, OVHcloud checked 2026-08-06.
The short version
Heroku and OVHcloud VPS split our comparison — the right pick depends on what your project values.
Price OVHcloud VPS
OVHcloud VPS is cheaper at every stage we model — about €19.96/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.
Control OVHcloud VPS
OVHcloud VPS gives you more control over the stack — the flip side of the convenience trade.
Features Heroku
Heroku comes out ahead on 7 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 | OVHcloud VPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Teams that already know Heroku and value its mature workflow over price. | Traffic-heavy European projects that want unmetered bandwidth and an included IPv4 at rock-bottom prices. |
| How deploys work | git push heroku main; buildpacks detect the stack and the platform handles the rest. | You get root on a bare server: pick a distro or an app image (Docker, WordPress, cPanel) and set everything up yourself. |
| The tradeoff | You pay a platform premium — comparable raw compute costs a third as much elsewhere. | Entirely self-managed, headline prices need a commitment, and support below premium tiers is slow. |
| Free tier | None | None |
What you'd realistically pay
| Project stage | Heroku | OVHcloud VPS | 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. | ≈€3.81/mo VPS-1 — From-price with commitment. 2 shared vCores, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe, unlimited traffic at 500 Mbps. | OVHcloud VPS |
| Steady traffic | ≈$25/mo Standard-1X — Adds horizontal scaling and zero-downtime deploys; database still extra. | ≈€10.40/mo VPS-3 — From-price with commitment. 6 shared vCores, 12 GB RAM, 100 GB NVMe, unlimited traffic at 2 Gbps. | OVHcloud VPS |
| Growing | ≈$50/mo Standard dynos + add-ons — Two Standard-1X dynos; realistic totals depend heavily on add-ons. | ≈€19.96/mo VPS-4 — From-price with commitment. 8 shared vCores, 24 GB RAM, 200 GB NVMe, unlimited traffic at 3 Gbps. | OVHcloud VPS |
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).
OVHcloud VPS pricing notes
- Prices are ex-VAT "from" prices requiring the longest commitment — month-to-month is noticeably higher.
- Monthly prepaid subscription only; there is no hourly billing on the VPS line.
- Daily backups are included free; snapshots cost from €0.30/month extra.
Our ratings
Ease of use Heroku
Pricing clarity Heroku
Free tier
Scaling Heroku
Control OVHcloud VPS
Feature by feature
Heroku wins 7, OVHcloud VPS wins 2, with 6 even.
Deploy workflow
| Heroku | OVHcloud VPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | Yes git push heroku main is the original deploy story; GitHub integration too. | No No deploy pipeline — bring your own CI or scripts. |
| Preview deploys | Yes Review Apps create a running app per pull request. | No Nothing built in. |
| Official CLI | Yes The heroku CLI covers deploys, logs, scaling, and add-ons. | Partial Full REST API and Terraform provider; no first-class official CLI like hcloud or doctl. |
| Instant rollbacks | Yes heroku releases:rollback reverts to any previous release instantly. | Partial Included daily backups and paid snapshots restore machines; no deploy-level rollback. |
Platform
| Heroku | OVHcloud VPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Yes Custom domains with automated certificate management on paid dynos. | Yes Point DNS at the server; TLS is yours via certbot or a proxy. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | No No built-in CDN — pair with Cloudflare or Fastly yourself. | Partial OVHcloud sells a separate CDN product; nothing is integrated with the VPS. |
| Serverless functions | No Dynos are long-running processes; there is no function product. | No Not a VPS feature. |
| Docker containers | Yes Deploy container images through the Heroku container registry. | Yes Docker app image at install time, or install it yourself. |
| SSH / shell access | Partial heroku run bash gives a one-off shell in a fresh dyno, not the live one. | Yes Full root SSH. |
| EU hosting region | Yes Common Runtime offers a Europe region at the same prices. | Yes France, Germany, Poland, and the UK — OVHcloud is EU-headquartered. |
Runtime & operations
| Heroku | OVHcloud VPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | Partial Built-in autoscaling requires Performance-tier dynos; standard dynos scale manually. | No Manual plan upgrades only. |
| Scale to zero | Partial Eco dynos sleep after 30 idle minutes; Basic and Standard run continuously. | No A monthly subscription bills until cancelled, powered off or not. |
| Scheduled jobs | Yes Heroku Scheduler (free add-on) runs tasks on a schedule. | Yes Classic cron on the box. |
| Managed database | Yes Heroku Postgres and Key-Value Store are fully managed add-ons. | Partial Managed databases exist on OVH Public Cloud (from ~$64/month) — a separate product, not part of the VPS. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Partial Log stream and basic metrics included; serious monitoring means add-ons. | Partial Basic usage graphs in the control panel; app-level monitoring is yours. |
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.
OVHcloud
- The advertised prices are "from" prices tied to the longest commitment — rolling month-to-month costs more.
- Traffic is unlimited in Europe and North America only; Asia-Pacific locations have 500 GB – 3 TB quotas, then throttle to 10 Mbps.
- Standard-tier support is slow and famously unhelpful for anything OS-level — you are expected to manage the server yourself.
- OVHcloud US is a separate legal entity with its own accounts — easy to sign up in the wrong portal.
Read the full reviews: Heroku and OVHcloud. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.