LocalCloud vs Heroku
LocalCloud brings all the benefits of Heroku while giving you full control over your servers and infrastructure. You can use LocalCloud on most VPS / cloud / dedicated servers. Here we explain why LocalCloud can be the best alternative to Heroku. We’ll compare:
- Pricing
- Flexibility
- Main features
- Infrastructure & developer experience
- When to choose Heroku / LocalCloud
Pricing
LocalCloud can be used on any servers which have a public IP address and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For example, you can run your apps on DigitalOcean, Vultr, Hetzner. Let’s compare pricing for a project with 3 Node.js services on Heroku and LocalCloud(you can deploy all 3 services on one server using LocalCloud)
| RAM | LocalCloud + VPS / Cloud server | Heroku, per service | Heroku, 3 services | Savings, per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | $5 (DO server) + $5 (LocalCloud) | $50 | $150 | $140 |
| 2 GB | $10(Vultr server) + $5 (LocalCloud) | $100 | $300 | $285 |
You should pay additional costs for databases and storage on Heroku. For example, Postgres will cost $50 and up for commercial apps in production.
Flexibility
- The main idea of LocalCloud is that you can deploy apps & services on your own VPS / cloud / dedicated servers. Heroku works on AWS infrastructure and you haven’t access to these servers. You can think about LocalCloud as Heroku which worked on your own server
- LocalCloud can handle an unlimited amount of environments for each project
- LocalCloud uses Git to manage deployment that's why you don’t need to learn new commands or configuration files to deploy your projects. You can deploy projects directly from any Git services and custom Git servers
- LocalCloud gives you full SSH access to your servers, Heroku provides SSH only to your containers
- You can install multiple services/apps/databases/storages on one server using LocalCloud
- LocalCloud doesn’t lock your projects. You can easily migrate from LocalCloud. If you even decide to stop using LocalCloud your projects continue to be live until your servers work.
- Heroku doesn't provide any access to the server’s infrastructure, LocalCloud gives you full access to your servers
Infrastructure & developer experience
- You haven’t control over Heroku's infrastructure. Heroku is a black box with a hidden infrastructure. It’s not clear which technologies are used for getting your project online. Using LocalCloud you have full control over your servers. You can SSH into your server or containers and do what you want. LocalCloud is based on best open-source projects like HAProxy (the fastest load balancer & proxy server), Nomad (a highly available, distributed, data-center aware cluster and application scheduler), and others
- LocalCloud provides fully automated free TLS certificates for custom domains, including wildcard domains
- LocalCloud can be used on servers all around the world, Heroku has only 4 regions.
- No vendor lock-in: using LocalCloud your apps run on your cloud servers. You can use any cloud provider - DigitalOcean, Vultr, Hetzner, Scaleway, etc.
Key differences
Key differences between LocalCloud and Heroku
| Feature | LocalCloud | Heroku |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Any VPS/ Cloud / Dedicated server with a public IP and SSH, for example DO ($5+/server), Vultr ($5+/server) etc | Heroku hosting only |
| Network customization | Yes | No |
| GitOps | Yes | Partially |
| Microservices | Yes | No |
| Private VPC | Yes | Enterprise plan only |
| One-Click Apps | Yes | No |
| Support | Dedicated via e-mail even for a free plan | Community and Dedicated (expensive) |
| Cost | $5 including VPS server with 1GB memory | Very expensive, 1 GB service costs $50/month |
| Vendor lock-in | No | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Modern languages (for example, Rust) | Yes | No |
When to choose Heroku
- You want to learn how to start developing web apps
When to choose LocalCloud
- You want to develop SAAS project & complex app
- Your project includes microservices
- You want to reduce server costs
- You want to have full control over your content and servers
If you have any questions about migration from Heroku please contact us at hey[to]localcloud.dev for assistance.