Heroku's "git push heroku main" experience defined what a PaaS is — this piece isn't here to trash it. But the facts are on the table: the free tier ended in 2022, eco dynos sleep after 30 idle minutes, and the pricing ladder is still steep. Most people searching "heroku alternative" don't want to leave the platform — they want to leave the bill and the sleep mode. Let's separate the two.
Where Heroku Is Still Genuinely Great
- The add-on ecosystem: 200+ ready integrations (Postgres, Redis, monitoring, logging) — one click, plug and play. Nobody has matched this marketplace's breadth.
- Maturity: a build pipeline running since 2007, documentation that has seen every edge case.
- Buildpacks: the standard for "drop code, it runs" across dozens of languages.
- Review apps + pipelines: an environment per PR, automatically.
Dismissing these would be dishonest — they are what made Heroku Heroku. The issue lives on the price/performance side.
How the Real Bill Grows
| Heroku tier | Price (mo) | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Eco dyno | ~$5/dyno | Sleeps after 30 idle minutes — 5-10s cold start on first request; daily hour quota |
| Basic dyno | ~$7/dyno | No sleep but 512MB RAM — even small apps feel it |
| Standard-1X/2X | ~$25-50/dyno | The real production entry point |
| Heroku Postgres Mini | ~$5/mo | Limited connections, small plan |
| Essential Postgres | ~$5-50+/mo | A steep ladder as you grow |
A typical small-team bill: web dyno + worker dyno + Postgres → $20-60/month, and that's just the start. The same workload on TRY-priced plans starts at ₺339.9 — and the dyno never sleeps.
The Sleeping Dyno Problem — "The 5-Second First Request"
An eco dyno sleeps after 30 minutes without requests; the first visitor waits through a cold start. Acceptable for demos and hobbies; not for sites with customers. Keep-alive pings are a common hack, but they eat the quota and aren't the behavior Heroku intends. Basic tier doesn't sleep — but that's where billing starts. In other words, "a dyno that stays awake" is already paid.
Two Extra Factors for Teams Serving Turkey
- No region: Heroku runs only in US and EU regions. EU → Istanbul is ~40-60ms RTT; Turkey-hosted is ~5-10ms. Visitors feel it on every request.
- The KVKK side: once personal data leaves the country, the transfer machinery starts (standard contracts, notifications). We covered it in our data residency article — data staying in Turkey means the machinery never runs.
Heroku vs Skyversal — The Honest Table
| Heroku | Skyversal | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy experience | git push, buildpacks | git push, container build |
| Sleep mode | On eco tier (30 min) | None — processes stay up |
| Worker/queue/cron | Separate dyno billing each | Included in the same project |
| Add-on marketplace | 200+ — undisputed leader | Managed services (DB, Redis, mail) — fewer |
| Regions | US / EU | Turkey |
| Billing currency | USD — FX surprises | TRY — fixed |
| Database | Heroku Postgres (billed separately) | Managed, backups + PITR included |
| Maturity / ecosystem | 18 years, huge community | Young — strong docs, no marketplace yet |
Where we lose is clear: the add-on marketplace's breadth and an 18-year ecosystem. If you need an exotic service, Heroku's marketplace has it; we offer managed core services. Where we win is equally clear: billing currency, no sleeping, Turkey region, and workers/cron that aren't separate invoice lines.
Who Should Stay on Heroku, Who Should Move
Stay on Heroku:
- Your team is deep in the Heroku ecosystem (specific add-ons are critical)
- Your customers are in US/EU — being close to them is correct
- Eco dyno suffices at demo/prototype stage
Move:
- You serve users in Turkey — you win on latency and the KVKK side
- You're tired of currency swings — TRY pricing is fixed
- You pay three separate dyno bills for web + worker + cron
- Sleeping dyno cold starts are hurting customers
Migration Steps from Heroku
- Connect the repo: link your GitHub/GitLab repository — Skyversal's pipeline replaces the Heroku remote.
- Move env vars: paste your
heroku configoutput into the panel. For Laravel, our environment variables guide walks through it. - Procfile → start commands: whatever your Procfile runs (web + worker) becomes processes inside the same project — no separate dyno invoice.
- Map add-ons: Postgres → managed database, Redis → managed Redis, scheduler → scheduled tasks.
- Move data: pg_dump out, import into the managed DB.
- Cut DNS: attach your custom domain; SSL is automatic.
A typical Laravel/Node project migrates the same day; complex add-on arrays need planning.
FAQ
Is Heroku dead?
No — it keeps running under Salesforce. Removing the free tier created a "dead" perception, but the platform didn't die; the entry price just went up.
Why is my eco dyno site slow on first load?
After 30 minutes without requests the dyno sleeps; the first request pays a 5-10 second cold start. Basic dynos don't sleep — "a dyno that stays awake" is a paid tier.
What happens to my add-ons?
Core services (Postgres, Redis, scheduler, mail) exist as managed services. Exotic marketplace add-ons may not map — inventory yours before migrating.
What about my Procfile?
Same idea: web + worker + release commands become processes in the project. The difference: on Heroku each dyno type is a separate line item; on Skyversal they're one project's processes.