Amazon Web Services vs Heroku
March 08, 2025 | Author: Michael Stromann
26★
IaaS/PaaS cloud platform with over 200 services, including computing, storage, database engines and machine learning. Provides a global network of data centers and pay-as-you-go pricing model.
13★
Heroku is the leading platform as a service in the world and supports Ruby, Java, Python, Scala, Clojure, and Node.js. Deploying an app is simple and easy. No special alternative tools needed, just a plain git push. Deployment is instant, whether your app is big or small.
See also:
Top 10 Public Cloud Platforms
Top 10 Public Cloud Platforms
Amazon Web Services and Heroku both exist to help developers put their software somewhere that isn’t their own laptop. They let you deploy applications, store data and integrate various magical internet services. Both claim to make life easier, though one does so with the elegance of a spaceship console, while the other resembles a control panel designed by a committee of particularly argumentative Vogons.
AWS, birthed in 2006 in the USA, is what happens when a company looks at a data center and thinks, “Yes, but what if we sold everything?” It offers compute power, storage, databases, AI and about sixteen different ways to send an email. Enterprises love it because it gives them absolute control over their infrastructure, much like a particularly dedicated gardener managing an especially temperamental bonsai forest. It’s flexible, powerful and can run just about anything—provided you have the patience to decipher the ancient texts of its documentation.
Heroku, born a year later in the same country but later adopted by Salesforce, decided all of that sounded like a bit too much work. It took a deep breath, stared at the chaos and said, “What if we just let people push code and have it work?” And so, Heroku became the haven for startups, indie developers and anyone who preferred a life with fewer configuration nightmares. It abstracts away the drudgery of infrastructure, automating servers and scaling so effortlessly that one might assume tiny robots are scurrying around inside making it all happen.
See also: Top 10 Public Cloud Platforms
AWS, birthed in 2006 in the USA, is what happens when a company looks at a data center and thinks, “Yes, but what if we sold everything?” It offers compute power, storage, databases, AI and about sixteen different ways to send an email. Enterprises love it because it gives them absolute control over their infrastructure, much like a particularly dedicated gardener managing an especially temperamental bonsai forest. It’s flexible, powerful and can run just about anything—provided you have the patience to decipher the ancient texts of its documentation.
Heroku, born a year later in the same country but later adopted by Salesforce, decided all of that sounded like a bit too much work. It took a deep breath, stared at the chaos and said, “What if we just let people push code and have it work?” And so, Heroku became the haven for startups, indie developers and anyone who preferred a life with fewer configuration nightmares. It abstracts away the drudgery of infrastructure, automating servers and scaling so effortlessly that one might assume tiny robots are scurrying around inside making it all happen.
See also: Top 10 Public Cloud Platforms