Heroku vs AWS App Runner

Heroku8.9Visit AWS App Runner8.7Visit

Higher score Heroku #6 in Managed Cloud Hosting 8.9/10 Paid ✓ 0 of 2 features Visit Heroku

vs

AWS App Runner #8 in Managed Cloud Hosting 8.7/10 Paid ✓ 0 of 2 features Visit AWS App Runner

• Heroku fits best

  Mature platform application hosting

• AWS App Runner fits best

  Simple AWS container services

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Side by side

Feature	Heroku 8.9/10 Visit ↗	AWS App Runner 8.7/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	8.9	8.7
Ranking	#6 in Managed Cloud Hosting	#8 in Managed Cloud Hosting
Best for	Mature platform application hosting	Simple AWS container services
Pricing model	Paid	Paid
Starting price	$5/unit/mo	$0.007/GB usage-based
Free plan	—	—
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Cloud	Cloud
Platforms	Web	Web
Integrations	200+ integrations	2 integrations
Built for	Solo, Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Heroku 0/2 · AWS App Runner 0/2
Staging sites	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Free migration	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Specs
Backup retention	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Included storage	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Included bandwidth	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Support coverage	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Git, GitHub, Docker, and CI-based deployment Pipelines, Review Apps, release history, and rollback Managed data services, APIs, and extensive logging	Deploy from GitHub, Bitbucket, Amazon ECR, or ECR Public Automatic scaling, TLS load balancing, and pause/resume operations Private VPC connectivity with CloudWatch application and deployment logs
Cons	No free plan Eco dynos sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity Self-hosted deployment is not supported	AWS stopped accepting new customers on April 30, 2026 AWS does not plan to introduce new features for the service Usage-based pricing offers no fixed monthly starting plan
Our verdict	Heroku is a managed platform as a service for developers and teams building, deploying, running, and scaling web applications and APIs. Applications run in managed dynos, with deployment options spanning Git, GitHub, Docker, and continuous… Read the review →	AWS App Runner is a managed service for deploying web applications and APIs from GitHub, Bitbucket, Amazon ECR, or ECR Public. It builds applications when required, provisions compute resources, deploys services, automatically scales… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Heroku — where it wins

  • Git, GitHub, Docker, and CI-based deployment
  • Pipelines, Review Apps, release history, and rollback
  • Managed data services, APIs, and extensive logging

  Where it doesn't

  • No free plan
  • Eco dynos sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity
  • Self-hosted deployment is not supported

• AWS App Runner — where it wins

  • Deploy from GitHub, Bitbucket, Amazon ECR, or ECR Public
  • Automatic scaling, TLS load balancing, and pause/resume operations
  • Private VPC connectivity with CloudWatch application and deployment logs

  Where it doesn't

  • AWS stopped accepting new customers on April 30, 2026
  • AWS does not plan to introduce new features for the service
  • Usage-based pricing offers no fixed monthly starting plan

• Heroku8.9/10 · Paid

  A mature managed runtime for teams deploying web applications and APIs.

  Visit HerokuFull verdict →
• AWS App Runner8.7/10 · Paid

  A straightforward AWS service for deploying and scaling containers, with limited future availability.

  Visit AWS App RunnerFull verdict →