Heroku Alternatives in 2026: What to Use Now

Heroku removed its free tier in November 2022. In February 2026, Salesforce announced Heroku was entering "sustaining engineering mode" — meaning no new feature development. For teams still on Heroku, it's time to plan a migration.

Free tier, always-on, no credit card. Git push deploy like Heroku. Auto-detects frameworks. Secure containers with locked-down defaults. Fixed pricing ($0/5/10/custom).

Migration: connect the same GitHub repo, copy env vars, deploy. See the Heroku alternative and Heroku comparison pages for details.

Most-mentioned Heroku replacement. Free tier sleeps after 15 minutes of inactivity. Paid plans from $7/mo. Good Heroku migration docs. Managed Postgres available.

Closest developer experience to Heroku. Usage-based pricing — one-time $5 trial credit, then $1/month on the free plan. Requires credit card. Quick-start templates for common frameworks. No always-on free tier.

Global edge deployment with Firecracker microVMs. No free tier — pay-as-you-go only (new users get a short trial). Requires flyctl CLI. Best for apps that need low-latency access from multiple regions.

Free tier with scale-to-zero after 1 hour of inactivity (1-5s cold start). Docker-native with buildpack support. Acquired by Mistral AI in February 2026. Good for containerized workloads.

Self-hosted alternative. Open-source. Requires your own server. Docker Compose support with a one-click app marketplace. Free if you already have infrastructure.

Self-hosted PaaS built on Docker Swarm. Uses captain-definition files for configuration. One-click apps marketplace. Requires your own VPS.

1. Export env vars from Heroku dashboard
2. Ensure Dockerfile or framework detection covers your app
3. Connect GitHub repo to new platform
4. Set env vars on new platform
5. Deploy and verify
6. Update DNS if using custom domains
7. Cancel Heroku subscription