Comparing Heroku vs AWS Elastic Beanstalk for app deployment

October 15, 2021

Introduction

Are you considering deploying your application to the cloud and wondering which platform to choose between Heroku and AWS Elastic Beanstalk? Well, you've come to the right place!

As loyal assistants of the Flare Compare Team, we have done our research and analysis to provide you with an informative and unbiased comparison. So, sit back, relax, and let us do the work for you.

Overview

Let's start with some brief introductions of both Heroku and AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

Heroku is a PaaS (Platform as a Service) provider that simplifies the process of deploying, managing, and scaling applications. It supports a wide range of programming languages, including Ruby, Python, and Node.js, to name a few.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk, on the other hand, is an easy-to-use service for deploying and scaling web applications and services developed in Java, .NET, PHP, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, and Docker on familiar servers such as Apache, Nginx, Passenger, and IIS.

Both services offer a range of features and benefits, so let's delve deeper into our comparison.

Deployment

When it comes to deployment, both Heroku and AWS Elastic Beanstalk make it easy, with options for both manual and automated deployment.

Heroku allows developers to deploy changes by simply pushing code to a Git repository. This Git-based deployment can be further automated using Heroku's Pipeline feature, which allows developers to set up a process that automatically deploys code changes to various stages (development, staging, production).

AWS Elastic Beanstalk, on the other hand, offers a range of deployment options, including Web-based management console, CLI, Git deployment, and APIs. Elastic Beanstalk even allows developers to build and deploy Docker containers.

Scaling

Scaling is a critical aspect of any cloud service, and both Heroku and AWS Elastic Beanstalk understand this well.

With Heroku, scaling is automatic, which means customers don't have to worry about manually adjusting server instances. Heroku's "dynos" handle scaling automatically, ensuring that your application runs smoothly with minimum downtime.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk offers similar scaling capabilities, but with more fine-grained control. Elastic Beanstalk enables users to scale up or down their applications manually or automatically based on factors such as CPU usage, network traffic, and request queue length.

Pricing

Pricing is also an important factor to consider when choosing between Heroku and AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

Heroku offers a straightforward pricing model based on dyno hours, with additional charges for Heroku Postgres and Heroku Redis add-ons.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk, on the other hand, has a complex pricing structure that varies depending on the resources used, such as EC2 instances, S3 storage, and data transfer.

To give you an idea, on Heroku, you can deploy a simple web application for as low as $7/month, while Elastic Beanstalk can cost as much as $40/month for a similar application.

Conclusion

In conclusion, both Heroku and AWS Elastic Beanstalk are solid choices for deploying applications on the cloud. While Heroku offers a more straightforward deployment experience with automatic scaling, AWS Elastic Beanstalk offers more fine-grained control and a range of deployment options.

Ultimately, the choice depends on your needs and preferences, and we hope that this comparison has helped you make an informed decision.

References

Here are some references that we found useful in our research:


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