Cloud Foundry vs Heroku comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Cloud Foundry and Heroku are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Cloud Foundry is ranked #19, while Heroku is ranked #16. Cloud Foundry holds a 1.9% mindshare in PSP, compared to Heroku’s 2.8% mindshare. Additionally, 33% of Cloud Foundry users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Heroku users who would recommend it.

Cloud Foundry

Read 2 Cloud Foundry reviews

1,908 Views
1,832 Comparison Views

33% willing to recommend

Heroku

Read 29 Heroku reviews

3,798 Views
3,494 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Cloud Foundry

Heroku

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Heroku and Cloud Foundry are platforms competing in app deployment and management. Cloud Foundry seems to have the edge due to its scalable enterprise features and broader open-source ecosystem.

Features: Heroku provides seamless integration with third-party services, a powerful add-on marketplace, and efficient buildpacks. Cloud Foundry offers robust container management, support for multiple frameworks, and comprehensive enterprise-level customization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Heroku’s deployment model is known for its simplicity and quick start, making it suitable for developers. Cloud Foundry, though more complex, supports large-scale operations with customization. Customer service is comparable, though Cloud Foundry provides more detailed enterprise support.

Pricing and ROI: Heroku is known for its straightforward pricing, ideal for startups and small companies, offering a strong ROI through rapid deployment and low initial costs. Cloud Foundry requires a higher upfront investment but offers a competitive ROI for enterprises due to its scalability and control.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Foundry vs. Heroku Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Foundry vs. Heroku

September 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cloud Foundry

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

19th

Average Rating

5.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Heroku

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

16th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Cloud Foundry is 1.9%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Heroku is 2.8%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Heroku	2.8%
Cloud Foundry	1.9%
Other	95.3%

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Carlos Bittrich

Technology Advisor at Fabrik

Quick to deploy but being deprecated by IBM and should be merged with Kubernetes

We enjoy the fast deployment. Cloud Foundry builds the runtime environment directly without requiring dependency management from the developer or administrator. The autoscaling is great. It is just a switch that needs to be turned on, and autoscaling starts working. At this moment, you begin to see different meters about usage that helps you in updating the scaling limits, which help you tune the running instances. Besides this, autoscaling can be scheduled, so in times of low activity, you can have lower limits or increase in advance for special dates. It has good logging. CF has logging events that help identify when a transaction runs and its response time which helps in monitoring execution.

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Cristian-Molina

Senior Developer at Go Coeupas

Has a quick development cycle and continuous integration

The initial setup is straightforward. Heroku integrates well. You only have to push the code, and it automatically deploys the new version. Whether you have permission depends on the application. Currently, I have one application that I deploy myself. I rate the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Cloud Foundry builds the runtime environment directly without requiring dependency management from the user."

"My favorite component of IBM's solution is Node-RED, which greatly shortens the amount of time required to develop, test, and deploy new applications."

"By moving to IBM Cloud Foundry, we reduced our project time by a factor of two and decreased costs by a factor of four because it was a PoC."

"IBM is the only vendor to offer integration with blockchain for smart contract development."

"The most valuable feature of Heroku is the continuous integration and applications it provides."

"It is easy to deploy applications, and we don't need to bother about software updates on the server. We don't need to bother about machines, servers, and hardware. We only need to care about the system and functionality that we need or want to develop. They take care of everything else. It provides high availability. It is a pretty good solution that provides everything that we need. It has everything that we need to run our applications. We have many different applications, and we generate three million bills for a company in Brazil. We see more than a billion requests per day in another application. Everything works just fine, and it is very good."

"They solve most of our problems and we don't experience many issues with them."

"One of the best things about Heroku is that it is very easy and straightforward to deploy an application."

"My advice for anybody who is considering Heroku is that it's really simple to use, it's stable, and it is very powerful for continuous deployment."

"We use Heroku to run generic data. We also use it for our customer development environment. It helps us to build and test websites."

"The product is stable."

"Valuable for us was the fast deployment. This means the time to market is improved without pain for developers."

More Heroku pros

Cons

"In IBM Cloud, the product has been deprecated in favor of Kubernetes, which is a more complicated infrastructure to manage."

"After the initial excitement period with Node-RED is over, you crave the need of additional integrations to third-party services."

"We have to do daily restarts of some processes, which is annoying, and the support for custom CI could be better."

"Heroku is pretty stable. We experience the occasional outages."

"Heroku should increase its slug size limits."

"It's pricing is a little high and could be lowered."

"The pricing could be improved because scaling the database becomes costly."

"Plugins aren't cheap (Mailchimp is $1.5/1000 emails)."

"Their support is good, but they can improve their response time."

"Slow restart on servers"

More Heroku cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing models should be reworked to the needs of a wider range of companies. Some customers will not be able to afford it until quite a few years into production, even after good PoC results and a successful launch."

"IBM has a free tier and payment option depending on the products selected."

"You are allocated a minimum amount of resources in the free tier. This seems fair and highly scalable, as you pay per usage as per cloud pricing schemes."

"Its price is very good."

"There is a standard fee for a processing unit, they call them "dynos," and then you pay for add-ons."

"The price of Heroku could be less expensive."

"I rate the tool's pricing a three out of ten."

"The tool is free."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Energy/Utilities Company

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

Comparisons

Amazon AWS vs Cloud Foundry

Compared 15% of the time

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Cloud Foundry

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Cloud Foundry

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Cloud Foundry

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Developer Cloud Service vs Cloud Foundry

Compared 3% of the time

More Cloud Foundry Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs Heroku

Compared 9% of the time

Google App Engine vs Heroku

Compared 9% of the time

Render vs Heroku

Compared 8% of the time

Engine Yard Cloud vs Heroku

Compared 8% of the time

Virtuozzo Application Platform vs Heroku

Compared 6% of the time

More Heroku Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

PaaS Clouds

October 2026

Download Cloud Foundry product report

Buyer's Guide

Heroku

October 2026

Download Heroku product report

Overview

Cloud Foundry is an open-source platform as a service (PaaS) that simplifies application deployment and management across various clouds. It enables developers to focus on coding by automating the underlying infrastructure management.

Cloud Foundry offers a robust environment where developers can build, test, deploy, and scale applications efficiently. It removes the complexity of setting up infrastructure, providing a consistent development experience across different platforms. It supports a wide range of programming languages and frameworks, which makes it versatile for developers working in diverse environments. The platform's container-based architecture helps ensure that applications can scale seamlessly while maintaining performance and reliability.

What are the standout features of Cloud Foundry?

Multi-Cloud Compatibility: Supports deployment across major cloud providers ensuring flexibility and choice.
Continuous Delivery: Integrates seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines to facilitate automated testing and deployment.
Built-in Logging and Monitoring: Offers tools for thorough monitoring and logging, ensuring application health.
Scalability: Provides easy scaling of applications to manage fluctuating workloads.
Container-Based Architecture: Utilizes containers to ensure consistent deployment and performance.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Savings achieved through decreased infrastructure management costs.
Developer Productivity: Enables faster development cycles due to streamlined processes.
Operational Transparency: Enhanced monitoring and logging features that provide clear insights.
Flexibility to Innovate: Ability to quickly deploy and test new ideas without infrastructure concerns.
Robust Ecosystem Support: Peer and vendor support to enhance application development processes.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail, Cloud Foundry is implemented to enhance agile development practices. Financial institutions use it for rapid prototyping, allowing them to respond swiftly to market changes. Healthcare providers leverage its security features to maintain data privacy while deploying applications. Retail businesses benefit from its scalability to manage peak shopping periods effortlessly.

Cloud Foundry

Heroku offers fast deployment with ease of use and seamless integration capabilities, making it a preferred platform for developers needing reliable continuous integration and scalability.

Heroku is known for handling server-related tasks, allowing developers to concentrate on building application functionality. Its automatic database maintenance and powerful performance are key for projects using Node.js and Ruby on Rails. Users appreciate its simple application deployment and maintenance, supported by a diverse range of plugins. Beyond efficiency, its CLI and dashboards enable a straightforward user experience, essential for developers focused on production, staging, and development environments.

What are Heroku's key features?

Fast Deployment: Offers rapid application deployment with minimal setup.
Continuous Integration: Supports streamlined integration processes for development cycles.
Scalability: Easily scales applications to meet growing demand.
High Availability: Ensures applications remain online and responsive.
Automatic Database Maintenance: Provides hands-off management of database tasks.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Ease of Use: Simplifies complex tasks, allowing developers to focus on coding.
Integration Capabilities: Connects seamlessly with tools like GitHub for updates.
Performance: Delivers consistent, reliable application performance.
Development Flexibility: Supports Node.js, Ruby on Rails, and Docker environments.

Organizations use Heroku to deploy production servers and stage development environments. Educational apps and offsite backends benefit from its Docker support. E-commerce, mobile app development, and web apps leverage Heroku's ability to maintain rapid development cycles and manage server deployment efficiently.

Heroku

Sample Customers

Grape Up, c-Com, KONE, TITAN, CSAA, Bosch, Allstate, Verizon, West Corp., Telstra

Facebook, UrbanDictionary, Code for America, Mailchimp, Rapportive, GitHub, TED, and Lyft.

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Foundry vs. Heroku

September 2026

Free Report: Cloud Foundry vs. Heroku

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