Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
DigitalOcean vs Heroku: What are the differences?
Developers describe DigitalOcean as "Deploy an SSD cloud server in less than 55 seconds with a dedicated IP and root access". We take the complexities out of cloud hosting by offering blazing fast, on-demand SSD cloud servers, straightforward pricing, a simple API, and an easy-to-use control panel. On the other hand, Heroku is detailed as "Build, deliver, monitor and scale web apps and APIs with a trail blazing developer experience". Heroku is a cloud application platform – a new way of building and deploying web apps. Heroku lets app developers spend 100% of their time on their application code, not managing servers, deployment, ongoing operations, or scaling.
DigitalOcean and Heroku are primarily classified as "Cloud Hosting" and "Platform as a Service" tools respectively.
Some of the features offered by DigitalOcean are:
- We provide all of our users with high-performance SSD Hard Drives, flexible API, and the ability to select to nearest data center location.
- SSD Cloud Servers in 55 Seconds
- We provide a 99.99% uptime SLA around network, power and virtual server availability. If we fail to deliver, we’ll credit you based on the amount of time that service was unavailable.
On the other hand, Heroku provides the following key features:
- Agile deployment for Ruby, Node.js, Clojure, Java, Python, Go and Scala.
- Run and scale any type of app.
- Total visibility across your entire app.
"Great value for money", "Simple dashboard" and "Good pricing" are the key factors why developers consider DigitalOcean; whereas "Easy deployment", "Free for side projects" and "Huge time-saver" are the primary reasons why Heroku is favored.
According to the StackShare community, Heroku has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1504 company stacks & 961 developers stacks; compared to DigitalOcean, which is listed in 943 company stacks and 687 developer stacks.
While Media Temple is more expensive than DigitalOcean, sometimes it is like comparing apples and oranges. DigitalOcean provides what is called Virtual Private Servers ( VPS ). While you seem to be on your own dedicated server, you are, in fact, sharing the same hardware with others.
If you need to be on your own dedicated server, or have other hardware requirements, you do not really have as many options with DigitalOcean. But with Media Temple, the skies the limit ( but so is potentially the cost ).
DigitalOcean was where I began; its USD5/month is extremely competitive and the overall experience as highly user-friendly.
However, their offerings were lacking and integrating with other resources I had on AWS was getting more costly (due to transfer costs on AWS). Eventually I moved the entire project off DO's Droplets and onto AWS's EC2.
One may initially find the cost (w/o free tier) and interface of AWS daunting however with good planning you can achieve highly cost-efficient systems with savings plans, spot instances, etcetera.
Do not dive into AWS head-first! Seriously, don't. Stand back and read pricing documentation thoroughly. You can, not to the fault of AWS, easily go way overbudget. Your first action upon getting your AWS account should be to set up billing alarms for estimated and current bill totals.
I chose DigitalOcean because their pricing is very fair. Their tech support is very quick to respond to any inquiries you may have. They also have a community of developer who are more then happy to help you with any non-account issues you may have.
The drawbacks of this decision are their managed services can be quite pricey at $15/mo extra for a MySQL database.
Pros of DigitalOcean
- Great value for money559
- Simple dashboard363
- Good pricing357
- Ssds300
- Nice ui248
- Easy configuration192
- Great documentation155
- Ssh access137
- Great community134
- Ubuntu24
- IPv6 support12
- Docker12
- Private networking10
- 99.99% uptime SLA7
- Great tutorials7
- Simple API7
- 55 Second Provisioning6
- One Click Applications5
- CoreOS4
- Dokku4
- Node.js4
- Debian4
- LAMP4
- Ghost3
- 1Gb/sec Servers3
- Simple Control Panel3
- LEMP3
- Word Press3
- Runs CoreOS2
- Mean2
- Speed2
- GitLab2
- Django2
- Quick and no nonsense service2
- Good Tutorials2
- Ruby on Rails2
- Hex Core machines with dedicated ECC Ram and RAID SSD s2
- Spaces1
- My go to server provider1
- Ease and simplicity1
- Nice1
- Find it superfitting with my requirements (SSD, ssh.1
- Easy Setup1
- Transfer Globally1
- Drupal1
- FreeBSD Amp1
- Amazing Hardware1
- Magento1
- KVM Virtualization1
- ownCloud1
- RedMine1
- CentOS1
- Fedora1
- FreeBSD1
- Cheap1
- Static IP1
- It's the easiest to get started for small projects1
- Automatic Backup1
- Great support1
- Quick and easy to set up1
- Servers on demand - literally1
- Reliability1
- Variety of services0
- Managed Kubernetes0
Pros of Heroku
- Easy deployment702
- Free for side projects460
- Huge time-saver374
- Simple scaling348
- Low devops skills required261
- Easy setup190
- Add-ons for almost everything174
- Beginner friendly154
- Better for startups150
- Low learning curve133
- Postgres hosting47
- Easy to add collaborators41
- Faster development30
- Awesome documentation24
- Simple rollback19
- Focus on product, not deployment19
- Natural companion for rails development15
- Easy integration15
- Great customer support11
- GitHub integration8
- No-ops6
- Painless & well documented5
- Just works3
- Free3
- MySQL extension2
- Great UI2
- PostgreSQL forking and following2
- I love that they make it free to launch a side project2
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of DigitalOcean
- Pricing3
- No live support chat2
Cons of Heroku
- Super expensive22
- No usable MySQL option6
- Not a whole lot of flexibility6
- Storage5
- Low performance on free tier4
Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions
What is DigitalOcean?
What is Heroku?
Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
What companies use Heroku?
Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions
Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions
Blog Posts
+11
+17
+47
+39
+25
+25
+24
+20