Heroku vs ngrok: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Heroku and ngrok

1. Scalability: The main difference between Heroku and ngrok is their scalability. Heroku is a cloud platform that allows developers to host and scale their applications easily, while ngrok is a tunneling service that helps developers expose local servers to the internet temporarily. Heroku provides a robust infrastructure that can handle high traffic and scale horizontally, making it suitable for production applications. On the other hand, ngrok is a tool mainly used for testing and debugging purposes during the development phase.

2. Deployment: Another key difference is the deployment process. Heroku provides a streamlined deployment process where developers can simply push their code to a remote repository, and Heroku will automatically build, deploy, and manage the application. Ngrok, on the other hand, does not handle deployment. It focuses on creating secure tunnels between the local environment and the internet, allowing developers to expose their local servers without the need for a public IP address or DNS configuration.

3. Domain and Subdomain: Heroku provides a built-in domain and subdomain management system. Developers can easily assign custom domains or subdomains to their applications, which makes it easier to create user-friendly URLs. Ngrok, on the other hand, does not offer domain management. It provides a randomly generated subdomain for each tunnel, which means the URL will change every time ngrok restarts.

4. Data Persistence: Heroku offers a variety of data storage options, including both SQL and NoSQL databases. It integrates well with popular data stores like PostgreSQL and MongoDB, allowing developers to easily manage and persist their application data. Ngrok, on the other hand, does not provide any data persistence. It is solely focused on creating secure tunnels for testing purposes, and does not offer any built-in data storage capabilities.

5. Environment Variables: Heroku provides a built-in feature to manage environment variables, allowing developers to securely store sensitive information like API keys, database credentials, and other configuration settings. Ngrok, on the other hand, does not have a native environment variable management system. Developers need to handle environment variables manually, which can be less secure and less convenient.

6. Pricing: Lastly, there is a difference in pricing models between Heroku and ngrok. Heroku offers a variety of pricing tiers based on the resources required by the application, including free options for small-scale projects. Ngrok also has a free plan available, but it comes with limitations on usage and functionality. To unlock additional features, such as custom domains, increased concurrency, and longer session durations, users need to subscribe to the paid plans.

In Summary, Heroku and ngrok differ in terms of scalability, deployment process, domain management, data persistence, environment variables, and pricing models.