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Heroku vs PythonAnywhere: What are the differences?
Introduction:
In this article, we will compare the key differences between Heroku and PythonAnywhere, two popular platforms for deploying and hosting web applications.
Deployment Process: The deployment process on Heroku involves pushing code to a Git repository, which then triggers a build and deployment process. On the other hand, PythonAnywhere supports deployment through various methods such as uploading code directly, syncing with Git repositories, or pulling from popular version control systems.
Supported Languages: Heroku supports multiple programming languages including Python, Ruby, Java, PHP, and Node.js, allowing developers to choose the language that best suits their project. PythonAnywhere, as the name suggests, primarily focuses on Python, providing a specialized environment and additional features specific to Python programming.
Server Configuration: Heroku offers a high level of abstraction, automatically managing the underlying infrastructure and server configuration. It provides a platform as a service (PaaS) approach, allowing developers to focus solely on the application development. On the contrary, PythonAnywhere offers more control over the server configuration, enabling users to customize settings such as server software, database configuration, and file permissions.
Pricing Structure: Heroku follows a pay-per-usage pricing model, where users are billed based on the resources consumed by their applications, such as dyno hours, database usage, and add-on services. PythonAnywhere, on the other hand, offers tiered pricing plans that are more focused on the number of web applications, storage space, and computing resources allocated to each account.
Integration with Third-party Services: Heroku provides seamless integration with a wide range of third-party services and add-ons, such as logging, monitoring, email delivery, and database solutions. PythonAnywhere also supports integration with certain third-party services but has a more limited selection compared to Heroku.
Scalability and Performance: Heroku is known for its scalability and can easily handle high traffic and resource-demanding applications. It offers features like horizontal scaling and load balancing to ensure optimal performance. PythonAnywhere, while capable of handling moderate traffic, may have limitations in terms of scalability and performance, particularly for complex or highly concurrent applications.
In summary, Heroku provides a more abstracted and versatile platform, supporting multiple languages and offering seamless integration with third-party services. PythonAnywhere, on the other hand, specializes in Python hosting, providing more control over server configuration but having more limited scalability options.
I'm transitioning to Render from heroku. The pricing scale matches my usage scale, yet it's just as easy to deploy. It's removed a lot of the devops that I don't like to deal with on setting up my own raw *nix box and makes deployment simple and easy!
Clustering I don't use clustering features at the moment but when i need to set up clustering of nodes and discoverability, render will enable that where Heroku would require that I use an external service like redis.
Restarts The restarts are annoying. I understand the reasoning, but I'd rather watch my service if its got a memory leak and work to fix it than to just assume that it has memory leaks and needs to restart.
Pros of Heroku
- Easy deployment703
- Free for side projects459
- Huge time-saver374
- Simple scaling348
- Low devops skills required261
- Easy setup190
- Add-ons for almost everything174
- Beginner friendly153
- Better for startups150
- Low learning curve133
- Postgres hosting48
- Easy to add collaborators41
- Faster development30
- Awesome documentation24
- Simple rollback19
- Focus on product, not deployment19
- Natural companion for rails development15
- Easy integration15
- Great customer support12
- GitHub integration8
- Painless & well documented6
- No-ops6
- I love that they make it free to launch a side project4
- Free4
- Great UI3
- Just works3
- PostgreSQL forking and following2
- MySQL extension2
- Security1
- Able to host stuff good like Discord Bot1
- Sec0
Pros of PythonAnywhere
- Web apps15
- Easy Setup11
- Great support8
- Shell access8
- Free plan8
- Super-easy to use7
- Libraries5
- Many things like Python are pre-installed2
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Cons of Heroku
- Super expensive27
- Not a whole lot of flexibility9
- No usable MySQL option7
- Storage7
- Low performance on free tier5
- 24/7 support is $1,000 per month2
Cons of PythonAnywhere
- No root access1
- Really small community1