Cheaper Heroku alternatives
Pricing data as of 2026-10-12 · refreshed weekly
Baseline: a Next.js app with startup-level traffic (~50,000 visits/month) costs $5/month on Heroku (Eco). Every provider below can run the same workload — ranked by real list price. Cheaper is not always better: a paas platform and a raw VPS differ in how much ops work lands on you.
| Provider | Type | Plan | $/month | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orkestr | paas | Starter | $0 | Heroku vs Orkestr → |
| DigitalOcean Droplets | vps | Basic 512MB | $4 | Heroku vs DigitalOcean Droplets → |
| OVHcloud VPS | vps | VPS-1 | $4.54 | Heroku vs OVHcloud VPS → |
| Vultr | vps | Cloud Compute 1GB | $5 | Heroku vs Vultr → |
| Railway | paas | Hobby | $5 | Heroku vs Railway → |
| Linode (Akamai) | vps | Nanode 1GB | $5 | Heroku vs Linode (Akamai) → |
| AWS Lightsail | vps | $5 bundle | $5 | Heroku vs AWS Lightsail → |
| Fly.io | paas | shared-cpu-1x 512MB | $5.17 | Heroku vs Fly.io → |
| DigitalOcean App Platform | paas | Shared 1 vCPU / 512MB | $5.48 | Heroku vs DigitalOcean App Platform → |
| Hostinger VPS | vps | KVM 1 | $6.49 | Heroku vs Hostinger VPS → |
| Scaleway | vps | DEV1-S | $7.1 | Heroku vs Scaleway → |
| Netcup | vps | VPS 500 G12.5 | $7.79 | Heroku vs Netcup → |
| Render | paas | 512 MB / 0.5 CPU | $17.35 | Heroku vs Render → |
| Vercel | serverless | Pro | $20 | Heroku vs Vercel → |
| Netlify | serverless | Pro | $20 | Heroku vs Netlify → |
| Hetzner Cloud | vps | CPX22 (Regular Performance) | $23.59 | Heroku vs Hetzner Cloud → |
| Koyeb | paas | eco-micro | $29 | Heroku vs Koyeb → |
FAQ
What is the cheapest alternative to Heroku?
For a Next.js app at startup traffic: Orkestr (Starter) at free versus $5/month on Heroku, $5 less per month. It is a PaaS, so check what you give up before switching.
Is there a cheaper PaaS than Heroku?
Yes, for this workload: Orkestr free, versus $5/month on Heroku.
How is this comparison calculated?
Workload: Next.js needing ~512MB RAM for serving, ~50,000 visits and ~74GB of transfer a month. For each provider we take the cheapest plan that fits RAM, bandwidth and visit limits, plus metered egress where the provider charges it. Providers whose largest plan does not fit are left out.
How current are these prices?
They are official list prices as of 2026-10-12, re-checked against each provider's pricing page on a weekly cycle. Intro promos and coupons are not used in totals; taxes are not included unless a plan note says so.