The honest version: Heroku's git push to deploy workflow is famously smooth and still works well. Since the free tier went away, the per dyno and per add on bill is the reason people look around. Here is the tradeoff.
Heroku invented the developer PaaS for a reason. Git push and your app is live, the add on marketplace hands you a database or a cache in a click, and the whole thing is mature and reliable. For a team that wants the classic, well trodden workflow and does not want to think about infrastructure at all, it still delivers.
For one or two services with a database, on a workflow your team already knows, Heroku is a reasonable, honest choice today. We would rather say that than pretend otherwise. What follows is about what the bill does once you run more than that.
Heroku prices per dyno and per add on. An always on web dyno, a worker dyno, and a managed database are three paid things, and the Standard tier dynos climb into the range where owning your own infrastructure is cheaper. The free tier is gone, so even a small side project now costs money, and it all runs on their platform, so moving off later is real work.
Burrow runs your apps on infrastructure you own instead: your own cluster, which can be a single cheap VPS for around five to twelve dollars a month. Burrow itself is free and open source, so adding another app does not add a platform fee. Your apps are standard container images on a cluster you control, so there is no lock in, remove Burrow and they keep running.
You operate it by talking to your AI coding agent: deploy, roll back, read logs and metrics, scale, and attach a Postgres database or a cache in one command, with backups, all on your own cluster. The guardrails you set gate the risky moves per environment, so you can hand the work to the agent without handing it the keys.
| On Heroku | With Burrow | |
|---|---|---|
| Where your app runs | On Heroku, their platform. You rent space on it. | On infrastructure you own: a cluster you control, even a single cheap VPS. |
| What you pay for | Their platform, priced per app or service and often per seat, plus usage. | The cluster you already pay for. Burrow itself is free and open source, a flat platform cost as you add apps. |
| Cost as you grow | Climbs with every extra service, seat, and unit of usage. | Mostly your own compute bill. Adding another app does not add a platform fee. |
| Lock in | Your build and runtime are shaped around their system. | Standard container images on your own cluster. Remove Burrow and your apps keep running. |
| Who operates it | You, clicking through their dashboard. | Your AI coding agent, in plain language, behind guardrails you set per environment. |
| Backing services | Their managed add ons, billed as separate services. | Postgres and a cache on your own cluster, attached in one command, with backups. |
| Rollback and safety | Rollback is there; the safety model is their defaults. | One command rollback with your last good release kept warm, plus guardrails and an audit trail of what the agent did. |
As of July 2026, Heroku has no free tier. Eco dynos start around five dollars a month for a shared pool of hours that sleep when idle, Basic always on dynos are around seven dollars a month each, Standard dynos run roughly twenty five to fifty dollars a month, and managed Postgres and other add ons are billed separately. Pricing changes often, so check heroku.com/pricing for the current numbers.
Burrow is free and open source. You pay only for the infrastructure you own. A single small VPS in the range of five to twelve dollars a month is enough to start, and adding more apps to it does not add a platform fee.
Prices are what we could confirm publicly as of July 2026 and are stated conservatively. Heroku sets and changes its own pricing, so treat their published pricing page as the source of truth.
Install Burrow on a cluster you own, even a single cheap VPS, point your agent at it, and keep control of every deploy. Free and open source.
