Build vs Heroku
Build gives product teams the effortless Heroku way of working with the depth a modern product team actually needs.
At A Glance
Overview
Both platforms keep infrastructure out of the way. The difference is what's underneath when an application stops being simple. Heroku's abstraction is deliberately constrained and has historically reserved advanced capabilities for Enterprise plans. Build pairs the same developer experience with deeper control: Kubernetes access, virtual machines, multi-zone failover and security controls, all standard.
Build is a full-stack cloud platform: we own and operate the stack from hardware to runtime, rather than renting hyperscaler capacity the way Heroku does. This control gives us better performance, greater stability and lower costs for customers.
What Heroku Is
Heroku invented modern platform-as-a-service. Connect your code, define your processes, let the platform handle everything underneath. It established the template much of the category still follows.
The platform then evolved more slowly than the category around it. Fixed request timeouts and a sealed runtime stayed, while infrastructure access, security controls and workload flexibility advanced elsewhere. The developer experience stayed excellent; the ceiling above it did not move.
Heroku Is In Sustaining Engineering
In February 2026, Salesforce moved Heroku into a sustaining engineering model: security patches, stability work and support continue, but new feature development has stopped and new Enterprise Account contracts are no longer sold.
Heroku's Strengths
Heroku's biggest advantage is maturity.
Its marketplace leads the category with 200+ add-ons and 7,800+ buildpacks, its documentation has years of accumulated depth, and a large population of developers already understands its conventions.
If your application depends heavily on specialist Heroku add-ons, or you value ecosystem maturity above additional infrastructure control, Heroku may still be the better fit.
How Build Differs
The Same Opinion, With A Way Out Of It
Both platforms make the same trade. They decide how deployment, networking and the runtime work so your team does not have to, and that is most of what you are paying for.
The difference is what happens when a workload no longer fits the opinion. On Heroku, the abstraction gives you very few places to go. On Build there is:
- Configurable application behavior
- Virtual machines alongside dynos
- Direct access to your own Kubernetes namespaces
You stay inside the abstraction for almost everything, and step outside it for the one service that needs to, without leaving the platform.
Growing Should Not Cost You Twice
Infrastructure gets more demanding because the company is doing well. A bigger customer arrives and wants stronger access controls. Security asks for audit logs. User traffic grows and justifies multi-zone. A workload outgrows the default runtime.
On Heroku, growth is where both the bill and the limits start to bite. Stronger organization controls, compliance features and private networking have historically pushed teams toward Enterprise or Shield products.
And the capabilities Heroku does not offer at any tier still have to be solved somewhere else.
As Baremetrics grew, the experience that made Heroku attractive began to break down. The team introduced non-standard workarounds simply to avoid hitting platform limits or escalating costs.
Build is built for the whole arc. All of this is part of the standard platform from your first deploy:
- Private networking
- Role-based access control
- Audit logging
- SOC 2 certification
- Web application firewall
- SBOM generation
- Container image scanning
- Multi-zone infrastructure
The platform you start on is the platform you scale on. Growth changes how much capacity you buy, not which version of Build you are allowed to use.
Build Is Still Being Actively Developed
This distinction became more meaningful in February 2026.
Heroku remains supported, but Salesforce has explicitly stopped investing in new feature development. Build is actively developing the platform around modern application workflows and emerging developer needs.
For a team making a multi-year platform decision, development direction matters alongside what both products can do today.
Pricing
Heroku prices dynos and add-ons separately. Build packages compute, add-on credit, unlimited seats and every platform feature into one fixed monthly amount.
Here's how Build compares with Heroku for a typical small SaaS production setup:
A dyno-hour is one hour of a Standard-1X dyno. Larger sizes draw proportionally more: a Performance-M uses eight dyno-hours per hour. Heroku prices are list, September 2026.
That's over 35% lower, saving $1,101 per month or $13,212 per year, with 1,600 dyno-hours still available on Build.
Savings vary by workload. If Build isn't lower, send us your invoice and we'll beat it.
Migrating From Heroku
Importing a Heroku application into Build takes minutes through our direct integration.
Connect Build to Heroku and we'll automatically import your application configuration and environment settings. You can then run Build and Heroku in parallel while you validate the application before switching production traffic over.
If you run into any issues Build's engineering team is on hand to support throughout the process.
Migration was straightforward because Build supports direct synchronization with Heroku. The Baremetrics team transitioned at their own pace, moving workloads to Build one component at a time without interrupting uptime.
Which To Choose
Stay On Heroku If
- Ecosystem maturity matters more to you than additional infrastructure control
- Your team relies on the accumulated depth of Heroku's documentation and conventions
- You have minimal monthly spend and expect limited future growth
- Your application depends on a specialist add-on with no Build equivalent
Move To Build If
- You want every platform feature included on every plan, now and as your needs grow
- You want a lower, predictable monthly price instead of per-dyno and per-add-on charges
- You need a configurable timeout, Kubernetes access or a VM without leaving the platform
- You want a platform still in active development rather than maintenance
Full Comparison
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Heroku shutting down?
Heroku moved to a sustaining engineering model in February 2026. Salesforce continues to provide security updates, stability work and support, but new feature development has stopped. Heroku also no longer offers new Enterprise Account contracts.
How close is Build to a drop-in replacement for Heroku?
Very close for most conventional Heroku applications. Build supports Heroku Buildpacks, web and worker process types, config vars, pipelines, review apps, Postgres and Redis, and offers a Heroku-shaped API with a near-identical CLI. Many applications deploy without code changes, although apps that depend on Heroku-specific add-ons or unusual platform behavior may need some migration work.
What does Heroku do better than Build?
Heroku has a much larger add-on ecosystem, more mature documentation and substantially greater developer familiarity. Teams that depend heavily on its ecosystem may have good reasons to stay.
Does Build run on AWS?
No, Build runs on servers we own and operate, in Tier 3 and Tier 4 data centers across the US, Europe and Japan, rather than on rented hyperscaler capacity.
Do I need DevOps engineers to run Build?
No, Build handles deployment, networking, infrastructure and platform operations. Teams that need more control can still access their Kubernetes namespaces or run VMs alongside standard Build workloads.
Is Build cheaper than Heroku?
For comparable production workloads, Build is designed to come in below Heroku while including seats, security controls and platform features as standard. The exact difference depends on your dynos, databases, add-ons and Heroku tier. If Build does not beat a comparable current invoice, send it to us and we will beat it and hold that lower price for 12 months.