Compared

Dynos at a fixed price, or infrastructure by the minute.

Heroku removed its free tier in 2022. That single decision is why most of these comparisons get written.

The short answer

For a very small always-on app with a small database, Heroku is genuinely cheap: a $7 Basic dyno plus a $5 Essential Postgres is $12 a month. Dockup has no equivalent fixed bundle at that size, but it does have a free plan, which Heroku does not. Above that size Heroku gets expensive quickly — Standard-1X is $25 a month for 512 MB — and it will not run a VM at all.

Line by line

Compared on	Dockup	Heroku
Free plan	Yes — $10 credit, 3 services, 3 databases	None since 2022
Cheapest always-on	$5 Hobby + metered	$7 · Basic dyno, 512 MB
Small app with database	≈ $20 total	$12 · Basic + Essential Postgres
512 MB with metrics and scaling	≈ $15 metered	$25 · Standard-1X
1 GB	≈ $20 metered	$50 · Standard-2X
Sleeping	Nothing sleeps	Eco dyno sleeps after 30 minutes
Linux and Windows VMs	Yes	No
Deploy to servers you own	Yes, over SSH	No
Add-on marketplace	None	Large and mature

Heroku figures are their published list prices, checked on 22 August 2026. They change without notice — verify before deciding. Ours are on the pricing page, per unit, so you can redo this arithmetic yourself.

Choose Heroku if

You want a fixed, predictable bill at the very small end, and $12 a month for an app plus a database is exactly the shape you need.
You depend on the add-on marketplace. It is the most mature in the category and Dockup has nothing like it.
Your organisation already runs on Heroku and the migration cost outweighs the difference.

Choose Dockup if

You want a free plan at all. Heroku has not had one since November 2022, and the Eco dyno at $5 sleeps after thirty minutes of inactivity.
You are above the smallest size. Heroku Standard-1X is $25 a month for 512 MB; the same memory metered on Dockup is closer to $5.
You need a machine — Linux with root or Windows over RDP — rather than a dyno.

Questions this page gets asked

Does Heroku still have a free tier?

No. Free dynos were removed in November 2022. The cheapest plan is the Eco dyno at $5 a month, which sleeps after thirty minutes of inactivity. Dockup's free plan does not sleep and grants $10 of infrastructure credit at signup.

Is Heroku cheaper than Dockup?

At the very small end, yes: a $7 Basic dyno with a $5 Essential Postgres is $12 a month, and metering the same shape on Dockup comes to roughly $20. From Standard-1X upward the fixed dyno prices stop being competitive — $25 a month for 512 MB against roughly $5 of metered memory.

What is the hardest part of moving off Heroku?

Usually the add-ons rather than the application. The code deploys from the same repository and the database exports with pg_dump, but anything provisioned through the marketplace has to be replaced with a direct equivalent.

Compare something else

Try it against your own workload.

The free plan grants $10 of infrastructure credit at signup, needs no card, and does not sleep.

Start free with $10 credit See the rates