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Heroku vs Red Hat OpenShift comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Heroku
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat OpenShift
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (9th), Container Management (12th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (7th), Agile and DevOps Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Heroku is 2.9%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift is 12.1%, up from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Faizan Haider - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for server deployment and provides auto maintenance of databases
Heroku is deployed on the cloud. We can deploy our private and public projects over at Heroku. Most of the time, when we are starting any new project from scratch, we have to implement our MVP for that project or the core idea. We are unsure how our traffic flow will go or the actual production environment requirements. We don't want to spend the most on the server sites, so then we can use it with our go-to plan for Heroku, and all the resources are available in the basic plan with the minimum expenses. So, it helps us to deploy and make our features available online at the minimum cost. Once we know our needs, we can add the professional add-ons and shift it to another platform. Heroku supports any resource listed in the marketplace. We just have to deploy our AI solutions, and Heroku can also support AI projects. I would recommend the solution to other users. I advise users not to purchase extra add-ons but to make scalable resources so that they can use all the resources efficiently. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Mikhael Ibrahim - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamlessly monitor microservices with streamlined DevOps capabilities
Most benefit from it, however, I work with Kubernetes, and installing Vanilla Kubernetes is easy. That said, it introduces many tools that need to be set up individually. OpenShift comes ready out of the box, with all tools installed and configured. Red Hat certifies and confirms that all the components are compatible with each other. OpenShift's superior dashboard is a notable strength, especially when compared to Kubernetes. The integrated DevOps capabilities, such as pipelines and the container registry, are extremely beneficial. Additionally, its capability to monitor microservices and containers with integrated tools like Prometheus is a major advantage. The horizontal pod scaling exceeds the scalability features I found in Kubernetes.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution's most valuable feature is the auto maintenance of databases."
"We use Heroku to run generic data. We also use it for our customer development environment. It helps us to build and test websites."
"The platform is very Node.js-friendly, which is something that is important to us."
"Thanks to Heroku, we don't need to do as much direct management in AWS."
"It is easy to deploy applications, and we don't need to bother about software updates on the server. We don't need to bother about machines, servers, and hardware. We only need to care about the system and functionality that we need or want to develop. They take care of everything else. It provides high availability. It is a pretty good solution that provides everything that we need. It has everything that we need to run our applications. We have many different applications, and we generate three million bills for a company in Brazil. We see more than a billion requests per day in another application. Everything works just fine, and it is very good."
"What I found most valuable about this solution is that it's easy to use and integrate with GitHub actions."
"It's easy to push a change and to deploy new things."
"I like the tool's scalability, CLI, and dashboards."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is the great customer service and the ability for our team to get assistance when we need it."
"We have found the cluster management function to be very good with this product."
"We are able to operate client’s platform without downtime during security patch management each month and provide a good SLA (as scalability for applications is processed during heavy client website load, automatically)."
"There is a quick deployment of the application, and we can scale out efficiently."
"Overall, the solution's security throughout the stack and software supply chain is excellent."
"Security is also an important part of this solution. By default, things are running with limited privileges and securely confined to their own resources. This way, different users and projects can all use the same infrastructure."
"OpenShift offers more stability than Kubernetes."
"Its security is most valuable. It's by default secure, which is very important."
 

Cons

"Heroku had an authentication problem a few months ago, but they solved it."
"Their support is good, but they can improve their response time."
"Heroku should increase its slug size limits."
"I think this solution would be improved if free demos were available indefinitely."
"The tool's configuration is complex."
"We would like to be notified when something goes wrong in the process. When something is not working, we should get an alert."
"We have to do daily restarts of some processes, which is annoying, and the support for custom CI could be better."
"The pricing could be improved because scaling the database becomes costly."
"It would be great if it supported Bitbucket repositories too."
"Documentation and technical support could be improved. The product is good, but when we raise a case with support—say we are having an image issue—the support is not really up to the mark. It is difficult to get support... When we raise a case, their support people will hesitate to get on a call or a screen-sharing session. That is a major drawback when it comes to OpenShift."
"There are challenges related to additional security layers, connectivity compliance for endpoints, and integration."
"Its virtual upgrades are time-consuming."
"Room for improvement is around the offerings that come as a bundle with the container platform. The packaging of the platform should be done such that customers do not have to purchase additional licenses."
"The metrics in OpenShift can use improvement."
"One glaring flaw is how OpenShift handles operators. Sometimes operators are forced to go into a particular namespace. When you do that, OpenShift creates an installation plan for everything in that namespace. These operators may be completely separate from each other and have nothing to do with each other, but now they are tied at the hip. You can't upgrade one without upgrading all of them. That's a huge mistake and highly problematic."
"The area for improvement is mostly in support for legacy applications."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Heroku could be less expensive."
"I rate the tool's pricing a three out of ten."
"The tool is free."
"There is a standard fee for a processing unit, they call them "dynos," and then you pay for add-ons."
"Its price is very good."
"It's expensive. It may be cheaper to invest in building Vanilla Kubernetes, especially if security is not the number one motivation or requirement. Of course, that's difficult, and in some business areas, such as banking, that's not something you can put as a second priority. In other situations, a Vanilla Kubernetes with a sufficiently strong team can be cheaper and almost as effective."
"The price depends on the type and the nature of the organizations, along with the types of projects that are of considerable range."
"OpenShift is really good when we need to start, but once we get to a certain scale, it becomes too expensive."
"We are currently using the open version, OKD. We plan to get the enterprise version in the future."
"Pricing of OpenShift depends on the number of nodes and who is hosting it."
"The pricing is standard; the solution isn't particularly expensive or affordable."
"I don't deal with the cost part, but I know that the cost is very high when compared to other products. They charge for CPU and memory, but we don't worry about it."
"The licensing cost for OpenShift is expensive when compared to other products. RedHat also charges you additional costs apart from the standard licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
9%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Heroku?
I like the tool's scalability, CLI, and dashboards.
What needs improvement with Heroku?
I don't like that the web server crashes every day, every 24 hours. The pricing could be improved because scaling the database becomes costly. The Docker features are not great. You cannot use any ...
What is your primary use case for Heroku?
We use the solution for web applications and web APIs.
How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?
Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderful dashboard mechanism to alert us in case the application is over-committing or ...
Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?
Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...
What do you like most about OpenShift?
OpenShift facilitates DevOps practices and improves CI/CD workflows in terms of stability compared to Jenkins.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about Heroku vs. Red Hat OpenShift and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
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