Heroku
PagerDuty
| Feature | Heroku | PagerDuty |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | From $5/mo | Free / from $21/mo |
| Free Plan | ✗ No | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4 / 5 | 4.4 / 5 |
| Best For | startups, prototyping, small-teams, ruby-python-node-developers | devops-engineers, sre-teams, on-call-teams, enterprise |
| Founded | 2007 | 2009 |
| Git Deploy | ✓ | ✗ |
| Managed Postgres | ✓ | ✗ |
| Managed Redis | ✓ | ✗ |
| Add Ons | ✓ | ✗ |
| Review Apps | ✓ | ✗ |
| Pipelines | ✓ | ✗ |
| Auto Scaling | ✓ | ✗ |
| Incident Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| On Call Scheduling | ✗ | ✓ |
| Escalation Policies | ✗ | ✓ |
| Event Intelligence | ✗ | ✓ |
| Automation | ✗ | ✓ |
| Status Pages | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Heroku Pros
- Simplest deployment experience (git push to deploy)
- Extensive add-on marketplace for databases and services
- Great for prototyping and MVPs
- Managed Postgres and Redis included
✗ Heroku Cons
- Removed free tier in 2022
- Expensive for production workloads at scale
- Limited infrastructure customization
✓ PagerDuty Pros
- Reliable alerting
- Great escalation policies
- Many integrations
- AIOps capabilities
✗ PagerDuty Cons
- Expensive at scale
- Complex rule setup
- Can be noisy
The Verdict
Heroku is built for startups and prototyping, with a focus on git-deploy and managed-postgres. PagerDuty targets devops engineers and sre teams and leads with incident-management and on-call-scheduling.
On pricing, Heroku is the clear winner for budget-conscious users — starting at $5/mo compared to $21/mo for PagerDuty. That $16/mo difference adds up quickly for growing teams.
PagerDuty has a free plan, which gives it a meaningful edge for individuals and small teams exploring their options. Heroku requires a paid subscription from day one.
PagerDuty edges out on user ratings (4.4 vs 4). While both are well-regarded, that gap reflects real differences in user satisfaction worth considering.
Feature-wise, Heroku offers broader built-in capabilities (7 features vs 6), while PagerDuty takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
Bottom line: PagerDuty has a slight overall edge — but if simplest deployment experience (git push to deploy) matters most to you, Heroku may still be the right call.