Why (and How) to Migrate from Heroku

You’ve got apps to ship, and the last thing you want is to get bogged down managing cloud infrastructure. That’s why Heroku has been a go-to for teams like yours—it’s an easy way to get from code to production. But if you’re here, chances are Heroku’s limitations have started to chafe. Maybe the features you need to scale or stay secure are locked behind an enterprise price tag. Maybe you’ve outgrown what Heroku can do, and you’re ready for something more flexible. That’s where Render comes in. Render combines the ease of Heroku with the power and flexibility of platforms like AWS—without the complexity. Let’s explore why so many teams are making the switch.

Why migrate from Heroku?

Heroku makes it easy to get started, but as your app scales, it introduces a few key roadblocks:

• Feature limitations: Heroku imposes some constraints that can hold you back. For instance, HTTP requests on a Heroku Web dyno can’t stay open for more than 30 seconds—problematic when working with modern LLM APIs or legacy systems. Worse, data doesn’t persist across deploys, forcing you to rely on costly third-party solutions for stateful applications.
• Performance and reliability: Heroku enforces daily restarts, making true 24/7 uptime impossible. And without built-in private networking, securing your internal services requires a hefty upgrade to Private Spaces.
• Cost: Heroku’s pricing scales quickly. Autoscaling—a key feature for optimizing spend—is only available at the Enterprise tier, leaving smaller teams to manage scaling manually.

Why not move to an IaaS?

Why not just move from Heroku to AWS, GCP, or Azure? That might sound like the logical next step—but it's not always the right one. We’ve talked to many developers and teams about this. And they’ve consistently told us that they want both simplicity and control. Managing an IaaS platform means juggling load balancers, SSL certificates, and endless configurations. It’s a level of complexity most teams don't have time for. For most development teams, going from a PaaS to an IaaS feels like rebuilding an engine when they could just buy a new car. What developers really want is a platform that gives them control and flexibility without sacrificing simplicity. That's what Render delivers.

Benefits of migrating from Heroku to Render

At Render, we make deploying apps seamless—whether you’re spinning up your first project or scaling a complex app with many microservices. Render gives you the tools monitor, scale, and secure your app as it grows. Here are just a few ways in which we're different than Heroku:

Advanced features, no enterprise price tag

Render provides powerful features out of the box, many of which Heroku either lacks or gates behind its most expensive tiers:

• Long-lived web requests up to 100 minutes
• Built-in private networking and service discovery to connect services like Redis and Elasticsearch without exposing them to the public internet—a feature Heroku only provides in its high-cost Private Spaces tier.
• Persistent block storage with Render Disks, enabling you to run stateful apps like MySQL or Elasticsearch without third-party add-ons
• Native runtimes with zero scheduled restarts
• Advanced DDoS protection with Cloudflare
• Full support for static sites fronted by a CDN
• Blueprints to support Infrastructure as Code without the complexity of CloudFormation or Terraform

A simpler developer experience

Many people started using Heroku for its purported ease of use. Customers who’ve moved to Render tell us that it’s the easiest PaaS tool they’ve used - even easier than Heroku. Besides full CI/CI support using Git, Render provides additional features to simplify app development, including shared environment groups and native Docker support. Customers consistently tell us Render is the easiest PaaS they’ve used—even simpler than Heroku. With features like native Dockerfile support, support for secrets files and shared environment groups, and fully customizable cron jobs, we take care of the details in your developer workflow so you can focus on building.

Cost savings

Render is designed to grow with you—without breaking the bank. As their apps scale, many teams find that the cost of Heroku scales disproportionately. Render customers report saving 40–60% on average after making the switch. That’s because features like autoscaling are included in our Team plan, and persistent storage reduces reliance on pricey third-party services.

How to migrate from Heroku to Render

Switching platforms can feel daunting, but we’ve worked hard to make migration smooth and stress-free. Teams like ReadMe have successfully migrated entire production environments with minimal downtime—even after years on Heroku. We’ve also built a comprehensive migration guide to walk you through the process, step by step.

Get started

Heroku might get your app up and running, but it struggles to keep up as your needs evolve. Render fills those gaps with advanced features, predictable pricing, and a developer-first experience. Want to see for yourself? Sign up for free and migrate your first app today.