Elimination of free dynos and free Postgres tier in 2022
Heroku removed its free tier entirely in November 2022, forcing every hobby project and small app onto paid dynos, which many small developers and students described as a breaking point.
DevOps, Monitoring & Observability · Risk Score 48 · Caution
Is Heroku Worth It? 3 Documented Issues Reviewed
Salesforce-owned PaaS that killed its free tier and raised prices sharply
TL;DR: Heroku carries a Risk Score of 48/100 (Caution) based on 3 documented complaints — a non-trivial pattern of issues worth reading before you sign up.
Heroku is a platform-as-a-service for deploying and running applications, owned by Salesforce. Heroku eliminated its free dyno and free Postgres tiers in November 2022, and paid dyno/add-on pricing has risen since.
Should You Trust Heroku?
Heroku's ease of use made it the default choice for a generation of developers, but the elimination of its free tier in 2022 and subsequent price increases have driven a steady migration to Render, Railway, and Fly.io. Reliability and roadmap investment are also frequently questioned post-acquisition.
Is Heroku Worth the Cost? Complaint Category Breakdown
Each complaint type is weighted differently in the Risk Score. Billing and marketing deception weigh heaviest.
0
BBB Complaints
0
Lawsuits & Legal Action
0
Misleading Marketing
1
Customer Complaints
1
Churn & Retention
1
Billing Problems
0
Support Failures
Where these complaints come from
Complaints are sourced from public platforms spanning US, UK, and global consumers. Each report links back to its original source.
| Platform | Reports | Who's reporting |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | US & global users | |
| G2 | 1 | Global B2B buyers |
| Trustpilot | 1 | UK & global consumers |
What Buyers Say About Heroku
Documented pricing complaints, billing issues, and support failures — newest first.
Our AI scanner searches Reddit, Trustpilot, BBB, and news sources for fresh complaints from the past year, paraphrases what it finds, and adds anything new to this page. Takes up to 90 seconds.
Mass migration to Render, Railway, and Fly.io
Developer communities describe a large, sustained migration off Heroku toward Render, Railway, and Fly.io following the pricing changes and perceived slowdown in feature investment.
Add-on marketplace pricing described as a markup over direct providers
Reviewers note that Heroku add-ons (databases, monitoring) often cost more than provisioning the same underlying service directly.
Frequently asked questions about Heroku
Is Heroku worth the price?
We've documented 1 billing complaint against Heroku — a signal worth weighing before committing to a paid plan. Its Risk Score of 48/100 puts it in the "Caution" band. See the full complaints breakdown → before deciding.
Is Heroku easy to cancel?
Cancellation difficulty is one of the top SaaS frustration patterns. Check the complaints page → — we tag cancel-related issues under "Billing" and "Contract Trap" categories. If none are documented yet, run a scan to surface what's currently out there.
Does Heroku have hidden fees?
Hidden-fee complaints fall under our "Billing Issue" category. We've documented 1 billing complaint for Heroku so far. See all complaints → for the full picture.
How does Heroku compare to its alternatives?
We track other devops, monitoring & observability tools and rank them by Risk Score. See our alternatives comparison → to find lower-risk options in the same category.
What are the biggest complaints about Heroku?
The highest-severity documented complaints involve billing problems. Read all 3 documented complaints on the complaints page →
Is Heroku a scam?
Probably not in the strict legal sense — most SaaS products with bad reputations are real companies delivering a real (if disappointing) product. But "is it a scam" is the question people ask when they feel they were misled. Read our full scam analysis →
How does Heroku's Risk Score get calculated?
We weight each warning by severity (Low to Critical) and category, then aggregate. Lawsuits and misleading-marketing claims weigh heaviest. The current 48/100 score puts Heroku in the "Caution" band. Full methodology →
Where do these complaints come from?
Each warning is paraphrased from a public source — BBB filings, Trustpilot or G2 reviews, Reddit threads, Capterra ratings, court records, or news articles. The source URL is attached to every warning so you can verify it yourself. More on our methodology →
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