Best PaaS / App Hosting · head-to-head
Heroku vs DigitalOcean App Platform
A sourced, side-by-side comparison for paas / app hosting. DigitalOcean App Platform has the lower entry price. Every figure links to the vendor's own page and the date we captured it.
At a glance
- Price: Heroku $5/mo vs DigitalOcean App Platform $0/mo — DigitalOcean App Platform is cheaper to start.
- Free tier: Heroku No; DigitalOcean App Platform Yes.
- HIPAA: Heroku Yes; DigitalOcean App Platform —.
Side by side
| Heroku | DigitalOcean App Platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $5/mo (Eco) | $0/mo (Static Sites (Free)) |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| HIPAA (BAA) | Yes | — |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes |
| GDPR | Yes | Yes |
| Best for | Healthcare and regulated-industry apps needing BAA | Static site and frontend deployments on a free tier |
Sources — Heroku: heroku.com (verified 2026-06-14). DigitalOcean App Platform: digitalocean.com (verified 2026-06-14).
Key features
Heroku: Shield tier with HIPAA/PCI BAA for healthcare apps; Fir (Kubernetes) platform alongside legacy Cedar dynos; Private Spaces with network isolation; SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001/27017/27018, PCI DSS Level 1
DigitalOcean App Platform: SOC 2 + SOC 3 certified; HIPAA workload eligibility (platform-level, BAA process not confirmed for App Platform specifically); GDPR DPA available at /legal/data-processing-agreement with SCCs; Request-based autoscaling (GA as of May 2026); Free static site hosting on global CDN with automatic HTTPS and DDoS mitigation