Google Cloud vs Heroku comparison

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Google Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Heroku and Google Cloud are competing products in the platform-as-a-service and cloud computing markets. Google Cloud has the advantage in scalability and features, aligning it with enterprises needing advanced solutions, whereas Heroku is favored by startups for its simplicity and affordability.

Features: Heroku's features include seamless integration with multiple programming languages, an app-centric approach, and continuous integration capabilities. In contrast, Google Cloud provides robust infrastructure capabilities, advanced machine learning tools, and a comprehensive global network.

Room for Improvement: Heroku could enhance its scalability and offer more detailed customization options to attract more extensive user bases. Additionally, expanding its enterprise-level features would better cater to larger organizations. Google Cloud could improve its user complexity by simplifying deployment processes. Lowering pricing complexity and offering more beginner-friendly resources would be beneficial. Further enhancements in customer support could also help.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Heroku simplifies deployment with its automated model and responsive customer support ideal for rapid launches. Google Cloud offers a complex deployment model with multiple custom options, supported by detailed documentation and extensive advanced support plans.

Pricing and ROI: Heroku offers competitive and predictable pricing, advantageous for budget-conscious teams which results in satisfactory ROI for smaller projects. Google Cloud features a complex pricing structure with scalable options that deliver high ROI for larger organizations, thanks to its comprehensive service offerings. The key difference lies in Heroku's predictable, lower-cost model versus Google Cloud's flexible pricing tailored for extensive use.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Cloud vs. Heroku Report (Updated: June 2026).

Google Cloud vs. Heroku

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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

Google Cloud

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (3rd)

Heroku

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Google Cloud is 5.4%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Heroku is 3.0%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Google Cloud	5.4%
Heroku	3.0%
Other	91.6%

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

AnjaneyaVara Prasad

Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Cloud services have reduced on‑prem hardware costs and now support flexible microservices workloads

Regarding potential areas of improvement for Google Cloud, considering that they are providing 300 plus services, some services could be improved. For example, if I am facing some network troubleshooting issue in GKE in Google Cloud, I have to dig deeply and enable some special logs, such as flow logs. To enable that, it is chargeable. At least for basic services, they should give end-to-end support. In terms of end-to-end support, if I am purchasing one firewall from Google and using that firewall, all firewall-related services should be free. If I want to troubleshoot something deep and perform deep troubleshooting, you have to enable some additional logs. That is not that good. If I have to enable additional logs and want to store them into Google Cloud storage, which is similar to an S3 bucket, it is again chargeable. Those kinds of things should be given as part of the package. If you take firewall, all firewall-related logs, activities, and diagnostics everything should come as one package. If you want to do some deep analysis, you have to enable these logs, and for that you have to store them in the cloud storage, which is again chargeable. We should not have those kinds of things.Regarding additional costs, it can vary case by case. If I want to do deep analysis, I have to enable some logs, and for those logs, Google is charging. I am already paying for my virtual firewall from Google, and I am paying the cost for that. If I want to do some further troubleshooting and enable some low-level logs, they are charging for that. So these are the kinds of things I am talking about. To do very deep-level troubleshooting and enable additional logs, they will be charging. Not only Google, but all clouds are charging for this. Functionality-wise, Google Cloud is fine. In terms of virtual machine deployment or VM instance, the functionality is good.

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Cristian-Molina

Senior Developer at Go Coeupas

Has a quick development cycle and continuous integration

The initial setup is straightforward. Heroku integrates well. You only have to push the code, and it automatically deploys the new version. Whether you have permission depends on the application. Currently, I have one application that I deploy myself. I rate the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The overall function of Google Cloud for storage is exactly what I am looking for."

"The scalability is awesome, we don't have to do the heavy lifting of maintaining the infrastructure or anything, as everything is bundled up by Google."

"We have a development center in Manila with very experienced guys and they love Google Cloud."

"The solution can scale."

"Google Meet is simple to use regarding configuration and recording sessions."

"GCP has its own tools, and one of the services it provides alongside its hosting services or cloud services is monitoring or performance analysis for the environments they are hosting."

"The solution works well for BigQuery and big data analysis support such as column alerts and tabular databases."

"I have found this solution to be a quick and advanced way to run my models through."

More Google Cloud pros

"The solution's most valuable feature is the auto maintenance of databases."

"One of the best things about Heroku is that it is very easy and straightforward to deploy an application."

"What I found most valuable about this solution is that it's easy to use and integrate with GitHub actions."

"Easy, fast, fun, and extendable."

"The platform is very Node.js-friendly, which is something that is important to us."

"The product is stable."

"I like the tool's scalability, CLI, and dashboards."

"Deploying with git, npm install git hook ... basically, they got it right for nodejs servers hosting."

More Heroku pros

Cons

"The security features must be improved."

"The price could improve. Every customer would agree, that they would like the price to be reduced."

"The initial setup is somewhat more complicated than competing products."

"Google Cloud should improve its security. The main challenge we've encountered is related to security. As a member of the security team, I've noticed some limitations in the security features. For example, the rules and signatures need to be more refined to detect and process attacks accurately."

"To do very deep-level troubleshooting and enable additional logs, they will be charging."

"It is complex to set up."

"The documentation could be better."

"Sometimes the Google documents are difficult to learn from. Amazon has better support material."

More Google Cloud cons

"We don't find the pipelines intuitive. The user experience could be better. Having to set up multiple apps, then a pipeline, seems like an overkill on the amount of work to do."

"I think this solution would be improved if free demos were available indefinitely."

"We would like to be notified when something goes wrong in the process. When something is not working, we should get an alert."

"The tool's configuration is complex."

"Heroku doesn't support Docker images on the CI infrastructure."

"Heroku is pretty stable. We experience the occasional outages."

"Their support is good, but they can improve their response time."

"I have an issue with the session server in terms of how it can scale, and where I can put my sessions."

More Heroku cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing for Google Cloud seems to be quite cheap and they're actually quite reasonable in comparison to Azure, which, as it turns out, is quite expensive. Even though Azure has a data center in South Africa it's still quite costly. There's no scaling, so if you go with the VM, you pay 2500 Rand. When you add another VM, it's another 2500 Rand even though you don't use the whole thing. With Google, you can go up as incrementally as you need to, even if it's just 30 Rand."

"The price of Google Cloud is affordable compared to others services. I pay monthly for the service."

"I am not familiar with the pricing, but I would guess that it is probably cheaper than Microsoft Suite"

"The solution is cheaper than AWS."

"The service is cheap and I give it a seven out of ten for the cost."

"For the license, we didn't have to pay for any additional fees."

"We approached Google Cloud with certain cost assumptions but were surprised to find that our actual expenses were higher than expected. Initially, we had anticipated spending a set amount on the solution, but in reality, we ended up spending more than that. It would be helpful to have greater transparency and educational documentation on the cost-related aspects of Google Cloud."

"They provide user-based licensing plans. Its plan could be less expensive."

More Google Cloud pricing and cost advice

"The price of Heroku could be less expensive."

"The tool is free."

"There is a standard fee for a processing unit, they call them "dynos," and then you pay for add-ons."

"I rate the tool's pricing a three out of ten."

"Its price is very good."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Comms Service Provider

10%

University

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	42
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	38

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Google Cloud?

What is your primary use case for Google Cloud?

The main requirement from my clients to Google Cloud is to reduce the on-prem footprint or to minimize the maintenance cost of the on-prem data center. Those who are looking for a scalable solution...

What advice do you have for others considering Google Cloud?

The AutoML feature of Google Cloud is really good. Google is providing good AI features. We have been leveraging ServiceNow integration through API. Whatever knowledge base articles are stored in S...

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.

What advice do you have for others considering Heroku?

The integration capabilities are great because of the quick integration and the management features. We don't need a lot of expertise and all external DevOps people. Heroku is the easiest platform ...

Alibaba Cloud vs Google Cloud

Comparisons

Compared 20% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Google Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Google Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Google Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Google Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

More Google Cloud Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs Heroku

Compared 12% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Heroku

Compared 11% of the time

Google App Engine vs Heroku

Compared 8% of the time

Render vs Heroku

Compared 8% of the time

Konfigure vs Heroku

Compared 4% of the time

More Heroku Competitors

Product Reports

Google Cloud

Download Google Cloud product report

Download Heroku product report

Also Known As

GCP

No data available

Overview

Google Cloud offers a comprehensive platform renowned for cost-effectiveness, scalability, robust security, and seamless integration with tools such as Kubernetes, making it suitable for various business functions.

Google Cloud stands out for its ease of setup, stable infrastructure, and user-friendly interface. It provides essential features for AI, data analytics, and reliable storage, supporting multi-regional deployments for diverse applications. While maintaining minimal operational costs, it ensures simplified deployment and comprehensive application capabilities. However, improvements are needed in monitoring tools, customer support, documentation, and pricing options. Enhancements in stability, integration, and workload management are also required.

What are the essential features of Google Cloud?

Cost-effectiveness: Enables budget-friendly operations and reduced operational costs.
Easy Setup: Offers a straightforward and quick setup process.
Scalability: Supports growing business needs with vast resources and infrastructure.
Robust Security: Provides strong protection and compliance measures.
Seamless Integration: Effective integration with tools like Kubernetes and other applications.

What benefits and ROI can be observed?

Reduction in Operational Costs: Minimizes infrastructure and maintenance expenses.
Global Reach: Allows businesses to expand operations across multiple regions.
Flexibility: Adapts to different business models and rapid scaling needs.
Cross-Platform Compatibility: Facilitates integration with existing tools and platforms.

Industries leverage Google Cloud for infrastructure management, analytics, application hosting, and development environments. Entities utilize its cloud network, machine learning support, disaster recovery solutions, and big data handling. Many rely on Workspace tools for communication and virtual machine applications for efficient IT infrastructure deployment.

Google

Heroku offers fast deployment with ease of use and seamless integration capabilities, making it a preferred platform for developers needing reliable continuous integration and scalability.

Heroku is known for handling server-related tasks, allowing developers to concentrate on building application functionality. Its automatic database maintenance and powerful performance are key for projects using Node.js and Ruby on Rails. Users appreciate its simple application deployment and maintenance, supported by a diverse range of plugins. Beyond efficiency, its CLI and dashboards enable a straightforward user experience, essential for developers focused on production, staging, and development environments.

What are Heroku's key features?

Fast Deployment: Offers rapid application deployment with minimal setup.
Continuous Integration: Supports streamlined integration processes for development cycles.
Scalability: Easily scales applications to meet growing demand.
High Availability: Ensures applications remain online and responsive.
Automatic Database Maintenance: Provides hands-off management of database tasks.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Ease of Use: Simplifies complex tasks, allowing developers to focus on coding.
Integration Capabilities: Connects seamlessly with tools like GitHub for updates.
Performance: Delivers consistent, reliable application performance.
Development Flexibility: Supports Node.js, Ruby on Rails, and Docker environments.

Organizations use Heroku to deploy production servers and stage development environments. Educational apps and offsite backends benefit from its Docker support. E-commerce, mobile app development, and web apps leverage Heroku's ability to maintain rapid development cycles and manage server deployment efficiently.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Facebook, UrbanDictionary, Code for America, Mailchimp, Rapportive, GitHub, TED, and Lyft.

Google Cloud vs. Heroku