Heroku vs IBM Public Cloud vs Red Hat OpenShift comparison

Heroku and IBM are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Heroku is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.0, while IBM is ranked #18 with an average rating of 6.5. Heroku holds a 3.4% mindshare in PSP, compared to IBM’s 3.4% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Heroku users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Heroku

Read 29 Heroku reviews

2,444 Views
2,175 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

IBM Public Cloud

Read 18 IBM Public Cloud reviews

2,751 Views
2,283 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Red Hat OpenShift

Read 64 Red Hat OpenShift reviews

12,760 Views
6,380 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Heroku

IBM Public Cloud

Red Hat OpenShift

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Heroku, IBM Public Cloud, and Red Hat OpenShift based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Red Hat and others in PaaS Clouds.

To learn more, read our detailed PaaS Clouds Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

PaaS Clouds

March 2026

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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:

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Heroku is 3.4%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.4%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift is 7.7%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Red Hat OpenShift	7.7%
Heroku	3.4%
IBM Public Cloud	3.4%
Other	85.5%

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Faizan Haider

Senior Software Engineer at Aldaim Solutions

Used for server deployment and provides auto maintenance of databases

Heroku is deployed on the cloud. We can deploy our private and public projects over at Heroku. Most of the time, when we are starting any new project from scratch, we have to implement our MVP for that project or the core idea. We are unsure how our traffic flow will go or the actual production environment requirements. We don't want to spend the most on the server sites, so then we can use it with our go-to plan for Heroku, and all the resources are available in the basic plan with the minimum expenses. So, it helps us to deploy and make our features available online at the minimum cost. Once we know our needs, we can add the professional add-ons and shift it to another platform. Heroku supports any resource listed in the marketplace. We just have to deploy our AI solutions, and Heroku can also support AI projects. I would recommend the solution to other users. I advise users not to purchase extra add-ons but to make scalable resources so that they can use all the resources efficiently. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Read full review

Premnath Jaganathan

Product Manager at Uop Ipl

Affordability and security improve our cloud experience while learning new systems

I'm not working with any AI features in IBM Public Cloud, but they are in the process of building it.I am very satisfied with the security that IBM Public Cloud provides. I would rate IBM Public Cloud eight out of ten, where one is worst and ten is the best.

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Pratul Shukla

Vice President at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Adopting a flexible and efficient approach with noticeable improvements in operational costs and continued challenges in job management

Currently, one of the biggest challenges we face is with services and jobs. For spawning batches, although it has crons, it is not easy to integrate with enterprise systems such as Autosys. The entire company uses Autosys, but we are not able to integrate it effectively. We need intermediate servers to run OC utility commands and initiate the cron job. We have to do a lot of modifications to ensure our batches work properly. With physical or virtual servers, even in AWS, we are able to write and manage multiple jobs. Managing batches in Red Hat OpenShift has been a significant challenge. Integrating third parties is a challenge with Red Hat OpenShift. For example, with Elasticsearch, onboarding itself was difficult, running file beats and dealing with routing issues. It is not straightforward, especially since we have some components in AWS as. AWS has many capabilities that come out of the box and are easier to work with compared to Red Hat OpenShift. Red Hat OpenShift's biggest disadvantage is they do not provide any private cloud setup where we can host on our site using their services. The main reason we went with Red Hat OpenShift was because it is a private cloud, and we have regulatory requirements that prevent us from using public cloud.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"Valuable for us was the fast deployment. This means the time to market is improved without pain for developers."

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

"It is easy to deploy applications, and we don't need to bother about software updates on the server. We don't need to bother about machines, servers, and hardware. We only need to care about the system and functionality that we need or want to develop. They take care of everything else. It provides high availability. It is a pretty good solution that provides everything that we need. It has everything that we need to run our applications. We have many different applications, and we generate three million bills for a company in Brazil. We see more than a billion requests per day in another application. Everything works just fine, and it is very good."

"It's easy to push a change and to deploy new things."

"The most valuable feature of Heroku is the continuous integration and applications it provides."

"I like the operations of the product because it makes it easy to push a change and to deploy new things."

"My advice for anybody who is considering Heroku is that it's really simple to use, it's stable, and it is very powerful for continuous deployment."

More Heroku pros

"The platform has everything that I need - or 99% of the requirements we need."

"I am very much satisfied with the technical support team at IBM Public Cloud."

"This product is very good because it is accessible in remote locations, and anyone can deploy from any place."

"The price of IBM Cloud is most valuable for us. The service is personable and gives us a good rapport. I can't say it's the best, but it was enough for our needs."

"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."

"On the production side, we are seeing a 200% ROI."

"The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations."

"It's straightforward, has a good environment and is cost-effective."

More IBM Public Cloud pros

"There is a quick deployment of the application, and we can scale out efficiently."

"OpenShift is great for flexibility, agility, and speed of delivery."

"I would recommend Red Hat OpenShift, especially for its automation capabilities."

"We want to build a solution that can be deployable to any cloud because of client requirements and OpenShift allows us to do this."

"Great integration with Jenkins for constant integration and development. Supports all the major languages and environments - PHP, Java, Node.js, Ruby, etc."

"Scaling and uptime of the applications are positives."

"Security is also an important part of this solution. By default, things are running with limited privileges and securely confined to their own resources. This way, different users and projects can all use the same infrastructure."

"Save money and get OpenShift."

More Red Hat OpenShift pros

Cons

"The tool's configuration is complex."

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

"It's pricing is a little high and could be lowered."

"We have to do daily restarts of some processes, which is annoying, and the support for custom CI could be better."

"I improved the application performance by monitoring and adjusting the cleaner configuration to help set better lightweight limits on containers that run the app instances."

"Heroku had an authentication problem a few months ago, but they solved it."

"We have to do daily restarts of some processes, which is annoying, and the support for custom CI could be better."

More Heroku cons

"It could be more secure."

"They could improve on customizing reporting capabilities."

"There is not a lot of support for IBM Cloud. The response from them and the ETA for resolving issues is too slow, and also, the SLA is too expensive."

"The product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."

"It could be more secure."

"Maybe performance enhancers and reports could be better improved. If they do so, it would be better. Of all the drawbacks I saw, this would be the biggest enhancement."

"Normally, for any cloud, we get a lot of information on the web, but that is missing in the case of IBM Public Cloud. We need some technical support documents. That is the only thing missing in IBM Public Cloud."

"An improvement that I would like to see is better configuration capability."

More IBM Public Cloud cons

"This solution could be improved by offering best practices on standardization and additional guidance on how to use this solution."

"Managing batches in Red Hat OpenShift has been a significant challenge."

"Not a ten because it's not a standard solution and the endpoint protection user has to prepare with documentation or have training from other people. It's not easy to start because it's not like other solutions."

"OpenShift requires a very expensive and complex infrastructure. These demands can deter people from learning OpenShift."

"OpenShift's storage management could be better."

"I'd like to see support for more than one server, a mobile user registry."

"For some reason there have been some DNS issues."

"The security model is hard to understand and use."

More Red Hat OpenShift cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The tool is free."

"The price of Heroku could be less expensive."

"Its price is very good."

"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."

"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."

"IBM Public Cloud is pretty cheap. They have an ongoing free tier that basically won't expire, so as long as your solution is small enough, you can have a test set that you can use for demos, which will cost you almost nothing."

"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."

"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."

"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."

"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."

More IBM Public Cloud pricing and cost advice

"It's expensive. It may be cheaper to invest in building Vanilla Kubernetes, especially if security is not the number one motivation or requirement. Of course, that's difficult, and in some business areas, such as banking, that's not something you can put as a second priority. In other situations, a Vanilla Kubernetes with a sufficiently strong team can be cheaper and almost as effective."

"The price depends on the type and the nature of the organizations, along with the types of projects that are of considerable range."

"Pricing of OpenShift depends on the number of nodes and who is hosting it."

"It's important to start small because the solution is scalable. We can build our cluster and look at the bundle option, not the external subscriptions. Talking to the people at Red Hat can save us money."

"I don't deal with the cost part, but I know that the cost is very high when compared to other products. They charge for CPU and memory, but we don't worry about it."

"The product’s pricing is expensive."

"The product has reasonable pricing."

"This solution is fairly expensive but comes at an average cost compared to other solutions in the market."

More Red Hat OpenShift pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

University

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

14%

University

10%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

23%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	43

Questions from the Community

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...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Heroku?

We use the solution for web applications and web APIs.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Which is preferable - IBM Public Cloud or Microsoft Azure?

IBM Public Cloud is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service. It aims to provide organizations with a secure cloud environment to ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Public Cloud?

The prices are relatively lower compared to others. It is a good option for medium-sized businesses. However, busines...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Public Cloud?

The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition.

See all answers

How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?

Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderfu...

See all answers

Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?

Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective....

See all answers

What needs improvement with OpenShift?

Areas where Red Hat OpenShift can be improved include the licensing being a bit complex and maybe expensive, as that ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon AWS vs Heroku

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Heroku

Compared 12% of the time

Render vs Heroku

Compared 11% of the time

Google App Engine vs Heroku

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Heroku

Compared 3% of the time

More Heroku Competitors

Amazon AWS vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 22% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 20% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 10% of the time

Google Cloud vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

Google App Engine vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Public Cloud Competitors

Amazon AWS vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 6% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 5% of the time

Proxmox VE vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 4% of the time

More Red Hat OpenShift Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Heroku

April 2026

Download Heroku product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Public Cloud

April 2026

Download IBM Public Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift

March 2026

Download Red Hat OpenShift product report

Also Known As

No data available

IBM Bluemix

No data available

Overview

Established in 2007, Heroku is a cloud application platform providing a streamlined, efficient place for web app developers to create and deploy their applications. Heroku is designed to maximize developer productivity. With the entire web application development process available on the Herokucloud, creating and rolling out web apps has been made more efficient, convenient, and cost-effective than ever before.

Heroku

IBM Cloud is a full-stack cloud platform that spans public, private and hybrid environments. Build with a robust suite of advanced data and AI tools, and draw on deep industry expertise to help you on your journey to the cloud.

IBM

Red Hat OpenShift is a comprehensive platform offering versatile container orchestration capabilities, suitable for businesses seeking robust, scalable, and secure solutions for application modernization efforts and microservices deployment.

Red Hat OpenShift combines a user-friendly interface with powerful CLI tools, ensuring rapid deployment and process automation. It seamlessly integrates with Docker and Kubernetes, providing cloud-native stacks for flexibility and compliance. Enhancing development efficiency, OpenShift includes built-in CI/CD tools and dynamic scaling features. It supports multi-cloud environments, avoiding vendor lock-in. However, documentation gaps, interface complexity, and infrastructure demands present challenges, alongside improving integration with third-party tools and monitoring capabilities. Licensing complexities and resource consumption remain areas for improvement, with user experience varying due to support response times.

What are Red Hat OpenShift's key features?

User-Friendly GUI: Offers an intuitive interface for managing containers and applications.
CLI Tools: Robust command line tools for efficient development workflows.
Scalability: Supports dynamic scaling to meet changing demands.
Integration: Seamless integration with Docker and Kubernetes.
Security: Features like role-based access control enhance security.
CI/CD Tools: Built-in tools like Jenkins streamline the development lifecycle.
Multi-Cloud Support: Enables use across different cloud providers.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Deployment Speed: Faster application rollouts and updates.
Automation: Reduces manual tasks, increasing operational efficiency.
Security: High-security standards for protecting applications.
Adaptability: Flexible framework suited for diverse environments.
Resource Management: Efficient allocation of resources for cost savings.

In industries embracing cloud-native architectures, Red Hat OpenShift is adept for hosting containerized applications and transitioning legacy systems. It excels in managing DevOps processes, supporting production and development in sectors such as finance, healthcare, and technology, ensuring robust hybrid on-premise and cloud operations.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

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

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County

UPS, Cathay Pacific, Hilton

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Red Hat and others in PaaS Clouds. Updated: March 2026.

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