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Heroku vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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

Heroku
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pivotal Cloud Foundry
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Heroku is 3.0%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 5.0%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Heroku3.0%
Pivotal Cloud Foundry5.0%
Other92.0%
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Cristian-Molina - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2263239 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
PCF allows for fine-grained configuration, especially regarding scaling but routing limitations
Something that can be done better is canary deployment. So, right now, we're using blue-green deployment. The support for canary deployment would be nice. A few things, such as what OpenShift does better are cluster management. Like, you can manage the entire thing together. Currently, it's possible to manage all the clusters, especially when it comes to cluster management using straightforward configuration. As of now, we have to handle each application instance individually, which means servicing them one by one. It would be better if we could perform these actions as a group or in a more streamlined manner. One more downside is actually the cost of this environment. So, major downside of Pivotal, it's the cost. So, the runtime running costs are very high. Extremely high.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"They solve most of our problems and we don't experience many issues with them."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the auto maintenance of databases."
"The product is stable."
"We use Heroku to run generic data. We also use it for our customer development environment. It helps us to build and test websites."
"I have been a great fan of Heroku as it simplified my work for many years."
"I like the tool's scalability, CLI, and dashboards."
"I like the operations of the product because it makes it easy to push a change and to deploy new things."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies, and it has very good performance."
"We find its stability and scalability valuable."
"PCF is open, so the applications run really smoothly and with little downtime."
"Stability is not a concern with this product."
"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is auto-healing and the plenty of other features that are provided."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to scale. The services that connect to the database are also very good."
"The solution is stable, and we have not experienced any infrastructure issues, so it is very good and captures a few metrics, onboarding to App Dynamics."
"It provides a set of developer-friendly tools that simplify application deployment."
 

Cons

"I have an issue with the session server in terms of how it can scale, and where I can put my sessions."
"They could flesh out some of their analytics a little more."
"I think this solution would be improved if free demos were available indefinitely."
"We have to do daily restarts of some processes, which is annoying, and the support for custom CI could be better."
"There is an issue because Heroku supports Docker container images, but not if you're using the continuous integration infrastructure."
"The tool's configuration is complex."
"Their support is good, but they can improve their response time."
"But I recently got my account suspended because someone abused one of my apps."
"I'd like to see a larger service offering."
"The initial setup was not easy, it was a bit complex."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve the documentation. They are good, but they could improve more. Additionally, it would be beneficial if there were more use case examples."
"The user interface should be simpler to navigate because it t can take time for users to learn it."
"The Pivotal Cloud Foundry's initial setup has a learning curve for my team, but it was easy to use."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve on the technology, it is a bit complex."
"I would prefer to use Amazon AWS or Google Cloud Platform rather than Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Heroku could be less expensive."
"I rate the tool's pricing a three out of ten."
"Its price is very good."
"The tool is free."
"There is a standard fee for a processing unit, they call them "dynos," and then you pay for add-ons."
"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."
"We do pay for the licensing cost because we have opted for a private cloud setup. So, it is a cloud setup, and we have to make payments based on the cloud size. I do not consider it very costly when comparing it to the market."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."
"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
35%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
4%
Insurance Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise11
 

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 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 ...
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. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...
 

Also Known As

No data available
PCF, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), Pivotal Function Service (PFS)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, UrbanDictionary, Code for America, Mailchimp, Rapportive, GitHub, TED, and Lyft.
Humana, Citibank, Mercedes Benz, Liberty Mutual, The Home Depot, GE, West Corp, Merrill Corporation, CoreLogic, Orange, Dish Network, Comcast, Bloomberg, Internal Revenue Service, Ford Motor Company, Garmin, Volkswagen, Solera, Allstate, US Air Force, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ScotiaBank
Find out what your peers are saying about Heroku vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.