No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Heroku vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Red Hat OpenShift comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 3.5%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 6.2%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift is 8.2%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat OpenShift8.2%
Heroku3.5%
Pivotal Cloud Foundry6.2%
Other82.1%
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Faizan Haider - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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.
Pratul Shukla - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the operations of the product because it makes it easy to push a change and to deploy new things."
"The product is stable."
"The most valuable feature of Heroku is the continuous integration and applications it provides."
"I have been a great fan of Heroku as it simplified my work for many years."
"We use Heroku to run generic data. We also use it for our customer development environment. It helps us to build and test websites."
"They solve most of our problems and we don't experience many issues with them."
"Easy, fast, fun, and extendable."
"Deploying with git, npm install git hook ... basically, they got it right for nodejs servers hosting."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to scale."
"I find the ease of deployment and management of microservices to be the most valuable features. The platform also has good auto-scaling capabilities."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies. It has a very good performance."
"Stability is not a concern with this product."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to scale. The services that connect to the database are also very good."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very robust, especially for building Java."
"PCF is open, so the applications run really smoothly and with little downtime."
"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is the UI, it is easy to use."
"The product's initial setup is very easy, especially compared to AWS."
"The solution offers ease with which we can define how to run applications and configure them. It's much more convenient than creating a virtual machine and configuring application servers, making the process faster and simpler."
"The security is good."
"Valuable features include auto-recreate of pod if pod fails; fast rollback, with one click, to previous version."
"The stability has been good."
"The product seems to be mature enough to use for production application deployments without stability issues."
"OpenShift is running on the AWS platform, which means that deployment is highly scalable and highly retainable."
"Has a better UI and is good as a CICD solution."
 

Cons

"Plugins aren't cheap (Mailchimp is $1.5/1000 emails)."
"Heroku doesn't support Docker images on the CI infrastructure."
"There is an issue because Heroku supports Docker container images, but not if you're using the continuous integration infrastructure."
"I have an issue with the session server in terms of how it can scale, and where I can put my sessions."
"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."
"Heroku is pretty stable. We experience the occasional outages."
"There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"The user interface should be simpler to navigate because it t can take time for users to learn it."
"In the next release, I would like to see easy integration with external tools."
"It should offer more security features."
"I'd like to see a larger service offering."
"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."
"Regarding the setup phase, every step is a hurdle. With Pivotal Cloud Foundry, I won't get any proper resources for that. Even if I Google it, there is no proper solution for Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"There are no synthetic application monitoring and real-time monitoring features."
"The tool lacks some features to make it compliant with Kubernetes"
"Autoscaling issues. It does not increase in a seamless manner. Sometimes, CPU utilization/Memory utilization exceeds and the application just hangs or gets into HeapSpace or OutOfMemory error."
"It could use auto-scaling based on criteria such as transaction volume, queue backlog, etc. Currently, it is limited to CPU and memory."
"The GUI could have more capabilities, particularly around virtualization."
"Needs work on volume handling (although this is already better with GlusterFS). Security (SSSD) would also be an improvement."
"This solution could be improved by offering best practices on standardization and additional guidance on how to use this solution."
"I want easier node management and more user-friendly scripts for installing master and worker nodes."
"There is no orchestration platform in OpenShift, but we do in Kubernetes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is very good."
"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 price of Heroku could be less expensive."
"The tool is free."
"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 price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."
"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."
"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."
"The product has reasonable pricing."
"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."
"OpenShift is really good when we need to start, but once we get to a certain scale, it becomes too expensive."
"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 licensing cost for OpenShift is expensive when compared to other products. RedHat also charges you additional costs apart from the standard licensing fees."
"The model of pricing and buying licences is quite rigid. We are in the process of negotiating on demand pricing which will help us take advantage of the cloud as a whole."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"Pricing of OpenShift depends on the number of nodes and who is hosting it."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which PaaS Clouds solutions are best for your needs.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
36%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Insurance Company
5%
Healthcare Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise43
 

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...
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 ...
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....
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...
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 ...
What is your primary use case for OpenShift?
My main use case for Red Hat OpenShift is that we had several security tools that we deployed to Red Hat OpenShift pl...
 

Also Known As

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

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
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.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.