The Heroku workflow,
on infrastructure you own.
Heroku entered sustaining mode in February 2026. vxcloud is the Heroku alternative that brings back `git push to deploy` — on AWS, GCP, Azure, Alibaba, or Linode. Free SSL, blue-green deploys, zero vendor lock-in.
Heroku in 2026: what changed
Three signals tell you a platform's next two years. Heroku is showing all three at once.
- Sustaining mode announcement (Feb 2026). Salesforce committed to keeping Heroku operational for paid customers but ended new feature investment, region expansion, and most third-party add-on partnership renewals.
- Pricing increases throughout 2025. Eco and Basic dyno tiers saw multiple price adjustments; Heroku Postgres tiers were re-bucketed with higher minimums.
- Add-on attrition. Several major add-on partners (long-time observability, queue, and analytics vendors) ended Heroku-specific SKUs in 2024-2025, citing low platform momentum.
None of this means Heroku stops working tomorrow. It does mean the strategic answer for new applications, and for paid applications looking at the next 3-year horizon, is to migrate while the tooling is mature and the migration paths are well-documented.
Why vxcloud is the closest workflow replica
The original Heroku promise: push code, get HTTPS, never touch a server. vxcloud rebuilds that on top of any VM you own.
One command deploys
`vxcli deploy fastapi --source-dir ./ --app-name api ...` — the same shape Heroku's `git push` had. Container deploys are equally simple.
Free SSL on every deploy
Add `--enable-ssl --domain X --ssl-email Y` to any deploy. Let's Encrypt cert issued automatically via HTTP-01. Auto-renews on cron.
Five clouds, not one
Heroku locked you into AWS (re-sold). vxcloud deploys to your own AWS, GCP, Azure, Alibaba, or Linode VMs — switch any time without rewriting deploy scripts.
Pay raw cloud prices
vxcloud charges for the convenience layer. Your VM bill goes straight to your cloud provider — at list price, with reserved-instance / savings-plan discounts you control.
Vault-managed credentials
Cloud keys, SSH PEMs, Postgres passwords, API tokens — encrypted per-workspace in HashiCorp Vault. Agents and CI never see plaintext.
AI agents included
Heroku had buildpacks. vxcloud has buildpacks plus four built-in AI agents (coding, devops, git, review) that can run deploys, draft PRs, and audit changes.
Side-by-side: Heroku, Render, Railway, vxcloud
Render and Railway are the most-cited Heroku replacements. They are excellent inside their walled gardens. vxcloud's edge is that there is no walled garden.
| Feature | vxcloud | Heroku | Render | Railway |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deploy target | Your own VM (5 clouds + BYO) | Heroku's dynos | Render's compute | Railway's compute |
| Roadmap status | Active | Sustaining mode (Feb 2026) | Active | Active |
| Multi-cloud | AWS / GCP / Azure / Alibaba / Linode | AWS-only (re-sold) | AWS-only | GCP-only |
| SSH into the host | Yes — always | No (one-off via heroku run) | No | No |
| Source-code stacks | 14 (FastAPI, Next, Django, Rails, Go, Rust, …) | Buildpacks (many) | Most languages | Most languages |
| Free SSL | Yes — built-in | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Managed Postgres | RDS / Aurora / Cloud SQL via SDK + MetalDB self-managed | Heroku Postgres | Render Postgres | Railway Postgres |
| AI agent layer | Yes — built-in | No | No | No |
| Cost at scale (~$1k/mo workload) | ~$300-500 (raw cloud + vxcloud convenience tier) | ~$1,000-2,000 (dyno markup) | ~$700-1,200 | ~$700-1,200 |
| Lock-in | None — deploy script works on any VM | High (Heroku-only buildpacks + add-ons) | Medium (Render-only services) | Medium |
What the new deploy looks like
If you're coming from `git push heroku main`, this should feel immediately familiar.
# 1) Provision a small VM (optional — bring your own if you have one)
vxcli vm create \
--name api-vm --cloud aws --region us-east-1 \
--instance-type t3.small --key-pair-name AWSPRODKEY2
# 2) Deploy FastAPI from the local source. SSL issued in the same call.
vxcli deploy fastapi \
--source-dir ./ \
--app-name studio-backend \
--entry app.app:app --requirements requirements.txt \
--app-port 8000 --http-port 80 \
--enable-ssl --domain api.example.com --ssl-email [email protected] \
--host <vm-ip> --ssh-user ubuntu --key-pair-name AWSPRODKEY2
# 3) Manage it like a Heroku app
vxcli services logs studio-backend --tail 200 --host <vm-ip> ...
vxcli services restart studio-backend --host <vm-ip> ...
# 4) Add a managed Postgres (the Heroku Postgres equivalent)
vxcli cloud database create-rds my-db \
--cloud aws --region us-east-1 --engine postgres --version 16 \
--instance-type db.t3.micro --storage-size 20Pick vxcloud over Render/Railway when you need
- Multi-cloud — run primary in AWS, DR in GCP, edge in Linode, all from one control plane.
- BYO VM — deploy to bare-metal at Hetzner or your home lab using the same CLI.
- Lower bills at scale — once you cross ~$500/mo, the per-vCPU economics tip clearly toward owning the VM.
- SSH access — for runtime debugging, custom installs, or compliance audits.
- Stateful workloads — long-running queues, batch ML jobs, self-managed Postgres without per-row pricing.
- AI agents that can actually deploy — not just chat about it.
- Terraform-native IaC alongside the imperative CLI — best of both worlds.
Heroku alternative FAQ
Migrate off Heroku before sustaining mode shapes your roadmap
The migration guide takes ~30 minutes for a typical app. Free tier covers the first VM, the first managed Postgres, and the first 50 deploys per month.