Heroku, without the Heroku bill.
Keep git push deploys, review apps, Postgres and Redis. Run them on a server you rent, for the price of the server. Heroku stopped adding features in February 2026; your app doesn't have to wait on it.
Same app, two bills.
A typical web, worker, Postgres and Redis app costs $26 a month small, $190 medium and $920 large on Heroku's list prices. The same three run on a rented server for $16, $20 and $45, including $9 for custom domains on Ployz Cloud. Move the sliders to match your app. The full breakdown is in Heroku pricing in 2026.
- RAM the stack needs
- 3.0 GB
- Heroku Postgres disk limit
- 10 GB
- Heroku$26/mo
List prices, running all month. Basic allows one dyno per process type, so more than one is priced as Standard-1X.
- Your own server + Ployz$16/mo
Smallest Hetzner CX23/CX33/CX43/CX53 with that RAM (1 GB added for the OS), $0.60 IPv4 each, $9 for Ployz custom domains. Shared vCPUs, not dedicated.
Server prices are Hetzner's in Europe. In the US, a DigitalOcean Droplet or Netcup's Manassas datacenter is the cheap option; see Hetzner vs DigitalOcean.
Everything you use on Heroku has a place to go.
Heroku's ideas map one to one. You keep the workflow; the dynos become services on your own server.
| What you need | Heroku | Ployz on your server |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy on push | GitHub integration or git push heroku | Connect GitHub; every push builds on your server or in your own GitHub Actions |
| Builds | Buildpacks | No Dockerfile needed for Node, Python, Ruby, PHP, Go, Rust, Java and Elixir, or bring your own Dockerfile |
| Review apps | Review apps per pull request (each billed as dynos) | A preview environment for every pull request, with its own HTTPS address, on your servers |
| Web and worker dynos | Procfile process types | One service per process: web, worker, or any Docker image |
| Heroku Postgres and Key-Value Store | Paid add-ons from $5 and $3 | One-click Postgres and Redis on your server (plain services with a volume) |
| Config vars | heroku config:set | Variables and sealed (encrypted) secrets in the dashboard or CLI |
| Scaling | More or bigger dynos | Up to 50 replicas per service, across servers you add with one command |
| Price | Per dyno, per add-on | Your server, plus $9 a month for custom domains. Free on your own servers |
What you give up.
Leaving a managed platform means taking some jobs back. These are the ones that matter, stated plainly:
- Backups. Heroku Postgres backs itself up. Ployz doesn't back up databases yet, so you run a
pg_dumpon a schedule from another machine (how, in the docs). The Postgres hosting guide has the script. - Scheduled jobs. Ployz has no built-in cron. Use your framework's scheduler as a worker, or an external cron.
- Failover. One server is one server. Ployz runs replicas across servers, but a database volume lives on one machine.
- OS updates. The server's operating system is yours to keep patched.
- Team roles. Ployz is built for one operator today.
If those are dealbreakers, stay on a managed platform. Railway alternatives, ranked by price compares the hosted options, Heroku included.
Moving is a short checklist.
The short version: put Ployz on a server, recreate your process types as services, copy the database, then switch DNS. The full migration steps cover maintenance mode, the final database copy and env vars.
$ curl -fsSL https://ployz.sh | sh
Installs the ployz CLI on macOS or Linux.
$ ployz login
Signs in to Ployz Cloud in your browser.
$ ployz up --server root@your-server
Installs Ployz on the server, builds this directory and gives it an HTTPS address.
Then add Postgres and Redis from the dashboard, copy your config vars across, and restore your Heroku Postgres dump into the new database before you switch DNS. The quick start shows the same first deploy from the dashboard.
Questions
Is Heroku shutting down?
No shutdown has been announced. In February 2026 Heroku moved to a sustaining engineering model: fixes and security work, no new features, and no new Enterprise contracts. Prices for card customers are unchanged.
Is there a self-hosted Heroku?
Yes, several. Ployz, Dokku, Coolify and Dokploy all give you Heroku-style deploys on your own server. Ployz adds a preview environment per pull request, a private network across servers, and https served from every server, so there's no load balancer to rent.
What does Ployz cost?
Ployz is free on your own servers, with unlimited servers, projects and preview environments. Custom domains on Ployz Cloud are $9 a month. You pay your server provider for the servers.
What do I need?
A Linux server with systemd, amd64 or arm64, with a public IP address and root or sudo access (Ubuntu LTS is best: there, volumes get size limits). Builds run on it too, so give it 2 GB of memory or more. And a GitHub repository. Ployz doesn't rent or create servers for you.
What happens if Ployz Cloud goes down?
Your servers keep serving your apps. You can't deploy until Ployz Cloud is back. The CLI and the software on your servers are open source (Apache-2.0).
Can I use GitLab?
Not yet. Ployz deploys from GitHub, or from any Docker image.
Your servers. The whole platform. Free on your own servers.
Deploy your appFacts checked 2026-10-02.