Except it's $14, because I can't remember the last time I built even a trivial app that didn't incorporate background processes somehow (the extra $7).

Then it's an extra $20/mo if you want SSL. Which you will most likely want.

That $7/mo just became $34/mo.

Bye, bye Heroku.

For something small (assuming it is), you can get away using Unicorn as your Rails server (assuming Rails), you can spawn a worker inside your dyno using before_fork and #spawn.

For SSL, you can use CloudFlare as your DNS and take advantage of their SSL feature.

While not ideal, does it need to be ideal for a trivial, probably-not-super-high-functioning-hacky-app?

There's always Cloud66 — which I've used to great success. I have two servers (e3/32GB/4x250gb enterprise SSDs in HW RAID on nice pipes for less than $100 a month) that I rent, threw vSphere on it, hired a $50/month competent and trusted off-shore sysadmin team, and loaded up a couple VMs.

It's not completely ideal, and I understand I'm trading stability for a couple bucks, but in scaling my clients have saved a bunch.

Cloud 66 provides a full stack container management as a service in production. It gives you the flexibility by offering Heroku-like functionality on your own server or on any cloud provider (AWS, DigitalOcean, Packet, Azure and etc). Cloud 66 gives you more control, helps to reduce the cost and to save time.

go.c66.me/ktheroku

(Disclaimer: I work at Cloud 66)

Did you ever read what I wrote, or did you just set up a Google Alert for Cloud66 and decide to push your "marketing link" with Cloud66?

Jesus $50 a month? How did you end up finding such a team?

Off-shore, non-dedicated, two pages a month, max 20 billed hours a month. Nothing spectacular. I mostly just need them to lock things down, no insane hadoop setups or anything like that.