The $7 is comparable to one app per DO or AWS micro/nano server. So Heroku wins on convenience.
If you have say 10 apps then Heroku costs 10*$7, but you might still only have used 1-3 servers depending on memory use of apps etc so then Heroku looses on cost.
Naturally I got a total mix of quite a few on Heroku's classic or new free plan, some on their hobby plan, some on AWS, some on docker cloud, most proxied behind a SSL certificate running on AWS..... (https://flurdy.com/docs/letsencrypt/nginx.html)
Re:Heroku Kafka
by franciscop on Thursday April 28, 2016 @09:46AM
(#11588757)
Yeah, but I started with PHP I could just choose among many hosting companies for 5-10$/month and you get your shared space with unlimited domains, which was perfectly suited for my needs at that point. Of course as I learned more, Node and the such I needed better technology and that's why I moved to Heroku. So I'd love to see a "shared hosting for heroku" or similar. I think it will happen given some time, when the Node.js environment stabilizes more and more big players come.
DO has 5$ + VAT price for 512MB instance. I have no problem accommodating mysql + web on that.
SSL is a pain point, though I do empathize with them - I think they're doing something expensive for that. What I do is to use AWS Cloudfront and ACM for a free cert and site speedup - if they are personal projects the CF bill ought to be in the low few dollars anyway.