A Heroku alternative that kept the simple part
Heroku made one idea popular: you should be able to push code and have it running, without touching a server. Most of what replaced it went the other way — powerful infrastructure that hands you the assembly job. Buildfyio is built on the original idea, with the things Heroku-era apps actually needed included rather than sold separately.
If you are here because a free tier went away, or because a dyno-shaped app now needs a plan that is hard to justify, the useful question is what it takes to move. The answer is usually: connect the repo, copy the config vars, point the domain.
What you get
- Git push to deploy. Connect a repository; every push to the production branch ships.
- Automatic framework detection. Next.js, Astro, Vite, Django, Rails, Go, and 25+ more are detected and built without configuration. Bring your own Dockerfile when you want control.
- Monorepos as a first-class case. pnpm, yarn and npm workspaces build from the repository root, so workspace dependencies resolve the way they do locally.
- Several apps from one repository. A web service, a worker, a static site and a cron job can share a repo, each with its own subdomain, custom domains, and environment variables.
- Custom domains with automatic HTTPS. Point DNS at the platform and certificates are issued and renewed for you.
- Background workers and cron. Long-running processes and scheduled jobs run alongside the web service, not on separate infrastructure you assemble yourself.
- Instant rollbacks. Previous releases stay ready; rolling back is one action, not a rebuild.
- Build Doctor. When a build fails you get the cause and a suggested fix, instead of a wall of log output to read yourself.
- Analytics with no snippet. Cookieless pageviews, visitors and Core Web Vitals for every deployed app, switched on by default.
The Heroku concepts, translated
Dynos become apps in a project. A repository can hold several — web, worker, cron — and each scales and deploys on its own.
Config vars become environment variables, encrypted at rest and scoped per app, per branch, or across the project. A paste of your existing .env imports them in one step.
Buildpacks become automatic framework detection. Ruby, Python, Node, Go, PHP and .NET build without configuration; a Dockerfile in the repo is used as-is when you want to be explicit.
Heroku Scheduler becomes cron jobs defined alongside the app. Add-on databases become managed Postgres you provision in the dashboard.
Moving an existing app
Start with a non-production branch if you want to be careful. Connect the repository, import your config vars, and deploy — the build reads your Procfile-style entry points and lockfiles rather than needing a new manifest.
Databases are the part worth planning. Provision Postgres here, restore your dump, and run both in parallel until you are satisfied. Only then move DNS; certificates are issued automatically once the domain verifies.
If a build fails, the Build Doctor names the cause — a missing dependency, a lockfile mismatch, a port the app never bound — instead of leaving you to read the log.
Common questions
- Is there a free tier?
- Yes. The Hobby plan is free and does not require a card, which is usually the first thing people check when leaving a platform that removed one.
- Do background workers cost extra?
- A worker is just another app in your project rather than a separately-priced product. What you pay for is the compute it uses.
- Can I run scheduled jobs?
- Yes — cron jobs are defined with the project and run on the platform, so there is no separate scheduler to configure.
- What about my Postgres database?
- You can provision managed Postgres here and restore an existing dump into it. Keeping the old database running during the switch is the safe way to do it.
Try it on a real project
Connect a repository and deploy it. The Hobby plan is free, and nothing about the first deploy requires a card.