Heroku Platform vs. IBM DevOps Deploy

Heroku is very well-suited to early stage and/or rapidly changing projects. It is great for getting moving quickly or changing direction quickly. In scenarios where there is already scale or well-defined requirements, it may be preferable to set things up directly on AWS or another cloud provider to avoid the additional costs of Heroku as the middleman.

Incentivized

IBM UrbanCode Deploy is excellent for code deployments such as Java, .Net, C++, etc. It can also deploy and run SQLs reasonably well. Where it lacks is the ability for executables, Jars, WARs, EARs, etc.

Incentivized

• Amazingly clear and straightforward documentation (versus the quagmire of AWS docs).
• Deploy your entire site in one command.
• Setting up asynchronous job processing for long running operations (e.g. sending emails, making external API calls).
• A wonderful portfolio of tightly-integrated add-ons in their marketplace.

Incentivized

• Consistently deploys to multiple environments with no changes to the process. Having reusable processes across environments from Dev to Production make deployments more consistent and easier to manage.
• IBM UrbanCode Deploy has an easy to understand UI, to be able to review if a deployment has successfully completed or not, and details if it did not work. Using the UI is simple and easy to understand.
• Scheduling and approvals are built-in as configured for the deployments. This allows us to use the same deployment process, but get approvals as needed when code is moved up to the upper environments.

Incentivized

• Could be less expensive, although you get what you pay for
• Sleeping apps can be an annoyance: Heroku automatically puts your apps in sleep mode and they have to spin back up after periods of inactivity. Much of this can be solved but it requires working around the built-in functionality. I understand why they do it but it's an area that could be improved.
• Restrictions to server access means you can't customize as much as you could if you owned the server. But again, this is also a benefit because it's about convention over configuration. So you can't configure as much, but then, you typically don't have to.

Incentivized

• Use of the internal API for public API use.
• Less cryptic CLI output on commands.
• Better use of custom variables that don't interfere with UCD's use.

Incentivized

Heroku is a critical and core part of our infrastructure that is serving our customers well. We are very satisfied with the cost of our solution. While it would be difficult to move away from Heroku, we have no plans to do so. We have had no major issues with it and it is a pleasure to use. Other products on the market might offer comparable functionality, but until we expose a need that Heroku cannot satisfy, we'll stay the course.

Incentivized

If you have basic backend and Git knowledge, deploying to Heroku is a breeze. It now supports many types of backends, including hybrid backends (ex: nginx + application server) through its build pack system. The dashboard is easy to use, and the CLI tools are well designed. Accessing the add-ons is also easy. It uses an SSO-type system so you don't have to re-sign in to view the add-on dashboards.

Incentivized

It's challenging to get a working knowledge of the product without having someone show you the ropes. Linking components with applications and applications with resource trees and resource trees with application deploys is not intuitive. However, once past that learning curve, the possibilities open up, and things become easier to understand and allow for further granularity.

Incentivized

Heroku availability correlates pretty strongly to AWS US EAST availability. We had a couple of times where there was a Heroku-specific issue but not for the last 7-8 months.

The only issue that I ever have is that about 1 out of 20 deployments (git push) will hang and need to be cancelled and done again.

I've used it for many years without facing any major problem. It's not hard at all to get used to it, it's documentation is outstanding and simple. We are close to 2020 and I don't think most of the existing companies or startups should still face old problems such as wasting time deploying code and calculate computing resources.

Incentivized

I've not worked directly with IBM UrbanCode Deploy support. My DevOps team administers the environment and deals with that.

Incentivized

Be ready to pay a bit more than expected in the beginning if you're migrating from a big server. The application is probably not ready for the change and you have to keep improving it with time.

It's also important to consider that you can't save anything to the disc as it will be lost when your application restarts, so you have to think about using something like S3.

Incentivized

Heroku has advantages over Docker, Google App Engine and AWS products, but it depends largely on your use case. If you are already in AWS, it's probably in your best interest to stay with AWS products. However, other "Cloud Formation/Orchestration" products like Docker are typically lacking the ease-of-use factor that allows you to get up and running with Heroku quickly.

Incentivized

• It has been critical in seamlessly operating our platform with runs all of our programs.
• It has been impressive with its ability to scale quickly which results in the growth of our work.
• It allows for tracking of different features which allows for quick problem solving which saves us time.

• Push button deployments.
• Consistency and ability to focus on other tasks.
• Required quite a bit of upfront customization with certain web deployments (WebSphere, etc.)
• Opened the door to other types of deployments and other automation.

Incentivized