Moving from Heroku to AWS EC2
Heroku's pricing has crept up, and you're wondering if there's a better option. AWS offers the largest cloud ecosystem with unmatched scale, but hidden costs and pricing complexity mean savings are modest compared to indie cloud providers. Here's an honest breakdown of what you'd gain, what you'd lose, and whether the switch makes sense for your team.
Cost Comparison
Estimated Monthly Savings
~$19/month
That's approximately 9% less per month
AWS pricing is complex. Budget for IPv4 addresses ($3.65/month each since Feb 2024), potential NAT Gateway costs ($36+/month if using private subnets), and cross-AZ data transfer ($0.01/GB each direction). The estimate assumes single-AZ deployment, since Multi-AZ doubles RDS instance and storage costs.
What You'll Gain
Largest cloud ecosystem
200+ integrated services from machine learning to IoT. If you need it, AWS probably has it.
Managed services that scale
RDS PostgreSQL and ElastiCache provide automatic backups, point-in-time recovery, and Multi-AZ failover options for enterprise-grade reliability.
Global infrastructure
30+ regions worldwide including 4 major US regions (us-east-1, us-east-2, us-west-1, us-west-2). Unmatched global coverage.
ARM-based Graviton instances
T4g and M7g Graviton instances offer 20-40% better price-performance for ARM-compatible workloads. Rails runs well on ARM.
Significant Reserved Instance savings
Commit to 1-year and save 37%, or 3-year for up to 60% off on-demand pricing, which is where real AWS savings come from.
Spot instances for batch work
Reduce costs by 60-90% for fault-tolerant background jobs using spot pricing.
Unmatched compliance certifications
SOC 1/2/3, PCI DSS Level 1, HIPAA, FedRAMP High, and dozens more. The most comprehensive compliance coverage in the industry.
What You'll Lose
Simple, predictable billing
AWS billing is notoriously complex. IPv4 addresses, NAT gateways, cross-AZ traffic, and EBS I/O can add up quickly. Budget 20-30% buffer for surprises.
Simple networking
AWS VPCs, security groups, subnets, and routing tables require significant learning. NAT Gateways cost $36+/month if your architecture needs private subnets.
Integrated logging and metrics
CloudWatch exists but requires configuration. Heroku's dashboard shows logs by default.
Built-in autoscaling
AWS Auto Scaling exists but requires setup. It's powerful but not turnkey.
Review apps and pipelines
You'd need to build these yourself or use CodePipeline.
Add-on simplicity
AWS has services for everything, but integrating them requires more work than clicking "add" in Heroku's marketplace.
Hands-off server maintenance
OS updates, security patches, and firewall configuration for your EC2 instances are your responsibility. Heroku handles this invisibly.
Should You Switch?
- Your team already knows AWS or you're building broader AWS expertise
- You need enterprise compliance certifications (FedRAMP, PCI DSS Level 1, etc.)
- You want managed databases with enterprise-grade reliability
- You can commit to Reserved Instances for 37-60% savings over on-demand
- You need AWS-specific services (Lambda, SQS, etc.) as part of your architecture
- You're primarily looking for cost savings, as on-demand AWS pricing offers minimal cost benefits
- You don't want to learn VPCs, security groups, and IAM policies
- Your team has no existing AWS experience and doesn't need to build it
- You heavily depend on Heroku add-ons that don't have easy replacements
- You need features like review apps without building custom CI/CD
Ready to Make the Switch?
Want help with the migration? I offer a done-for-you Heroku Exit Plan service that handles the entire transition—infrastructure setup, deployment configuration, database migration, and ongoing support.
Learn more about the Heroku Exit Plan