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By filling out this form, we can recommend a self-guided or a supported approach to your migration.
Migrate from Heroku to DigitalOcean in as little as 2 days
Heroku is going into “maintenance mode”—but your app shouldn’t. DigitalOcean App Platform uses the same Cloud Native Buildpacks as Heroku, so your apps run with minimal changes—plus you get up to 6x cheaper managed databases; no added charges for VPC, DDoS protection, and internal service routing; and much more, all on a platform that's actively evolving.
Offer valid October 21-December 31. $200, 60-day free trial requires valid credit card. Additional $50 applied only to GPU Droplet usage. By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Service.
Take advantage of our promotional prices! Try out our on-demand H100 GPUs at our promotional prices. Save more by reserving instances for prices as low as $2.50/GPU/hr
Migration without a migraine
Expert guidance from Solution Architects
Gain peace of mind with our uptime and availability SLAs
Migrate with confidence knowing a rollback strategy is in place
We offer tools and strategies to help you maintain data integrity
Go live confidently with live testing and validation
Save money–there’s no migration fee
Why make the jump?
Customers report 30%+
savings
compared to Heroku for equivalent workloads
Your code already works here
your Heroku apps run on DigitalOcean with minimal to no code changes
Full cloud
platform
managed databases, storage, networking, and AI infrastructure natively integrated, while we continue investing in new features monthly and Heroku remains in maintenance mode
*Learn more here, additional terms and conditions apply
Take advantage of our promotional prices! Try out our on-demand H100 GPUs at our promotional prices. Save more by reserving instances for prices as low as $2.50/GPU/hr
Why teams are migrating to DigitalOcean
“We started migrating all of our applications to App Platform. It was really easy to handle everything, I don't have to be a master DevOps engineer who knows everything just to develop one application. We have around 70 App Platforms now, and it has changed the way we deploy—we have only one DevOps engineer for all of our projects.”
Andres Murcia
CTO, Picap
“DigitalOcean App Platform's price performance was the best—it was much much cheaper than Heroku and it also abstracted away a layer of complexity that we just didn’t need to deal with because we’re such a small team.”
Marko Širec
Lead Backend Engineer at Blub Blub
Get started
Migrate to DigitalOcean and start saving as you scale.
Predictable, transparent pricing • Buildpacks model to get going quickly • Migrate in as little as two days
Cloud Native Buildpacks
There’s no need to containerize your app or learn new deployment processes—just point DigitalOcean to your code repo and it builds and runs your app automatically just as Heroku would have.
Secure, reliable infrastructure
Our ultra reliable high-performance cloud compute is monitored 24/7 so you can focus on scaling your AI model training to an entire cluster powered by the latest NVIDIA GPUs.
DigitalOcean App Platform: A seamless Heroku successor
One-click repo integration and CI/CD
Continuously deploy from GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket repos with native integration to each.
First-class monorepo and Docker support
Heroku’s “Fir” platform dropped support for monorepos and Docker entirely—but we haven’t. Your architecture is welcome on DigitalOcean.
Free internal service routing
Forget paying $1000/mo for Private Spaces. On App Platform, every app gets private internal routing among components at no cost.
How migrating to DigitalOcean works
Assessment: Full workload inventory and architecture review.
Planning: Downtime windows, validation strategy.
Execution: Incremental syncs, live replication, test cutovers.
Go Live: Zero downtime cutover with full rollback plan.
Post-Migration: Cost optimization, security hardening, architecture tuning.
Frequently asked questions
Most Heroku migrations complete in days, not weeks. Simple applications often migrate in 1-2 days, while complex multi-service applications may take 1-2 weeks. Our Solution Architects will provide a detailed timeline during your assessment.
Any application running on Heroku can migrate to DigitalOcean App Platform. This includes web apps, background workers, scheduled jobs, and APIs built with Node.js, Python, Ruby, PHP, Go, Java, .NET, and other Cloud Native Buildpack-supported languages.
Yes. There are no migration fees – you only pay for DigitalOcean resources. New workloads get three months free. Customers spending $2,500+ receive free expert migration support from our team and trusted partners.
Any customer (new or existing) migrating from Heroku who commits to $2,500+ spend on DigitalOcean receives free expert migration support, including assistance from Solution Architects and trusted migration partners.
Most Heroku add-ons have DigitalOcean equivalents. Databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB) are fully managed and included. Our migration team will map your current add-ons to DigitalOcean services during planning.
Downtime can be minimized or eliminated. Most migrations use blue-green deployment with parallel running on both platforms, then DNS cutover. Our team develops zero-downtime or near-zero-downtime plans based on your requirements.
Yes. DigitalOcean App Platform uses the same Cloud Native Buildpacks as Heroku. Most apps migrate with little to no code changes – typically just updating database connection strings and environment variables.
Existing customers qualify for 3 months free when bringing new workloads from Heroku that generate incremental monthly recurring revenue (IMRR). You're also eligible for expert migration support at $2,500+ spend.
Yes. DigitalOcean App Platform supports similar workflows through GitHub integration, automatic deployments, staging environments, and app cloning/environment promotion features to replicate Heroku's pipeline functionality.
You receive post-migration support including cost optimization, security hardening, architecture tuning, and guidance on additional DigitalOcean services. Plus 24/7 customer support and ongoing platform updates.
Most Heroku apps can be migrated with minimal changes, especially stateless apps. Common migration paths include:
Heroku → DigitalOcean App Platform
Heroku Postgres → DigitalOcean Managed Databases
Heroku Dynos → Droplets (for custom setups)
This is one of the biggest drivers.
Heroku users often ask: “Will my bill suddenly spike?” “Can I predict my monthly cost?”
DigitalOcean offers:
Transparent, predictable pricing
No forced dyno scaling costs
Better price-to-performance for growing apps
How we stack up against Heroku
Pricing
Platform Status
Buildpacks
Managed Databases
Migration Support
Platform Ecosystem
Egress Bandwidth
DigitalOcean App Platform
Transparent
(Flat-rate, monthly caps)
Active Development
(New features monthly)
Cloud Native Buildpacks
Fully Managed
(PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, Kafka, OpenSearch)
Free
(Expert migration support for $2,500+ spend)*
Full Cloud Platform
(VMs, Kubernetes, Object Storage, CDN, AI/ML)
Included: 500 GiB/mo free tier
Overage: $0.01/GiB (flat rate)
Heroku
Complex
(Charged per dyno + add-ons)
Maintenance Mode
(No new features planned)
Cloud Native Buildpacks
Limited
(PostgreSQL primary, other services via paid add-ons)
N/A
PaaS-Focused
(Limited expansion beyond app hosting)
Included: Varies by dyno tier
Overage: Higher costs at scale
Migrate from Heroku to DigitalOcean in as little as 2 days
Heroku is going into “maintenance mode”—but your app shouldn’t. DigitalOcean App Platform uses the same Cloud Native Buildpacks as Heroku, so your apps run with minimal changes—plus you get up to 6x cheaper managed databases; no added charges for VPC, DDoS protection, and internal service routing; and much more, all on a platform that's actively evolving.
3 months free*
talk to our teams to see how you can get 3 months free when you migrate new workloads to DigitalOcean
Spend $2,500 or more?
We'll handle your migration for free – expert cloud migration support from our dedicated team and trusted partners
“DigitalOcean fits perfectly because it allows us to scale efficiently and keeps the infrastructure cost predictable. And we have a partner we can rely on that grows with us.”
Lukas Klein
CTO & Co-founder, Datacake
“I probably spend 10% as much on DigitalOcean as I would with Heroku and AWS.
”
Mark Steadman
Founder and CEO, Podiant
