Head-to-head, indicative as of Oct 2026. Prices change — always confirm on the vendor page.
Quick read: pick Azure Container Apps if your workload is teams already in the azure/microsoft orbit and its pricing model fits your traffic shape; pick Heroku if you need no-devops deploys for small teams and shopify-style workflows. For anything latency-sensitive at the edge, cold start row is the tiebreaker.
| Azure Container Apps | Heroku | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Container platform (serverless) | PaaS (classic) |
| Free tier | First 180k vCPU-hrs free | Eco dynos ~$5/mo shared pool |
| Paid pricing (indicative) | Consumption-based per vCPU/GB-s | Basic dyno ~$7/mo each |
| Egress | ~$0.087/GB (billed) | Included allowances |
| Cold start | ~1-2s cold | Dyno boot ~seconds |
| Regions | Azure regions worldwide | US + EU |
| Best for | Teams already in the Azure/Microsoft orbit | No-DevOps deploys for small teams and Shopify-style workflows |
Try Azure Container Apps Try Heroku
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Last reviewed 2026-10-02 · NinjaOps SEO grid · DevOps blog