Head-to-head, indicative as of Oct 2026. Prices change — always confirm on the vendor page.
Quick read: pick Heroku if your workload is no-devops deploys for small teams and shopify-style workflows and its included egress fits your traffic shape; pick Google App Engine if you need zero-server classic app deploys on gcp. For anything latency-sensitive at the edge, cold start row is the tiebreaker.
| Heroku | Google App Engine | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | PaaS (classic) | Managed app platform |
| Free tier | Eco dynos ~$5/mo shared pool | Standard free quotas per day |
| Paid pricing (indicative) | Basic dyno ~$7/mo each | Pay per instance-hour, B/F classes |
| Egress | Included allowances | Metered |
| Cold start | Dyno boot ~seconds | Minutes-scale on Standard cold |
| Regions | US + EU | Google regions |
| Best for | No-DevOps deploys for small teams and Shopify-style workflows | Zero-server classic app deploys on GCP |
Try Heroku Try Google App Engine
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Last reviewed 2026-10-02 · NinjaOps SEO grid · DevOps blog