Turn Zero Cloud compared with Heroku
Heroku is a platform as a service: it runs an application's code in containers called dynos, with Heroku Postgres, Heroku Key-Value Store, and add-ons from its Elements Marketplace beside them. Turn Zero Cloud is a production backend for an application your coding agent builds: it runs the application's own Node.js server beside its database, file storage, sign-in, scheduled jobs, AI calls, and push notifications, through one MCP connection.
Heroku is a product of Salesforce, Inc., named here for comparison only. This page is Turn Zero's, and Heroku has neither reviewed nor endorsed it.
The short version
- Heroku runs your application's own server as dynos, in Node.js and other languages, from a Git push or a Docker image. The database, the key-value store, and the scheduler are add-ons you attach; sign-in, file storage, and push notifications come from your code or from other services.
- Turn Zero Cloud runs the application itself, server and backend together, at its own address. Your coding agent deploys it and reads its logs through the connection it built it with.
- Heroku bills by usage, prorated to the second, for each dyno, database, and add-on, apart from the Eco plan's flat $5 a month. Turn Zero Cloud prices per application: one free application for each account, then $10 or $35 a month.
- Both offer an MCP server, and both let an agent deploy and read logs. Heroku's local server reaches apps, dynos, add-ons, pipelines, and Postgres; Turn Zero Cloud's creates and runs the whole backend.
Side by side
Heroku's facts are read from its pricing and documentation pages on 2026-10-06. Check those pages for current figures.
| On | Turn Zero Cloud | Heroku |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A production backend for an application built with a coding agent: the server and its services in one place. | A platform as a service: dynos that run the application's code, with Heroku Postgres, Key-Value Store, and add-ons from the Elements Marketplace beside them. |
| Your application's server | Hosted. A Node.js server in its own container, at its own address under ai.host. | Hosted as dynos, Linux containers, in Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java, Go, PHP, and others, at a herokuapp.com address or a custom domain. Eco dynos sleep after 30 minutes without traffic. |
| Database | A PostgreSQL database for each application, created with it. | Heroku Postgres, an add-on, from Essential-0 at $5 a month with 1 GB; higher tiers add rollback and high availability. Heroku Key-Value Store from $3 a month. |
| Sign-in for your users | Included: accounts and passkeys, with open or invitation-only sign-up, its users managed from your coding agent. | Not a Heroku service; your own code or an outside service provides it. |
| File storage | Included, for each application. | Not a Heroku service. A dyno's written files are discarded when it stops or restarts, and Heroku's documentation points to Amazon S3 or an add-on such as Bucketeer. |
| Scheduled jobs | Included, with each run's outcome recorded. | Heroku Scheduler, a free add-on: jobs every 10 minutes, every hour, or every day, each run as a one-off dyno billed as usage. |
| AI calls | From inside your application, on an allowance every plan includes or on your own key. | Heroku Managed Inference and Agents, an add-on: chat, embedding, and image models hosted on Amazon Bedrock, Claude among them, billed per token, image, or query. Or any AI provider the app calls with a key kept in a config var. |
| Push notifications | Included, to iPhone and Android. | Not a Heroku service; the application can call one. |
| Secrets | Stored by name through the connection, typed into your own terminal and never into the chat; an outside API's key is replaced without a redeploy. | Config vars, read by the code as environment variables and set through the CLI, the dashboard, or the API; setting or removing one restarts the app and creates a new release. |
| Deploys, logs, and rollback | Your agent deploys and rolls back versions, promotes from a development environment when you add one, and reads each version's logs, counters, and deploy steps. | Each deploy or config change creates a numbered release, and a rollback returns to an earlier release's code and config vars, not its add-ons' data. Pipelines promote a pre-production app to production and can open a review app for each pull request; Cedar apps keep their latest 1,500 log lines, with drains or add-ons for more. |
| MCP server for coding agents | One server: it creates the application, stores its secrets, deploys it, and reads its logs and status. | Two forms: a local server run through the Heroku CLI, whose tools create and deploy apps, scale and restart dynos, read logs, add add-ons, promote through pipelines, and run SQL on Heroku Postgres; and a hosted server at mcp.heroku.com that works on the apps in your account. |
| Free plan | One free application for each account; its capacity is on the pricing page. | None since November 2022, when free dynos, Postgres, and Key-Value Store plans ended. The Eco plan is $5 a month for 1,000 dyno hours shared by an account's apps. |
| Paid plans | Standard at $10 and Pro at $35 a month, for each application; every plan is free during the beta. | Billed by usage, prorated to the second: a Basic dyno up to $7 a month, Standard-1X up to $25, and Standard-2X up to $50, with Postgres from $5 a month, Key-Value Store from $3, and add-ons and AI calls on top. |
When Heroku fits better
You want to choose each part yourself: the language, the dyno size from Basic up to Performance and Private dynos, the Postgres tier and its availability, and add-ons from a marketplace. Your team works through Git pushes, pipelines, and a review app for each pull request, and your work may need HIPAA-compliant Shield spaces or Salesforce data synchronized into Postgres through Heroku Connect.
When Turn Zero Cloud fits better
Your coding agent is building a whole application, server included, and you want it to go from a prompt to a running address without choosing dyno sizes, attaching add-ons, and joining a sign-in service and a storage bucket from other dashboards. One connection gives the agent all of it, a small set of backend actions leaves it fewer ways to get production wrong, and one plan for each application prices it rather than usage. The application may be for the web, a phone, or the desktop.
Using both
An application on Turn Zero Cloud can call any outside service on keys stored by name, an app on Heroku included, so an existing Heroku app can keep running while the agent builds a new service beside it. Heroku Postgres accepts connections from outside Heroku, so an application moving its server here can keep reading that database while its data moves.