Scalingo vs Heroku

Why Switch from Heroku to Scalingo?

Heroku pioneered the modern PaaS model and remains the reference for developer-experience-first application hosting. For European teams, the trade-offs are increasingly visible: Heroku is owned by Salesforce, US-domiciled, AWS-backed underneath, and operates under US legal jurisdiction. The 2022 free-tier elimination and ongoing pricing changes have also made the value comparison less clear-cut than it once was.

Scalingo is the French alternative built explicitly as a Heroku replacement: same git-push deployment, same buildpack ecosystem, same operational pattern — but hosted in French data centres under EU law, with EUR pricing and native VAT.

Feature Comparison

Feature	Scalingo	Heroku
Jurisdiction	France 🇫🇷	United States 🇺🇸
Data location	EU (France)	US default, EU on Private Spaces
GDPR	✅ Native	⚠️ Provider claims, US parent
CLOUD Act exposure	❌ None	⚠️ Yes
Heroku CLI compatible	✅	N/A (the original)
Buildpack ecosystem	✅ Heroku-compatible	✅ Native
Native Postgres	✅	✅
Native MongoDB	✅	❌ (add-on)
Auto-scaling	✅	✅
Currency	EUR	USD
VAT handling	✅ Native EU	Limited
CO2 transparency	✅ Published	Limited

For European applications, Scalingo addresses the structural issues without sacrificing developer ergonomics.

Pricing

Scalingo container pricing:

• Hobby (1× S): €7/month — small dev/personal apps
• Pro (M): €17/month — small production
• Pro (L): €34/month — typical production
• Higher tiers: €70-280/month per container

Database add-ons:

• Postgres: from €15/month
• MongoDB: from €15/month
• Redis: from €15/month

Heroku for comparison:

• Eco (dyno): $5/month
• Basic: $7/month
• Standard-1X: $25/month
• Standard-2X: $50/month
• Performance: $250+/month

At equivalent compute, Scalingo and Heroku are competitively priced. Scalingo’s advantage compounds at scale and with EU VAT invoicing.

Privacy & Data Sovereignty

Scalingo’s structural advantages:

• French corporate jurisdiction — Scalingo SAS subject to French and EU law
• EU data centres only — 3DS Outscale regions in Paris (standard and SecNumCloud)
• GDPR-native with Article 28 DPA
• No US legal exposure in the core stack
• Energy transparency — published CO2 metrics per app

For European applications handling personal data, regulated-industry workloads, or public-sector deployments, this is materially different from Heroku’s US infrastructure.

Migration Guide

Moving a typical Heroku app to Scalingo takes 2-8 hours:

1. Create Scalingo account and provision your app (10 min)
2. Set environment variables (copy from Heroku config) (15 min)
3. Provision database (Postgres / MongoDB / Redis equivalent) (10 min)
4. Migrate database — pg_dump from Heroku, pg_restore to Scalingo (30 min - several hours depending on volume)
5. Add Scalingo as git remote and deploy (15 min)
6. Configure custom domain with SSL (15 min)
7. Update DNS to point to Scalingo (TTL-dependent)
8. Verify application and run parallel briefly (1 hour - 1 week)
9. Decommission Heroku at next billing cycle

Estimated total time: 1 day for a moderate app, longer for complex multi-service deployments. Difficulty: Easy-moderate; the workflow matches Heroku closely.

Example Scenarios

Illustrative scenarios of how teams typically use these tools — not documented customer case studies.

A French government digital service runs on Scalingo with Outscale SecNumCloud-qualified infrastructure underneath, satisfying both the agility requirements of a Heroku-style developer experience and the sovereignty requirements of French public-sector procurement.

A Berlin SaaS startup moved from Heroku to Scalingo after their German enterprise customers raised concerns about US-hosted data. The migration was quick, and the customer-facing data residency story improved significantly.

A Paris fintech runs on Scalingo because the combination of DORA-aligned EU data residency, native EUR pricing, and Heroku-compatible developer experience matched their requirements where AWS/Heroku introduced friction.

Company Background

Scalingo SAS, based in Strasbourg, France, was co-founded by Yann Klis (CEO) and Léo Unbekandt (CTO). The company emerged from research and consulting work on cloud-native application deployment, evolving into a managed PaaS specifically targeting French and European developers.

As of 2026, Scalingo reports 4,000+ applications and 1,500+ monthly users from 70+ countries, spanning French public-sector organisations, mid-sized French companies, European startups, and individual developers. The company is privately held.

Scalingo has been notably active in French public-sector “cloud-first” initiatives, including direct collaboration with DINUM (the French government’s interministerial digital service) for sovereign PaaS capability.

Security & Compliance

• ISO 27001 certified
• SecNumCloud-qualified infrastructure available (Outscale-backed deployments)
• GDPR-native with Article 28 DPA
• HDS (Hébergeur de Données de Santé) certified for healthcare workloads
• TLS 1.3 for all traffic
• DORA-aligned for financial-services use cases
• NIS2-aligned for essential entities

Integration Ecosystem

• Heroku-compatible buildpacks — Ruby, Python, Node, Go, PHP, Elixir, Java
• Native add-ons: Postgres, MongoDB, Redis, MySQL, Elasticsearch, RabbitMQ, InfluxDB
• Git push deployment
• Container support — Docker images
• CLI: full-featured, Heroku-compatible
• Webhooks and event stream for monitoring
• API: comprehensive REST API
• Sentry, Papertrail, Datadog integrations available

Who Should Switch?

Scalingo is ideal for:

• French and EU developers wanting Heroku DX without US infrastructure
• EU startups building for EU customers
• Regulated industries (healthcare, finance, public sector) needing sovereign PaaS
• Government and public-sector application deployments
• Anyone preferring EUR-native billing over Heroku’s USD invoicing

The Bottom Line

Heroku remains the right choice if you need global regions outside the EU, specific Salesforce ecosystem integrations, or you’re already deeply embedded in the Heroku marketplace. For European applications, especially those serving EU customers, Scalingo is the better choice: same developer experience, EU jurisdiction, native EUR/VAT, SecNumCloud-qualified infrastructure available, and no Salesforce ownership question hanging over the long-term roadmap.

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Looking for more European cloud and developer-tools alternatives? See also: OVHcloud, Infomaniak Web Hosting, and Hetzner.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Scalingo really Heroku-compatible?

Yes. Scalingo uses the standard Heroku buildpack ecosystem and exposes a CLI compatible with Heroku CLI commands. For most Ruby, Python, Node, Go, PHP, and Elixir apps, you can deploy to Scalingo with minimal or no code changes — just point your buildpack-aware git remote at Scalingo instead of Heroku.

Where is my app and data hosted?

Scalingo's public regions are both in Paris, France, on 3DS Outscale infrastructure: osc-fr1 and osc-secnum-fr1 (SecNumCloud-qualified, available on request). Scalingo SAS is a French company subject to EU/French law. No US legal exposure, no CLOUD Act concerns.

How does pricing compare to Heroku?

Scalingo pricing is generally competitive with Heroku's equivalent tiers, often cheaper at scale. A typical 1 GB / 1 dyno setup with Postgres mini is around €22/month on Scalingo vs ~$25/month on Heroku — with significantly better EU latency and EUR-denominated billing including native VAT.

Can I migrate from Heroku?

Yes. Standard process: 1) Create Scalingo app, 2) Set environment variables, 3) Push your git remote to Scalingo, 4) Migrate database (pg_dump/restore for Postgres, similar for other dbs), 5) Update DNS to Scalingo URLs. For typical Heroku apps, migration takes 2-8 hours.

What about Heroku Add-ons?

Scalingo offers an equivalent add-on ecosystem (Postgres, MongoDB, Redis, MySQL, Elasticsearch, RabbitMQ, InfluxDB, Memcached, Sentry, Papertrail, etc.). Some Heroku-specific add-ons (Heroku Connect, certain marketplace integrations) have no direct Scalingo equivalent; for these you would self-host or use third-party services.