Control Plane is an enterprise platform that runs your containerized apps on managed clusters, on its own cloud accounts by default or across your accounts and on-prem, combining one cloud or several into one layer, without having to operate a cluster yourself, built-in CI/CD-ready deploys, managed databases, per-PR preview environments, scale-to-zero, automatic right-sizing, and platform-level compliance. Heroku is the classic single-vendor developer PaaS: you git push and it builds, runs, and manages your app on Heroku's own infrastructure. Both take the operational pain out of running apps, but they draw the line in different places: Heroku keeps everything on its own infrastructure, while Control Plane gives you control over where your app runs and the freedom to move it across clouds.
The core difference: a single-vendor PaaS vs an adaptable enterprise platform
Control Plane runs your standard containers on hardened, managed clusters. Those run on Control Plane's own cloud accounts by default or across your AWS, GCP, Azure, and on-prem accounts as one layer, with identity, networking, security, and scaling handled uniformly. It is built on Kubernetes but requires no Kubernetes expertise, so you never have to operate a cluster yourself, though you can run Managed Kubernetes (MK8s) or Bring Your Own Kubernetes (BYOK) when you want that control. You get the operational ease of a PaaS, plus control over where the workloads run, scale-to-zero, automatic right-sizing, managed databases, and platform-level compliance built in. Deploys go through git-driven builds and buildpacks, or the CLI, API, and infrastructure as code such as Terraform and Pulumi, which fits CI/CD pipelines and keeps workloads portable across clouds.
Heroku draws the line differently. You commit code and run git push heroku main, and the platform builds a slug, provisions dynos, wires up add-ons, and serves your app, all on Heroku's own single-vendor infrastructure. That model keeps every app on Heroku, with no say over where the workload runs or the ability to move it across clouds, and in February 2026 Heroku moved to what it calls a sustaining engineering model, focused on stability, security, and support rather than major new features.
Why teams are looking past Heroku in 2026
The first catalyst is roadmap. In February 2026 Heroku moved to a sustaining engineering model, focused on stability, security, and support rather than major new features, and teams planning years ahead weigh that carefully. Beyond the roadmap, several themes recur. Cost climbs at scale, and dyno-based scaling has a ceiling. Control over where workloads run and their data residency is limited, since on Heroku everything lives on Heroku's own infrastructure. And the single-vendor model constrains teams that want to run across more than one cloud, in their own accounts, or on-prem. As teams outgrow a single-vendor PaaS, a comparison like this goes on the table.
Which one should you pick?
Choose Control Plane if...
- You want an enterprise platform that runs the same apps on managed clusters, on Control Plane's compute or your own accounts, one cloud or several, plus on-prem.
- You want control over where workloads run and their data residency, including your own accounts if you need it.
- You want scale-to-zero and automatic right-sizing instead of always-on dynos.
- You need compliance that applies across your own cloud accounts and multiple clouds, not just one vendor's platform.
- You are outgrowing a single-vendor PaaS and want operational ease without having to operate a cluster yourself, while keeping the option to run Managed Kubernetes (MK8s) or bring your own.
Where Heroku differs
- It is a single-vendor PaaS with a git-push deploy from a connected repository.
- It runs apps as dynos with an add-on marketplace, on Heroku's own infrastructure.
- In February 2026 it moved to a sustaining engineering model, focused on stability and support rather than new features.
Control Plane's CLI, Terraform, Pulumi, and API deploys wire into your own CI/CD for the same push-to-deploy pipeline, and add control over where workloads run, VMs, multi-cloud, and platform-level compliance.
When a region, a cloud, or an account goes down
Every platform has outages, and so do the clouds underneath all of us. On Control Plane, a workload runs in every location of its Global Virtual Cloud (GVC™) at the same time, across AWS, GCP, Azure, and OCI regions and your own clusters. Traffic goes to the nearest healthy location using latency-based DNS geo-routing. When a location stops passing health checks, it drops out of routing and the others keep serving.
AWSUnhealthy: removed from routing
GCPHealthy: serving traffic
AzureHealthy: serving traffic
A region fails
The GVC routes around it. Users who were reaching that region land on the next-nearest healthy location. If you want a specific backup instead of the closest one, priority tiers send traffic to the location you chose.
A cloud provider fails
With locations on more than one provider, a provider-wide outage takes out only that provider's locations. Your GCP and Azure locations keep serving the same workload behind the same endpoint while AWS recovers.
A cloud account fails
Locations can run in Control Plane's cloud accounts or in your own accounts and clusters (BYOK). Spread a GVC across more than one account, and an account that is suspended or misconfigured becomes one more location for the GVC to route around.
Two conditions apply. Failover needs at least two replicas in at least two locations, which is also the condition on our 99.999% SLA. And data does not move by itself: each replica gets its own volume, so a database that has to survive the loss of a location needs replication at the application level, such as Postgres WAL streaming between locations.
Heroku's public incident reports
- Incident Review: Intermittent Disruption and Degradation of Heroku Services on October 20, 2025 (October 20, 2025)
- Summary of Heroku June 10 Outage (June 10, 2025)
Control Plane vs Heroku, side by side
58 capabilities, scored from each vendor's public documentation with the same rules applied to both columns. Hover a capability for what it measures, or a verdict for the reason behind it.
Workload placement & topology5
Getting to first deploy6
Migration in1
Scaling & efficiency5
Networking & edge7
Storage & data services6
Identity & secrets6
Operations & observability8
Automation & extensibility6
Specialized compute2
Commercial terms6
Scored from public documentation as of September 2026. “No” means not documented, not necessarily absent; breadth is not a quality ranking, and specialists doing one thing well score narrow by design.
Which fits your scenario
Control Plane fits: a growing team whose Heroku bill is climbing and that now needs to run across more than one cloud. You run the same standard containers across AWS, GCP, Azure, and on-prem in your own accounts under one identity and network model, without having to operate a cluster yourself, scale-to-zero, and automatic right-sizing to hold down cost. Heroku keeps every app on its single-vendor platform, so it cannot give you ownership, data residency, or multi-cloud reach. Universal Cloud Identity lets those workloads reach native services like S3, DynamoDB, and BigQuery with temporary session credentials instead of stored keys.
What Heroku is. Heroku is the classic single-vendor git-push PaaS: git push heroku main builds and runs your app on Heroku's own infrastructure, with an add-on marketplace for Postgres, Redis, and more. Control Plane delivers push-to-deploy from Git with buildpacks and per-PR preview environments too, and also lets you run in your own cloud accounts across multiple clouds and on-prem, add VMs, and pay by consumption, so you do not outgrow it as you scale.
Why teams consolidate on Control Plane. The moment a climbing bill, regulated data, VMs, or workloads spanning more than one cloud enter the picture, a single-vendor PaaS stops being enough. Control Plane matches the Heroku workflow, with git-driven builds, buildpacks, per-PR preview environments, and managed databases, and adds control over where workloads run, your own cloud accounts, full VMs, scale-to-zero, automatic right-sizing, and consumption pricing across every cloud and on-prem, so you run one platform instead of two.
"We can do the same things we could do in Heroku (so we don't have to go low-level in AWS) but Control Plane gives us fine-grained control over the resources allocated to an individual process."
Frequently asked questions
Is Control Plane a Heroku replacement?
For teams scaling past a single-vendor PaaS, often yes. Heroku hosts your app on its own platform with a git-push workflow. Control Plane is an enterprise platform that runs the same containerized apps on managed clusters, on its cloud accounts by default or in your own accounts across AWS, GCP, Azure, and on-prem, without having to operate a cluster yourself. Deploys use git-driven builds, or standard containers via CLI, Terraform, and API, which keeps them portable across clouds.
Is Heroku still being developed in 2026?
In February 2026 Heroku moved to what it calls a sustaining engineering model, focused on stability, security, and support rather than major new features. It continues to run existing apps, but teams planning long-term growth weigh that roadmap when deciding where to invest. Control Plane is under active development, with scale-to-zero, VMs, multi-cloud, and the ability to run in your own cloud accounts.
Does Control Plane deploy from Git like Heroku?
Yes. Control Plane supports git-driven builds with buildpacks and per-PR preview environments for push-to-deploy delivery, and also deploys prebuilt containers and VMs through the CLI, Terraform, Pulumi, API, and UI. You get the push-to-deploy workflow without being locked to one vendor's infrastructure, and workloads stay portable across clouds.
What is the difference between Heroku and Control Plane?
Heroku is a managed, single-vendor PaaS: you rent capacity on Heroku's own infrastructure and deploy with git push. Control Plane is a cloud virtualization platform. It runs your standard containers on hardened, managed clusters, on its own cloud accounts by default or in your own accounts or on-prem, one cloud or several, without having to operate a cluster yourself. Scale-to-zero, automatic right-sizing, identity, networking, and compliance are built in. Heroku hosts your app on its own infrastructure; Control Plane lets you control where the workload runs and move it across clouds.
Can I move Heroku apps to Control Plane?
Most Heroku apps are already twelve-factor and containerize cleanly. Once in a container they run on Control Plane's managed clusters, on its cloud accounts by default or in your own accounts, with scale-to-zero and automatic right-sizing. Add-ons like Postgres, Redis, Kafka, and Mongo have equivalents in the Control Plane Template Catalog. The main change is the deploy workflow: git push becomes a container build plus CLI, API, or IaC deploy.
