Heroku

Heroku is a cloud platform as a service (PaaS) that enables developers to build, run and operate applications entirely in the cloud. It abstracts infrastructure management, provides buildpacks, add-ons and a git-based deployment workflow. Best suited for rapid prototyping, small to medium web apps and managed services.

Use this profile to understand the building block briefly, place it in the model, and open related building blocks.

Content type

Tool

Usable application software: supports people in a task.

Classification level

Element

Concrete cog in the system that works inside larger relationships.

In brief

Heroku – in brief

Heroku is a platform-as-a-service that builds applications from source or containers, runs them as dynos, and connects them to managed add-ons.

Where does it come from?

Heroku was founded in 2007 as a Ruby cloud platform, expanded to multiple languages through buildpacks, and became part of Salesforce in 2010.

The mental model

A deployment detects the runtime through buildpacks and produces a slug. A Procfile declares process types that run in ephemeral dynos; config vars supply environment settings. Routers distribute requests, while add-ons provide databases and external services.

Key building blocks

Build

Source and dependencies become an executable artifact.

Processes

Scalable dynos execute declared web and background processes.

Services

Add-ons and config vars connect application and operating environment.

When is it useful?

Heroku accelerates standardized web deployment and reduces infrastructure work. Cost, platform limits, ephemeral storage, regions, add-on dependencies, and a migration path belong in the architecture decision.

Heroku Dev Center (Offizielle Dokumentation)

Why is this building block relevant?

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) for quickly deploying and running web applications in the cloud with git-based deployment, buildpacks and an ecosystem of add-ons.