Heroku-style deploys on a Hetzner server you own. Same git-push-to-production feel, a fraction of the monthly bill — priced honestly in Rand.
| Line item | Heroku | Hetzner + LaunchPad |
|---|---|---|
| Web process | Basic Dyno ($7) ~R114 | CX22 server (€4.49) ~R85 runs web + worker + Postgres |
| Background worker | Standard-1X ($25) ~R408 | |
| PostgreSQL (one plan per app) | Essential-1 ($9) ~R147 or Essential-0 ($5) ~R82 |
Self-hosted — included |
| Database backups | Included in Postgres plan | Backblaze B2 (<$1) ~R15 |
| Platform fee | — | LaunchPad Solo R149 (ex VAT) |
| Typical monthly bill | ~R669 | ~R249 (save ~63%) |
Converted at roughly R16.3/$ and R18.9/€, excluding 15% South African VAT. Heroku plan names and prices checked June 2026 (heroku.com/pricing). The Heroku total counts one Postgres plan (Essential-1); on Essential-0 it comes to ~R604. Larger Heroku setups — more dynos, bigger Postgres plans — commonly save up to 70–90%.
| Capability | Heroku | LaunchPad |
|---|---|---|
| Deploys | git push + buildpacks | Kamal zero-downtime deploys from GitHub (Dockerfile) |
| Live deploy logs | Yes | Yes — streamed live to the Releases tab |
| Health-checked releases | Yes | Yes — cutover gated on readiness, auto-rollback on failure |
| PostgreSQL | Managed add-on, per-plan pricing | Self-hosted on your server, no separate bill |
| Backups | Plan-dependent | Scheduled pg_dump to Backblaze B2, encrypted client-side, plus restore drills |
| Point-in-time recovery | Standard plans and up | Continuous WAL archiving — restore to a chosen second |
| Scheduled tasks | Heroku Scheduler add-on | Managed cron entries per app |
| Teams | Yes | Workspaces with member roles |
| Server ownership | Abstracted away | Your Hetzner account — provisioned and secured for you (Docker, UFW, fail2ban) |
| Autoscaling dynos | Yes | No — you resize or add Hetzner servers |
| Add-on marketplace | Large | No — extra services run as resources on your servers |
Not drop-in, but close in feel: you connect a Hetzner Cloud account, LaunchPad provisions and secures the server, and deploys your Dockerized app from GitHub with Kamal — zero-downtime rolling releases, health checks, and live deploy logs. There are no buildpacks; your app needs a Dockerfile (Rails 7+ generates one).
LaunchPad provisions PostgreSQL on your own Hetzner server and automates the operational work Heroku charges for: scheduled pg_dump backups to Backblaze B2 (encrypted client-side before upload), verified restores, restore drills, and continuous WAL archiving for point-in-time recovery.
LaunchPad manages cron entries per app, so scheduled tasks run on your server without an add-on.
LaunchPad is in early access: plans (Free, Solo, Team) are published in South African Rand, and paid billing is not switched on yet. Hetzner and Backblaze always bill you directly — LaunchPad adds no markup on infrastructure.
Heroku autoscales dynos across its fleet and offers a large add-on marketplace. With LaunchPad you run on servers you own — scaling means resizing or adding Hetzner servers, and services like Redis run as resources on your own machines.
Read the step-by-step Kamal on Hetzner guide, or start with the free tier.
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