Heroku

Heroku

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Cloud computing, Platform as a service
Founded	June 2007 (2007-06)
Founder	James Lindenbaum, Adam Wiggins, Orion Henry
Headquarters	San Francisco , United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Byron Sebastian (CEO from October 2009), Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto (Chief Architect for Ruby from July 2011)
Products	Heroku Platform, Heroku Postgres, Heroku Redis, Heroku Teams, Heroku Enterprise, Heroku Connect, Heroku Elements
Owner	Salesforce
Parent	Salesforce

Heroku is a cloud-based platform as a service (PaaS) that accommodates a variety of programming languages. Initially launched in June 2007 with support exclusively for Ruby, it has since expanded to include Java, Node.js, Scala, Clojure, Python, PHP, and Go. This multi-language support allows developers to build, deploy, and scale applications uniformly across different programming environments. In 2010, Salesforce acquired Heroku for $212 million, making it a subsidiary within their portfolio.

History

Heroku was established by James Lindenbaum, Adam Wiggins, and Orion Henry with the goal of supporting Ruby applications via the Rack web server interface. The initial development phase lasted six months; however, early adoption was slow as many developers preferred their existing tools. After undergoing a three-month redevelopment period, a redesigned platform was released in January 2009. Byron Sebastian was appointed CEO in October 2009.

Following its acquisition by Salesforce in 2010, Heroku broadened its leadership team and diversified its product lineup. In July 2011, Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto, the creator of Ruby, joined as Chief Architect for Ruby. That same month, Heroku introduced support for Node.js and Clojure. In September 2011, the company partnered with Facebook to provide developers with free hosting services. The platform offers compatibility with both standard PostgreSQL and Redis databases.

In April 2022, Heroku suffered a significant security incident involving compromised OAuth tokens associated with GitHub integrations, which impacted customer credentials and repositories. This breach exposed weaknesses within Heroku’s automation accounts, although the complete details remain undisclosed.

By August 2022, Heroku ended its free service plans due to issues related to fraud and misuse. At KubeCon Paris in March 2024, the company revealed plans for a strategic migration to Kubernetes to improve its cloud infrastructure’s scalability and robustness.

Etymology

The term "Heroku" is a blend of the words "heroic" and "haiku," inspired by Japanese culture as an homage to Matz, the creator of Ruby. The founders deliberately chose this invented name without any inherent meaning in any language.

Architecture

Heroku applications operate within isolated virtual containers known as dynos, each assigned a distinct domain to handle HTTP requests. These dynos run on a "dyno grid," which consists of numerous servers working together. Application deployment is managed through Heroku’s Git server accessible to authorized users.

The platform’s entire infrastructure is hosted on Amazon’s EC2 service, providing scalable and dependable cloud computing resources.

Products

The Heroku Platform

Heroku executes customer applications inside virtual containers called "Dynos," supporting languages including Node, Ruby, PHP, Go, Scala, Python, Java, and Clojure. Users can deploy applications in other languages using custom buildpacks. The platform facilitates rapid scaling by modifying dyno quantity or type.

Heroku Postgres

This managed cloud database service is built on PostgreSQL and delivers features such as continuous protection, rollback capabilities, high availability options, forks and followers functionality, plus data clips for improved database management.

Heroku Redis

A fully managed Redis service optimized by Heroku that enhances developer usability. It integrates seamlessly with Postgres for advanced analytics and offers CLI tools for managing instances and monitoring performance.

Heroku Teams

A collaboration platform that centralizes developers, workflows, and tools. It includes features like member administration, app-specific permission settings, delegated admin roles, consolidated billing, and team collaboration through Heroku Pipelines.

Heroku Enterprise

Designed for large-scale organizations, this offering improves team collaboration with detailed access controls, identity federation capabilities, private spaces, and enterprise-level resource management.

Heroku Connect

Facilitates smooth data synchronization between Heroku Postgres databases and Salesforce environments to support integrated application development at scale.

Heroku Elements

A marketplace featuring Add-ons (tools for development and operations), Buildpacks (automated build processes), and Buttons (one-click provisioning and deployment of third-party components).