Heroku maintenance mode - what production teams should know
Heroku is moving into maintenance mode under a sustaining engineering model. Here's what it means for production teams and how to evaluate your options.
When we learned that Heroku was moving into maintenance mode under a sustaining engineering model, we were disappointed. Not because it signals immediate disruption. There is no reason to assume that. But when a platform slows investment, it is rarely good news for customers.
The app deployment space is evolving quickly. New tooling. New runtimes. Rising expectations. When innovation slows, customers fall behind.
What we didn't hear
There was no mention of end-of-life. No urgent timelines. No immediate service changes. For many teams, that was reassuring. And understandably so.
There is no reason to panic.
When a platform shifts into sustaining mode, the pace of progress usually changes. The ecosystem does not.
The question is not whether something breaks tomorrow. The question is whether your platform will keep pace with how software is being built and operated today.
So no panic. But do not ignore the signal. Six months from now, your competitors may be building on capabilities you don't have. A year from now, that gap is harder to close. Now is the time to evaluate your options.
What "sustaining engineering" actually means
In simple terms, sustaining engineering focuses on keeping a platform stable and supported rather than pushing it forward. Bugs get fixed. Security issues get patched. Critical maintenance continues.
What usually slows down is everything else:
- New runtime adoption
- Evolution of the core platform
- Improvements to operational tooling
- Long-term platform bets
This is how many mature platforms are managed. But stability alone isn't a strategy. Even workloads that feel stable today exist inside a market that keeps moving.
Frameworks change. Security expectations rise. Traffic patterns evolve. Customer expectations shift. Tooling that feels "good enough" today can become friction six or twelve months from now.
The risk is not instability. The risk is falling behind.
Heroku in maintenance mode: a turning point
Heroku is not disappearing overnight. Existing applications will continue to run. But platforms rarely move into maintenance mode and then accelerate again. The long-term direction is now less certain.
The real risk is drift.
Production systems tend to accumulate small inefficiencies when the underlying platform no longer moves in sync with its ecosystem. Over time, that shows up as:
- Slower adoption of new runtimes or language features
- Gaps between how teams want to operate and what the platform supports
- Increasing effort to layer modern workflows on top of older abstractions
This is what long-term operational drag looks like. It's rarely dramatic, but it does compound.
For teams early in a project, this may not matter yet. For teams running services with real traffic, compliance requirements, or growth expectations, it eventually does.
Six months from now, competitors on faster-moving platforms may be shipping with capabilities you do not have. A year from now, that gap is harder to close.
This is not a crisis. But it is a directional shift. And directional shifts matter.
Why teams are evaluating alternatives to Heroku
If this moment is about trajectory, it is also about fundamentals. There are concrete differences between Heroku and Sevalla that matter for production teams.
For teams actively evaluating a Heroku alternative, these differences are structural.
Built-in, not bolted on
On Heroku, several core capabilities rely on third-party add-ons or higher pricing tiers. Logging retention, search, CDN functionality, static site hosting, object storage, and internal networking often require external services or enterprise plans.
Sevalla includes these capabilities by default.
Logging includes built-in search, filtering by process and time range, severity categorization, and 60-day retention. No external drain or paid add-on required.
Static sites deploy directly to Cloudflare's global edge network with generous free limits. CDN functionality is built in.
Sevalla also provides S3-compatible object storage natively. Heroku does not offer a built-in object storage solution.
These are not premium upgrades. They are standard components of a modern platform.
Production networking without enterprise gates
On Heroku's Common Runtime, applications cannot communicate over an internal network. That capability requires Private Spaces at enterprise pricing.
Sevalla supports internal networking for all applications by default. Databases connect through private internal connections, isolated from the public internet, with no internal bandwidth cost.
Managed MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and Redis are provided natively. No external hostname workarounds. No added latency from third-party add-ons.
For production systems, architecture should not depend on enterprise contracts.
Workflow flexibility that scales with your team
Heroku pipelines are limited to four fixed stages. Review, Development, Staging, Production.
Sevalla supports unlimited custom pipeline stages. QA. UAT. Any workflow your team requires. It supports trunk-based development and Git Flow, with a Promote feature to move changes between stages without rebuilding.
Preview environments are configured in the dashboard UI. No editing configuration files just to adjust environment variables or pod sizes.
Every deployment includes a changeset view that shows exactly what changed in runtime and build configuration. Commit ID. Initiator. Data center. Full deployment details.
These controls reduce operational friction as teams grow.
Global reach and scaling without artificial limits
Heroku's Common Runtime offers two regions. More granular region selection requires Private Spaces.
Sevalla offers 25 data center locations globally, available to all users on any plan.
Horizontal scaling and automatic horizontal scaling are available across pod sizes for stateless applications.
Growth should not require renegotiating your pricing model.
Enterprise readiness without enterprise contracts
Heroku Teams uses per-seat pricing, and advanced features such as private networking and audit capabilities are tied to enterprise contracts.
Sevalla does not use per-seat pricing. There are no feature gates based on account tier. Pricing is usage-based.
SAML SSO is available by default. Identity and access control should not require a premium contract.
Access to core functionality is not restricted by plan level.
Built for forward momentum
A platform's trajectory matters as much as its current capabilities. We are building forward, expanding infrastructure coverage, improving workflow flexibility, and strengthening identity and security controls.
Our goal is not just to keep applications running. It is to ensure the platform underneath them continues to improve.
You'll see that in capabilities like:
- Project-level structure to organize environments as systems grow
- Load balancers for multi-region app deployment, so scaling doesn't require rethinking your platform
- Spending limit notifications that make cost visibility part of day-to-day operations
- New API v3 + AI integration that supports modern development workflows as teams experiment with automation inside their apps
Production teams should not have to wonder whether their platform will keep pace with the market. They should expect it to.
Planning doesn't mean migrating tomorrow
One common reaction to announcements like this is noise: calls to "just migrate," promises of instant parity, or claims that moving platforms is trivial.
Real teams know better.
Evaluating alternatives is about understanding your options before urgency sets in. It means identifying which parts of your architecture matter most, the assumptions you're making about the underlying platform, and where future constraints might emerge.
For many teams, the next step is simply an evaluation:
- Stand up a non-critical workload
- Compare operational workflows
- Validate how production-grade features behave in practice
That kind of planning creates leverage. It gives you choices later, on your timeline, not someone else's.
The choice ahead
Heroku's shift to sustaining engineering is a turning point. The platform will continue to run. But its trajectory has changed.
Some teams may choose to stay. That choice carries risk. Perhaps less risk than building new applications on a platform in maintenance mode, but risk nonetheless.
This is not about panic. It is about position.
Six months from now, the market will still be moving. A year from now, the gap between platforms that evolve and platforms that preserve will be clearer.
Now is the time to test your next move. Start with a no-risk trial on a platform built for production workloads, or review our migration guide to understand what transition looks like.
The market is moving quickly. You cannot afford to stand still while your competitors move ahead.