Non-EU vendorCloud PaaSHeadquarters: US

Heroku: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Heroku is a fully managed platform as a service (PaaS) for building, deploying and scaling applications. Apps run in containers called dynos, and developers deploy with Git-based workflows without managing servers, operating systems or runtimes. The platform includes managed Postgres, a Redis-based key-value store and Apache Kafka, third-party add-ons, and buildpacks for languages such as Node.js, Ruby, Java, PHP, Python and Go. Enterprise features include Private Spaces, Heroku Shield for regulated industries and single sign-on. Heroku is delivered as a hosted service only.

Heroku belongs to Salesforce, a US company, so it is subject to US law, including the CLOUD Act, wherever apps run. The Common Runtime offers a Europe region and a US region; Private Spaces are available in Dublin and Frankfurt, among others. Heroku is not open source. In February 2026 The Register reported that Salesforce had stopped developing new features in favour of a stability-focused model. European organisations should weigh this roadmap risk and the absence of a self-hosting option.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Heroku pre-selected

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Sovereignty score

27 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-350
Hosting inside and outside Europe (US, EU)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
Key management with a non-European vendor
Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
Closed source: switching requires data migration
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-615
Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 4, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	US, EUVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Hosting signal	AUTOMATTIC - Automattic, Inc, US (US)Technically measured
Category	Cloud PaaS
Type	Product
Website	heroku.com ↗

The hosting signal shows the network that serves the vendor's website, often a CDN, and not necessarily where the service or your data is hosted. How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Heroku

The European alternatives to Heroku come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

31 European Cloud PaaS vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Heroku

Heroku is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

Heroku hosts data in US, EU. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

Heroku is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Heroku together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Heroku?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Heroku include CapRover, Cloudron and Coolify. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Heroku?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Heroku include Coolify and Nhost. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Heroku GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Heroku is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 4, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Cloud PaaS

Cloud PaaS: Platform as a Service — managed runtimes, container orchestration, serverless. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

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