Heroku went down. Here’s the deployment fix that worked

Prakhar jain — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 16:14:07 +0000

Two days ago, I was wrapping up a critical update for our startup’s Flask-based app, a platform serving 20,000 users with microservices for user management and payments.

We’d been loyal Heroku users for years, drawn to its simplicity for small teams like ours.

But that day, Heroku went down.

No warning, no ETA, just a cryptic status page message: “We’re experiencing an outage. We’re working on it.”

Our app was offline, users were flooding our inbox with complaints, and I felt the panic rising.

We needed a Heroku alternative fast.

Our team of three developers scrambled to assess the damage. Our app was down for 2 hours already, costing us $500 in lost revenue and, worse, eroding user trust.

Heroku had been our go-to for microservices deployment, but this outage exposed its fragility.

We couldn’t afford to wait; our users deserved better, and so did we.

I remembered an article I read about a Heroku Alternative that could help with automated deployment.

With no time to waste, we decided to explore a new solution and get our app back online because if something like this happens again might take us down.

[This was the article: https://blogs.kuberns.com/post/free-heroku-alternatives-in-2025-for-developers/]

Finding a lifeline

After finding that lost article from history, we landed on Kuberns, an AI-powered Cloud Platform as a Service that promised to simplify deployments.

It wasn’t about switching platforms for the sake of it we needed a fix that worked, and we were not sure whether we could or could not do it, but it seemed like it could deliver.

Here’s how we got back online in under 30 minutes.

Step 1: Quick Setup and GitHub Integration

We signed up at kuberns.com, a process that took 2 minutes.

In the Dashboard, we created a new project called “UserApp” and connected our GitHub repo with one click.

Kuberns pulled our Flask codebase and auto-detected the app stack, sparing us the hassle of manual configuration.

Step 2: Environment Setup

Our app relied on a few environment variables, like database URLs and API keys. In the “Environment” section, we uploaded a .env file with our settings. Kuberns encrypted them automatically, and we were ready to move forward in just 5 minutes.

Step 3: Deploy and Go Live

We clicked “Deploy,” and Kuberns handled the rest. It cloned our repo, installed dependencies, ran tests, and deployed the app to a temporary domain, all in few.

We then added our custom domain in the “Domain” section, updated our DNS records as instructed, and redeployed.

Within 30 minutes, our app was live again, serving users without a hitch.

A new way forward

Getting back online was just the beginning. Kuberns turned our 2-hour Heroku nightmare into a distant memory.

The platform’s deployment automation tools ensured that every Git push triggered an automatic build, cutting our deploy time from 15 minutes (on a good day with Heroku) to 5 minutes.

We also noticed our AWS bill, Kuberns integrates seamlessly with AWS dropped by 40% because it optimised resource usage, shutting down idle instances we didn’t need.

More importantly, we regained our peace of mind, knowing we weren’t at the mercy of another outage.

That Heroku outage was a wake-up call.

Relying on a single platform without a backup plan was a risk we couldn’t afford. Kuberns became our saviour, not just for that day but for our future deployments.

It showed us that automated deployment doesn’t have to be complex; it can be fast, reliable, and even cost-effective.