Heroku’s only free dyno option is the Eco dyno, which requires a $5/month flat fee to unlock a shared pool of dyno hours. All other dyno types — Basic, Standard, and Performance — are paid tiers with increasing power and features.
🧱 Heroku Dyno Types Compared
🔹 Eco Dynos
- 💰 Cost: $5/month flat fee for 1000 dyno hours
- 💤 Sleeps when idle: Yes (after 30 minutes of inactivity)
- ⚙️ Resources: Shared
- 🚫 Autoscaling: Not available
✅ Best for: Hobby projects, prototypes, student apps
- 🔹 Basic Dynos
- 💰 Cost: $7/month per dyno
- 💤 Sleeps when idle: No — stays online
- ⚙️ Resources: Shared
- 🚫 Autoscaling: Not available
✅ Best for: Low-traffic apps that need consistent uptime
- 🔹 Standard Dynos
- 💰 Cost: $25–$50/month per dyno
- 💤 Sleeps when idle: No
- ⚙️ Resources: Dedicated
- ✅ Autoscaling: Supported
- ✅ Best for: Production apps with moderate traffic
🔹 Performance Dynos
- 💰 Cost: $250+/month per dyno
- 💤 Sleeps when idle: No
- ⚙️ Resources: Dedicated (high memory and CPU)
- ✅ Autoscaling: Supported
- ✅ Best for: Enterprise-grade, high-performance workloads
📝 Note: As of 2025, Heroku requires a payment method to access any dyno tier, including Eco. Free-tier hosting is no longer available without billing info.
🧠 Key Notes
Eco dynos are the only entry-level option with a shared pool of hours. You can run multiple apps on Eco dynos as long as you stay within the 1000-hour limit.
Basic dynos don’t sleep, but you pay per dyno — better for apps that need to stay online 24/7.
Standard and Performance dynos offer more memory, CPU, and features like autoscaling, preboot, and dedicated networking — but they’re priced for serious production use.
Let me know if you want help choosing the right dyno for your Spring Boot or .NET app, or if you’d like to migrate to a platform like Render or Railway that doesn’t require upfront payment.
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