European Heroku Alternatives in 2026: PaaS Options with EU Hosting

The short answer

If you want a Heroku-style platform where the vendor runs everything in Europe, look at Scalingo or Clever Cloud (both French, hosting in France), Upsun (EU regions on several clouds), Koyeb (Frankfurt and Paris) or Northflank’s European regions. If you would rather keep the servers in your own account at a European cloud provider and still deploy with a git push, look at Ankra, Qovery, or self-hosted Coolify or Dokploy. The first family is the quickest way to a live URL. The second gives you the cloud contract, the region choice and an easy exit, in return for a little more setup.

In February 2026 Heroku announced a move to a sustaining engineering model and said Enterprise Account contracts would no longer be offered to new customers. Heroku still has a Europe region and Private Spaces in Dublin, Frankfurt and London, so staying is an option too.

Why the two families matter

Every product below deploys from Git. The difference is who holds the servers.

In a hosted PaaS, the vendor rents the machines, runs the platform and bills you for both. You never open a cloud account. Where your data lives is set by the vendor’s region list, and often by an infrastructure partner behind it (Scalingo runs on 3DS Outscale, Upsun on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and OVHcloud).

In push-to-deploy on your own account, the servers sit in a cloud account you own, at a provider you pick, and that provider bills you directly. The platform deploys and operates your apps on top. If you leave the platform, the servers and data stay where they are. One extra question to ask is where the platform’s own control plane runs, because configuration and build logs pass through it.

A small team shipping its first product often wants the first family. A team moving off a large US cloud, or one with a European provider contract already, often wants the second.

This article does not assess GDPR compliance or whether a provider counts as “sovereign”. That depends on your contracts, your data and your own legal advice. We list where each company is headquartered and where it hosts data, with links to the vendors’ own pages.

Comparison table

Product	Family	Company base	Where your apps run	Who runs the servers	Licence	Best for
Scalingo	Hosted PaaS	Strasbourg, France	Paris, on 3DS Outscale	Scalingo	Commercial	Heroku-style apps hosted in France
Clever Cloud	Hosted PaaS	Nantes, France	Own datacentres in France, plus other European zones	Clever Cloud	Commercial	Many runtimes and add-ons from a French operator
Upsun (formerly Platform.sh)	Hosted PaaS	Paris entity, offices in Europe and North America	EU regions on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and OVHcloud	Upsun	Commercial	A preview environment per branch
Koyeb	Hosted serverless	Boulogne-Billancourt, France (joining Mistral AI)	Frankfurt and Paris among its regions	Koyeb	Commercial	Containers and GPU inference that scale to zero
Northflank	Hosted PaaS, also your own cloud	London, UK	European regions such as Frankfurt, or your own cloud account	Northflank, or your cloud account	Commercial	A full developer platform with managed databases
Ankra	Your own account	Sweden	Kubernetes on Hetzner, OVHcloud, UpCloud, DigitalOcean, AWS or Proxmox VE	You own the servers, Ankra operates them	Commercial, open source CLI	Running apps on European providers after leaving a big cloud
Qovery	Your own account	Paris, France	EKS, GKE, AKS or Scaleway Kapsule, or a cluster you connect	You own the account, Qovery manages it	Commercial	Teams on AWS, GCP, Azure or Scaleway
Coolify	Self-hosted	Open source project	Any server reachable over SSH	You	Apache 2.0	A few apps on a European VPS
Dokploy	Self-hosted	Open source project	Your servers, with Docker Compose and Swarm	You	Apache 2.0 outside a proprietary directory	Docker Compose apps across a few servers

Hosted European PaaS

These five run the whole platform for you, including the infrastructure contract.

Scalingo

Scalingo is a PaaS and database service from Scalingo SAS, registered in Strasbourg. Its public region runs in Paris on 3DS Outscale, and a second Paris region on Outscale’s government cloud is available on request.

What it is good at. The workflow is close to Heroku’s, with push to deploy, review apps for every pull request and runtimes for Ruby, PHP, Node.js, Python, Java, Go and more. Managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, caching, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch and InfluxDB come from the same vendor.

Where it is a weaker fit. Hosting is in France on one infrastructure partner, so it does not suit teams that want to pick their own provider or region.

Best for teams moving a Heroku app that want the same workflow with hosting in France.

Clever Cloud

Clever Cloud is a French PaaS based in Nantes. A git push triggers a full build and deployment, with no Dockerfile required. It says it runs its own datacentres in France, and it lists zones in Paris, Gravelines, Roubaix, London and Warsaw, plus Montreal, Singapore and Sydney.

What it is good at. It covers many runtimes (Node.js, Python, PHP, Java, Go, Ruby, Rust, .NET, Docker and more) and managed add-ons including PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch and object storage. It also sells on-premises and air-gapped versions of the platform.

Where it is a weaker fit. You run on Clever Cloud’s infrastructure and its partners’ (it names OVHcloud and Scaleway), not in a cloud account of your own.

Best for teams that want many languages and managed services from one French operator, with a path to on-premises later.

Upsun

Upsun is the cloud application platform that was called Platform.sh until its 2025 rename. Its French entity, Platform.sh SAS, is in Paris, with other offices in Europe and North America. Its European regions are in Ireland and Sweden (AWS), France (OVHcloud and Azure), and Germany, Switzerland and the UK (Google Cloud).

What it is good at. Every branch can get a full-stack preview environment, which suits teams with many developers and long-lived feature branches.

Where it is a weaker fit. Regions sit on large clouds that Upsun picks, so it does not help if your goal is to move onto a European provider of your own choosing.

Best for larger web teams that want a preview environment for every branch and a choice of European regions.

Koyeb

Koyeb is a serverless platform for containers, AI inference and sandboxes, from a company registered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. In February 2026 Koyeb announced an agreement to join Mistral AI. It says the platform keeps operating and that new users can sign up for paid plans only.

What it is good at. You deploy code, containers or models with a git push or a CLI call, and services scale up under load and back to zero. It offers GPUs (L4, L40S, A100 and others) and a managed serverless Postgres with pgvector. Frankfurt and Paris are among its core regions.

Where it is a weaker fit. The acquisition is recent, so check the roadmap with Koyeb before you commit a long-lived production system.

Best for inference endpoints and bursty container workloads that should run in Frankfurt or Paris.

Northflank

Northflank is a developer platform from Northflank Ltd, registered in London. Its managed cloud has regions called Europe West, Europe West Frankfurt, Europe West Netherlands and Europe West Zurich. It can also run in your own cloud account on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle, Civo, CoreWeave or Nebius.

What it is good at. It builds from a Dockerfile or Buildpacks, gives every plan pipelines and preview environments, and runs managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB and Redis with backups. Workloads run in microVMs by default, which also suits sandboxes for AI-generated code.

Where it is a weaker fit. The company is in the UK rather than the EU, and its own-cloud route targets large clouds and GPU clouds. A cluster on Hetzner or OVHcloud has to be built by you and imported.

Best for teams that want a complete developer platform today, with the option to move into their own AWS, Google Cloud or Azure account later. See Ankra vs Northflank for details.

Push-to-deploy in your own European cloud account

These four deploy onto servers you own, at the provider and region you pick.

Ankra

Ankra is an AI-powered platform from Ankra AB in Sweden that takes a GitHub repository to a running application on Kubernetes in your own cloud account. It builds the cluster on Hetzner, OVHcloud, UpCloud, DigitalOcean, AWS or Proxmox VE, creates provider-run clusters such as OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes, or imports one you already run. Its control plane is hosted in Finland, with database backups kept in Germany.

What it is good at. Getting an application live and keeping it running without a platform team, including apps built with AI coding tools. One command (ankra application ship .) registers the repository, opens a setup pull request, builds the first image in your cluster and deploys it. After that every successful build rolls out, and production can wait for an explicit deploy while staging follows every merge. Pull requests get throwaway previews. Ankra Pipelines run tests, a rootless build and Semgrep, Checkov and Trivy scans in your cluster, only the image the gate approved is deployed, and you can roll back to an earlier build.

It also suits teams leaving an expensive big cloud for a European or cheaper provider. You pick any EU region your provider offers, and Cloud Cost can price your cluster on the other providers Ankra supports before you move. Upgrades, backups to a bucket you own, a Security Center that ranks vulnerabilities by CISA KEV and EPSS, and AI that reviews pull requests and analyses failures (with changes waiting for approval by default) come with it. Databases run as add-ons in the same cluster, and a managed PostgreSQL service is in beta. The first 30 worker vCPU are free for life (see pricing), and Enterprise customers can self-host Ankra, including air-gapped. If you want Ankra to supply the servers too, Ankra Cloud runs in Sweden and France and is in beta.

Where it is a weaker fit. Your app runs on Kubernetes, so your team will meet some of its concepts even though Ankra handles most of the work. If you want no cloud account and no servers at all, a hosted PaaS is simpler. If one Docker host is all you need, Coolify or Dokploy fit that job.

Best for teams that want Heroku-style deploys on servers they own at a European provider, plus the operations after launch. Our Heroku alternative page walks through the move.

Qovery

Qovery is a platform from BIRDSIGHT SAS in Paris that provisions and manages infrastructure and deployments in your own cloud account. It creates EKS, GKE, AKS and Scaleway Kapsule clusters natively and can connect any other Kubernetes cluster you bring. It describes itself as an agentic infrastructure platform for humans and agents.

What it is good at. It handles the full cluster setup on its native clouds, including networking, load balancers and DNS, then gives developers self-service deploys with ordered pipeline stages and preview environments created when a pull request opens. Scaleway Kapsule gives it a fully managed route on a French provider. For strict environments it offers a control plane that runs entirely inside your network.

Where it is a weaker fit. Qovery’s own sovereign-cloud guide says it has no native OVHcloud or Hetzner integrations. On those providers you build and maintain the cluster yourself and connect it.

Best for teams on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure or Scaleway that want a developer platform in their own account. See Ankra vs Qovery for a side-by-side view.

Coolify

Coolify is an open source (Apache 2.0), self-hostable alternative to Heroku, Vercel and Netlify. It deploys apps, databases and one-click services with Docker to any server it can reach over SSH. A paid Coolify Cloud option runs the Coolify panel for you while you still bring your own servers.

What it is good at. It is quick to start. Put it on a small VPS at a European host and you get push-to-deploy from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket or Gitea, pull request deployments and more than 280 one-click services.

Where it is a weaker fit. You run it yourself, so upgrades, backups and patching of the hosts are your job. It is built around Docker on individual servers rather than a cluster.

Best for solo developers and small teams running a few apps on one or two European servers.

Dokploy

Dokploy is an open source deployment platform (Apache 2.0 for everything outside a proprietary directory) that you install on your own servers. It deploys applications and Docker Compose stacks, and can spread them across several servers with Docker Swarm. A hosted plan is also available.

What it is good at. Native Docker Compose support makes it easy to bring an existing Compose setup across, and you can add remote servers as you grow.

Where it is a weaker fit. Operations are yours, as with any self-hosted panel. Multi-server setups rely on Docker Swarm, which has a smaller ecosystem than Kubernetes.

Best for teams whose apps already live in Docker Compose files and who want a simple panel on their own servers.

European managed Kubernetes, the infrastructure layer

In the second family you also choose where the servers come from. These four European providers run the Kubernetes control plane for you. They are infrastructure, not a PaaS.

• STACKIT Kubernetes Engine (SKE), from the Schwarz Group’s cloud provider, Schwarz Digits Cloud GmbH & Co. KG in Bad Friedrichshall, Germany. STACKIT says it runs seven datacentres in Europe and hosts data only in Europe.
• IONOS Cloud Managed Kubernetes, from IONOS Cloud GmbH in Montabaur, Germany. The control plane is free. IONOS lists European datacentres in Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, London, Worcester and Logroño.
• OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes Service, from OVH SAS in Roubaix, France. A free plan sits beside a Standard plan that spreads the control plane across three availability zones. European regions include Paris, Milan, Gravelines, Roubaix, Strasbourg, Limburg, Warsaw and Erith.
• Scaleway Kubernetes Kapsule, from Scaleway SAS in Paris. The control plane has no extra cost, and regions include Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan.

Ankra creates OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes clusters directly, Scaleway Kapsule is in beta, and it can import clusters you create elsewhere. Qovery creates Kapsule clusters natively and connects the others through its bring-your-own-Kubernetes route.

How to choose

• If you want the closest thing to Heroku with hosting in France, pick Scalingo or Clever Cloud.
• If you want a preview environment per branch on a European region of a large cloud, pick Upsun.
• If you serve AI models or bursty containers and want scale to zero in Frankfurt or Paris, pick Koyeb.
• If you want a complete hosted developer platform now and your own AWS, GCP or Azure account later, pick Northflank.
• If you are leaving a big cloud for Hetzner, OVHcloud, UpCloud or another European provider and want push-to-deploy plus the operations after launch, pick Ankra.
• If your company is standardised on AWS, GCP, Azure or Scaleway, pick Qovery.
• If you run a few apps on one or two servers and are happy to maintain them, pick Coolify or Dokploy.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good Heroku alternative hosted in Europe?

For a fully hosted service, Scalingo and Clever Cloud are the closest match to Heroku’s workflow, and both host in France. Upsun, Koyeb and Northflank also offer European regions. If you want the servers in your own account at a European provider, Ankra, Qovery, Coolify and Dokploy give you push-to-deploy on infrastructure you choose.

I need a Heroku alternative that is GDPR compliant with EU hosting. What should I use?

No platform makes you compliant on its own, so check the terms with your legal advisers. What you can compare is where the vendor is based and where it hosts data. Scalingo and Clever Cloud are French and host in France, and with Ankra, Qovery, Coolify or Dokploy you pick the provider and region yourself.

What are good European alternatives to Vercel and Render for backend services?

Koyeb and Northflank run containers and APIs in European regions, and Scalingo and Clever Cloud cover classic web apps with databases. For a Render-style workflow on servers you own, see our Render alternative page.

Which EU sovereign Kubernetes platforms should I consider?

We do not rate providers on sovereignty, since that depends on your requirements. European-headquartered providers with managed Kubernetes include STACKIT and IONOS in Germany, and OVHcloud and Scaleway in France. You can run a deployment platform such as Ankra or Qovery on top of them.