Benefits of Heroku?

I know c9 is an IDE. Heroku is a hosting platform for apps. What are the advantages of using Heroku over a standard provider such as GoDaddy.

(FYI I am planning on purchasing domains and hosting anyway to play around with it).

I know it takes like 20 seconds to load a heroku app (free version), and there are limits. I can create unlimited websites and subdomains with a hosting provider. Aside from the fact that Heroku is free, why should I use it over C9 for IDE, Web Host, and source on GitHub?

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May I ask then what web hosting providers are good for? I asked a representative once if Linux servers were good for hosting Node.js applications, and he said yes. Is he confused, or does Node work only on certain servers?

Edit: Also, why does PHP or other languages work on providers but not full-stack javascipt? If you have a company that has their website hosted, and wants you to build them back-end in javascript what do you do, do you have to have a host for the website and another hosting provider for node?

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I would assume hosting providers can configure their servers to run Node, it’s just not that common out of the box compared to something like PHP.

I mean, it’s just software. GoDaddy probably can’t be bothered, or maybe don’t let you tinker too much with the server if you’re on a shared box.

I would imagine the benefit of hosting is that you might get more fine grained control over what you can install on it (maybe not on GoDaddy?), but for me the simplicity of Heroku makes it a clear winner.

Caveat: I have no idea what I’m talking about :wink:

Different providers support different technologies, so you have to shop around just as you would for a good price.

For example, Digital Ocean lets you use Node…

I am fine with using heroku for my apps then, but what if I freelance to a business that has a site hosted somewhere and wants me to make a back-end app. Should I tell them to move everything to heroku then?

So for personal use while I’m learning… I don’t have a senior dev. What do you recommend. I want a provider I can try multiple things on (Node, C#, Wordpress). What should I go with now?

Thanks @P1xt, you are the best! FCC is lucky to have someone with your expertise. :grinning:

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I highly recommend Digital Ocean. You can spin up a “Droplet” (their term for essentially a VPS), pre-configured with a lot of Linux flavor options in whatever size you’d like in a few seconds (and seamlessly upgrade it later on). You can also get them pre-configured with a number of software packages (including node-based stacks), or setup whatever you need on it. Pretty painless (well not as painless as Heroku or surge.sh) and very reasonably priced. :wink:

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