web / paas

From 2009-2023, I deployed my database-backed web apps to Heroku. When I wanted to move to a new provider, I created croaky/webstack to prototype different PaaS stacks.

Based on the location of users of my app, I set up API checks via Checkly from Northern California and London. Each stack served a healthcheck-style HTTP API endpoint that executed a SELECT 1 to a SQL database and responded with JSON {"status":"ok"}. Each stack used a lightweight router, a SQL database driver (no ORM), and a database connection pool. Example:

package main

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"log"
	"net/http"
	"os"

	"github.com/jackc/pgx/v4/pgxpool"
)

func main() {
	// env
	port, ok := os.LookupEnv("PORT")
	if !ok {
		port = "8080"
	}
	dbUrl, ok := os.LookupEnv("DATABASE_URL")
	if !ok {
		dbUrl = "postgres:///webstack_dev"
	}

	// db
	db, err := pgxpool.Connect(context.Background(), dbUrl)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	defer db.Close()

	// routes
	http.HandleFunc("/", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
		var col int
		db.QueryRow(r.Context(), "SELECT 1").Scan(&col)
		w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
		fmt.Fprintf(w, "{\"status\":\"ok\"}")
	})

	// listen
	log.Println("Listening at http://localhost:" + port)
	log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":"+port, nil))
}

Heroku

My baseline Heroku workflow was:

• Version code in a GitHub repo
• Open GitHub pull requests w/ CI
• Merge into main branch to auto-deploy to staging environment
• Promote staging manually to production environment in a pipeline
• Configure production database with a high availability follower and continuous backups

While performance and reliability were good on Heroku, my confidence was shaken when its GitHub integration broke in April 2022 and it took over a month to be resolved.

Heroku also lacked some long overdue features such as HTTP/2 support and it was not possible to restrict access to its Postgres database from public internet without a major increase in cost.

Render

I ended up choosing Render and Crunchy Bridge Postgres. This combo felt like the smallest step from Heroku. I felt both companies were mature orgs and my software would be reliable.

Some things I liked about Render:

• Good customer support.
• IP access control on Postgres databases
• DDoS protection
• HTTP/3 and HTTP/2 support.
• Zero-downtime deploys via health checks
• SOC2 certified.

Crunchy Bridge was a good fit for me because I am "all-in" on Postgres, using it as a transactional database and for my job queues.

Considerations for others

Consider Fly.io if your priorities are multi-region, low-latency, or lowest cost.

Consider Northflank if your users are mainly in Europe, or if your mindset is particularly oriented around Docker or Kubernetes.

Consider Railway if your priorities are fast build times or you want to interact with your infrastructure primarily via web UI.

Consider Aiven if you have multiple database types you want managed such as a combination of Postgres, Redis, Kafka, or ElasticSearch.