Heroku, which was acquired by Salesforce (CRM +2.36%) in 2011, was one of the original platform-as-a-service providers. A PaaS platform like Heroku lets developers develop, deploy, and manage apps without having to fiddle with the underlying infrastructure. PaaS platforms are a dime a dozen today, but Heroku is still a major player. Gartner recently named Heroku a leader among cloud-native application platforms for 2025.
Despite that leadership position, Salesforce is pivoting away from Heroku. In an announcement on Feb. 6, the company disclosed that Heroku would adopt a "sustaining engineering model." The platform will be actively supported, but there will be no new features, and new customers won't be eligible for Enterprise Account contracts.
Heroku isn't exactly dead, but it may as well be. Any company running production applications, particularly mission-critical workloads, are almost certainly going to be heading to the exits eventually.
Where will those customers end up? DigitalOcean (DOCN 3.60%) is a likely destination.
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A PaaS platform, and so much more
The main selling point of Heroku is convenience. Developers can quickly spin up an application and a supporting database without having to deal with servers or worry about scaling.
DigitalOcean's App Platform is similar to Heroku. Developers can easily deploy applications, hook them up to managed databases, add in some load balancers to distribute traffic, and top it off with additional storage. The company is also quick to iterate and innovate. Earlier this month, DigitalOcean's App Platform added a 1-Click Deploy option for OpenClaw, a wildly popular agentic AI open-source project.
While Heroku is strictly a PaaS platform, DigitalOcean caters to a broader set of needs. Developers can also spin up virtual servers when necessary or full-blown Kubernetes clusters. For a middle ground between IaaS and PaaS, the Cloudways service offers managed servers. And for customers needing to run AI inference workloads, there's DigitalOcean's Gradient platform.
One likely reason for Salesforce pivoting away from Heroku is to focus on AI products like Agentforce. While the wisdom of this strategy is debatable, DigitalOcean offers the best of both worlds. Alongside its IaaS and PaaS offerings, DigitalOcean's Gradient AI platform can handle a wide range of AI workloads, from training models on bare-metal servers with GPUs to creating AI agents.
Thousands of customers up for grabs
DigitalOcean wasted no time going after Heroku's customers, publishing a detailed migration guide within days of the announcement that maps every Heroku product to the equivalent product on the company's App Platform. While migration is still a complex process, the company is making it as easy as possible. DigitalOcean is also offering 3 months free for new workloads, as well as direct assistance for larger prospective customers.
DigitalOcean's revenue growth has been accelerating as the company leaned into AI. Revenue rose by 16% year over year in the third quarter, and the company raised its outlook for 2025 in November, thanks in part to direct AI revenue more than doubling. The company is becoming more popular with larger customers, with revenue from customers spending at least $100,000 annually soaring by 41% in the third quarter and accounting for more than one-quarter of total revenue.
NYSE: DOCN
Key Data Points
With DigitalOcean making a play at converting Heroku customers to its platform in the wake of Salesforce's decision, the cloud provider could see revenue growth accelerate in 2026 as large Heroku customers search for a new home. There are plenty of options, including major cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services. However, DigitalOcean's App Platform offers the same kind of convenience that made Heroku a popular choice.
DigitalOcean stock has been surging over the past few months, and it's certainly not a clear-cut bargain. But with a combination of AI and the Heroku development, accelerating revenue growth could keep the rally going deep into 2026. DigitalOcean reports its fourth-quarter results on Feb. 24, so investors should mark their calendars.
