How to Migrate Off Heroku to AWS With Minimal Downtime (And Who Actually Handles the Ops for You)

Migrating from Heroku to AWS with minimal downtime depends primarily on moving and synchronizing the database before redirecting application traffic, typically by preparing RDS or Aurora, running both environments in parallel, lowering DNS TTLs, using a brief read-only period to drain replication lag, and retaining Heroku as a rollback option after cutover. The process also requires rebuilding Heroku-managed capabilities such as buildpacks, add-ons, secrets, scaling, logging, scheduled jobs, preview environments, networking, and security controls, which can make ongoing operational ownership more significant than direct infrastructure costs. The text distinguishes self-operated infrastructure tools such as Terraform, Pulumi, AWS DMS, App Runner, ECS, and Massdriver; managed internal developer platforms such as Qovery, DuploCloud, Porter, and Northflank that provide Heroku-like workflows in customer-owned cloud accounts; and consultancies that assist with a one-time migration but leave long-term operations to the customer. It recommends selecting App Runner or ECS Fargate for simpler services, considering Kubernetes and a platform layer for larger multi-team environments, carefully validating database replication limitations from Heroku Postgres, including queue and worker state in migration planning, rehearsing rollback procedures, and weighing AWS savings against engineering effort, nonproduction resource waste, and the continuing responsibility to operate the resulting platform.

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