Deployment

There are a number of different ways to deploy a modern web application. One of them is setting up a virtual machine or root server on something like DigitalOcean and running the application there. It works, but it can also be very time consuming, since it's necessary to make sure everything is running as it should. If something isn't configured correctly, it can mean long down-times until the errors are resolved. Since not everyone is comfortable with running and managing their own server, there is something called PaaS.

Platform as a Service

Platform as a service (PaaS) is a cloud computing model that delivers applications over the Internet.

This means instead of renting and setting up a server which runs an application, a PaaS only needs the application to run. Monitoring, server configuration, server security is up to the service. The user doesn't need to do anything in this area. This is why most of the time a PaaS is more expensive. But the trade-offs are often worth it.

Heroku

Heroku is one of the most popular PaaS provider. It supports all kind of languages and has the ability to add Plug-Ins to applications. This goes from databases to e-mail sending services. This can speed up the development workflow drastically since many tasks can be accomplished right in the heroku web-panel.

Heroku bills the user per app/hour. Their cheapest production plan starts at $7/month with one dyno. A dyno is basically one instance running the application. Those dynos can be scaled up on demand, in case the application is under a higher load. There are also more costly options available, which go up to $500 dyno/month.

Now

Now is a different approach to PaaS. It works with JavaScript and Docker. Instead of paying for each application, Now offers premium accounts for $14.99/month. These accounts allow the user to create 1000 deployments/month. A deployment is an immutable version of an application. This means if the user deploys a new version of the same app, it doesn't get overwritten. All versions stay deployed. Each version has it's own unique link, so they can be shared easily. If the application is ready for production, the only thing left to do is add the domain to the latest deployment.

Another great thing about Now is, how easy it is to deploy an application. The command nowis enough to get a fully operational cloud service.