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Move from Heroku or Render to AWS

Updated October 19, 2026Plans: Free, Pro, Enterprise

Overview

A team leaving Heroku or Render wants two answers first: what the AWS version looks like, and whether it costs less. Most apps on those platforms keep the platform's manifest in the repository: Heroku's app.json or heroku.yml, or Render's render.yaml. Archie reads it, designs the AWS equivalent sized like your dynos or services, and sets the two monthly prices side by side.

Prerequisites

  • A connected repository whose root holds app.json, heroku.yml or render.yaml. See Connect a GitHub or GitLab repository.
  • No Heroku or Render account access is needed. Only the manifest is read.

Steps

  1. On the canvas, open the command palette (Ctrl+K) and choose Version control: branches, history and changes.
  2. Pick the repository and the branch that holds the manifest.
  3. Click Design from this repo.
  4. Read Archie's reply. It names each process or service, what it becomes on AWS, and both monthly prices.
  5. Ask for changes in the chat, for example a bigger database, and the comparison follows the design.
  6. When the design is right, deploy it. See Deploy a diagram to your AWS account.

Example

An app.json that declares two web dynos, a worker, Postgres and Redis:

json
{
  "name": "<your-app-name>",
  "formation": {
    "web": { "quantity": 2, "size": "standard-2x" },
    "worker": { "quantity": 1, "size": "standard-1x" }
  },
  "addons": ["heroku-postgresql:standard-0", "heroku-redis:premium-0"]
}

Change <your-app-name> to your app. Archie's reply for this manifest reads:

text
Your web and worker processes become container services sized like their
dynos, behind a load balancer, with Postgres and Redis beside them. About
$124/mo at AWS list prices. On Heroku, what app.json declares lists at about
$190/mo, so this is about $66/mo less.

Prices are list prices on the day ArchFoundry's price book was read. The Heroku figure covers compute and data plans only: bandwidth, disks, database storage, build minutes and team plans are extra.

Verify it worked

  • A new diagram shows one container service per process, plus the databases the manifest names.
  • Archie's reply gives both monthly figures and the difference.

Troubleshooting

Archie gives no comparison price. Only plans the manifest names are priced. A plan the manifest leaves out, or one no longer on the platform's price list, is named and not guessed.

Your app is on Railway, Fly.io or Vercel. Their manifests (railway.json, railway.toml, fly.toml, vercel.json) are recognised and their services named, but those platforms bill by usage, so there is no list price to compare.

Not set beside the platform's bill. Archie compares only like with like. If the design differs from what the manifest runs, its reply says why it left the comparison out.

Next steps