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Heroku vs Netlify

Netlify scores higher on the AgentReady, 83/100 against 63/100. They differ on 13 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

Heroku. Heroku is a fully managed cloud application platform (PaaS) for building, deploying, and scaling apps.

Netlify. All-in-one platform to build, deploy, manage, and extend modern web apps—powered by agents, AI workflows, Git, CI/CD, extensions, and serverless architecture.

Where Heroku is ahead

Heroku passes llms-full.txt / full agent docs, and Netlify does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds adopt: no mandatory sales call, copyable quickstart and official python sdk. Netlify misses those.

Where Netlify is ahead

Netlify passes openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided and errors and status codes documented, and Heroku does not. That is understand, whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it.

It also holds adopt: self-service signup and programmatic credential creation. Heroku misses those.

And on operate, machine-readable errors, rate-limit behavior predictable and agent compatibility verified. Heroku misses those.

What neither does

Both fail authentication documented, pricing understandable, free trial or free allowance, fast time to first request, retry behavior documented, idempotency support. If your agent needs any of those, you will be building it yourself either way.

Score, pillar by pillar

The AgentReady splits into four pillars, scored separately, because a product can be easy to find and still impossible to adopt.

Discover. Heroku leads 100 to 93. Heroku misses nothing; Netlify misses llms-full.txt / full agent docs.

Understand is whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it. Netlify leads 85 to 38. Heroku misses openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, pricing understandable, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented; Netlify misses authentication documented, pricing understandable.

Adopt. Both sit at 65/100 here. Heroku misses self-service signup, programmatic credential creation, free trial or free allowance, fast time to first request; Netlify misses no mandatory sales call, free trial or free allowance, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart, official python sdk.

Operate. Netlify leads 89 to 47. Heroku misses machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified; Netlify misses retry behavior documented, idempotency support.

Pricing

Heroku does not publish a machine-readable starting price. Netlify does not publish one.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

Netlify clears more of the signals an agent needs, so it is the safer default for unattended use. Full profiles: Heroku and Netlify. Alternatives to each: Heroku, Netlify.

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["heroku", "netlify"]}