An Intro to Heroku Add-ons

Heroku Postgres

Chances are you’re using a database. This one comes by default on your app, but the “Hobby Dev” service level is really only suitable for just that. The upgrade, Hobby Basic, works well for low-traffic apps. If you’re expecting any signifigant amount of simultaneous users, upgrade to Standard Yanari. The biggest differentiating factor between the databases at this level is the amount of simultaneous connections allowed. (At least) one connection is established for each web dyno you’re running - and usually more (commonly, if you’re using Unicorn to split dynos).

Relevant Links

Heroku Postgres addons.heroku.com

How to upgrade a Heroku database and keep all your datadevcenter.heroku.com

PG Backups

Heroku’s PG Backups add-on should come by default on your app. But it doesn't. Choose the “Auto - One Month Retention” plan. This will save both daily and weekly backups of your database automatically, and keeps them around for a month. It’s set-and-forget and there’s no reason to not use it (it’s free!)

Relevant Links

PG Backups addons.heroku.com

PG Backups docs, including how to restore your database from a backupdevcenter.heroku.com

Loggly

Sometimes you need to check your logs, but `heroku logs -t` will only take you so far. Loggly saves all your logs and lets you search, filter, and monitor them. The free plan is useful for basic applications where keeping logs for a long time isn’t necessary. The paid plans get pricey, but if you’re dealing with an application where it’s critical to save and parse logs for longer than 24 hours, you might have the budget.

Relevant Link

Loggly addons.heroku.com

Sendgrid / Mandrill

If you’re sending transactional emails, one of these add-ons will help you. Both will get you where you need to go, so pick your flavor. I’ve had luck with both. Mandrill is from MailChimp, so if you’e loyal to their email campaign manager, go with them to support their business. Both have a free plan which is useful for dev and hobby projects.

Relevant Links

Mandrill by MailChimp addons.heroku.com

Sendgrid addons.heroku.com

Mandrill docsdevcenter.heroku.com

Sendgrid docsdevcenter.heroku.com

Heroku Scheduler

Heroku’s version of “cron jobs”. This add-on lets you run a command-line command at a repeating daily/hourly interval. This will help you do stuff like run an hourly Twitter scrape or sending batches of emails in the background without fussing with delayed jobs.

Relevant Link

Heroku Scheduler addons.heroku.com

New Relic

New Relic is Google Analytics for your back-end. It will point out slow database queries, controller actions, and give you insight into exactly how quickly and efficiently your pages are loading in near-realtime. The “Stark” plan is free, which gives you a fully-featured suite for an application that runs on 1.5 dynos or less, on average (in other words, an app that’s in development).

Relevant Links

New Relic addons.heroku.com

New Relic docs, including install and config instructions devcenter.heroku.com

Honeybadger

I’ll spare you the internet joke. Honeybadger monitors your app and lets you know (via email or SMS) when an error occurs, as it occurs. It also saves the full context of the error - the request data, headers, browser version, OS, and a lot more. There’s not a free plan, but the cheapest plan will serve most of your needs. It’s been a lifesaver for me (despite also being an “oh, crap” moment generator). There’s a handful of other error monitoring services offered as add-ons, too, but I’ve found Honeybadger to be the most reliable and least annoying.

Relevant Links

Honeybadger addons.heroku.com

Honeybadger docs, including install and config instructions devcenter.heroku.com

Zencoder

If you’re processing video uploads, Zencoder is a great transcoder. It works by grabbing a video file from one URL and spitting it out somewhere else, like S3. It works really well with the carrierwave_direct gem, which sends user-uploaded videos directly to S3 (and helps you bypass Heroku’s 30MB / 30-second request limits).

That said, if you want to use Zencoder as a transcoder, you’re better off signing up for their service on their website, and not using the Heroku add-on. It’s much cheaper, and the steps to integrate into your app are almost the same.

Relevant Links

Zencoder Addon addons.heroku.com

Official Zencoder Website zencoder.com

carrierwave_direct github.com

Adept Scale

Adept Scale keeps track of your website’s average response times and scales your web dynos in response to slowness. You can set upper and lower limits on the dynos, and set the thresholds of how eager your dynos are to scale. This helps protect your site from sudden bursts of traffic. If you’re running a production-level application, Adept Scale is almost always worth using. It will scale your dynos down when traffic is low, which will save you more than the cost of the add-on (the lowest cost plan is $18/mo, while Heroku’s dynos are currently ~$34/mo). This type of scaling is also possible to do with some app-level coding, but Adept Scale is considerably easier and quicker to set up.

Relevant Link

Adept Scale addons.heroku.com