Heroku

Raised as a usability problem by 30 people on Hacker News over 19 years (2008–2026), in 28 threads.

People raised many different problems with Heroku, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 31 complaints

Announcement wording is confusing, hard to understand the actual change2026-02-07
Main page takes 20-30 seconds to load and crashes often2024-11-04
SSO links to add-ons like New Relic take two tries to open, and users must re-auth too often2024-11-03
Account deleted for inactivity but still charged, with no easy way to cancel2023-04-18
Standard tasks have become confusing and documentation fails, forcing users to contact support2022-11-28
Old backups fail to restore after pgcrypto change, with no documented migration path2022-08-24
The key limitation, a 90-day free window, is hidden in fine print behind expanding details2022-05-12
Advisory looks unexpandable and its entry is unlabeled; expand then back errors out2022-05-04
The company's announcement is confusing, so readers must work out which secrets to rotate2022-05-04
Notification email gives no clear instruction on whether the user is affected or what to do2022-04-16
Front page doesn't show what users must do to get started2021-03-12
Free dyno hours limit was confusing; docs didn't explain it, needing support to understand2017-12-25
UI pushed a database upgrade that suddenly raised the price to $502015-10-22
Can't tweak nginx, Apache or on-dyno caching without network overhead2014-09-26
Light purple text on dark purple and black is hard to read2014-07-24
Installing matplotlib or combining Python with R requires hacking buildpacks, wasting days2014-06-23
Aptana's project layout conflicts with Heroku's expected top-level files, forcing hacky workarounds2014-05-19
Couldn't find documentation for setting up phpMyAdmin, getting lost after the git push workflow2014-04-30
Took hours to work out steps that weren't documented, and couldn't find the answers2013-04-26
Simple commands like listing releases or viewing logs take seconds to respond2013-04-04
Standalone installer fails before installing anything2013-03-15
Opening a support ticket requires searching the knowledge base and scrolling to a hidden link2012-10-12
Can't find information on max Java heap size2012-09-19
Installing the Heroku tools took hours, with missing dependencies and hidden install steps2012-06-05
Couldn't find clear info on free dyno hours on their website2012-06-04
Two-column layout is hard to scan when quickly looking for a specific add-on2012-03-30
Dark background with dim, shadowed text makes the content hard to read2012-03-30
New interface is cluttered and complex, making documentation hard to navigate2011-02-14
Expiration date needs translating into a dropdown format and form resets after format error2010-11-09
The page is hard to read, which makes it difficult to follow.2009-03-04
Clicking sign-up only refreshes the page, with no visible confirmation or feedback2008-02-07