Heroku is certainly "expensive" if your comparison is "I can make it at home for nothing". But our time has a price as well, and honestly the only thing young companies or projects should be doing is spending time getting customers and revenue. Deployment ops is a later stage activity.
When you tip over that threshold from "default dead", that is, non-revenue focused activity won't kill your company in 6 months, then and only then do I think it makes sense to switch over from Heroku to something else.
I still use Heroku all the time, and recommend it to clients who are starting out as well. (Just like how I recommend buying a $10 theme for design instead of wasting money fiddling with a designer/design team).
You need to determine product market fit, pricing, and distribution first.
When you tip over that threshold from "default dead", that is, non-revenue focused activity won't kill your company in 6 months, then and only then do I think it makes sense to switch over from Heroku to something else.
I still use Heroku all the time, and recommend it to clients who are starting out as well. (Just like how I recommend buying a $10 theme for design instead of wasting money fiddling with a designer/design team).
You need to determine product market fit, pricing, and distribution first.