Corteza Low-Code v Salesforce (Lightning and Heroku)

Smooth App Development: App customization is straightforward – users (including citizen developers) define data modules, drag-and-drop pages, and add workflows, deploying to users within minutes​ planetcrust.com. This simplicity enables business technologists with minimal coding skills to build business enterprise software quickly. Corteza’s ecosystem even includes the Aire AI App Builder (an AI assistant) to generate app models from natural language prompts, further accelerating development​ planetcrust.com.

– there are no license fees to use its full feature set. Organizations can self-host Corteza at no cost, making it a very cost-effective solution for enterprise applications. Even with commercial support from Planet Crust, the cost per user is a fraction of Salesforce’s pricing. (For example, Corteza imposes no limits on number of users or records, whereas achieving similar capacity in Salesforce requires an Enterprise-tier subscription costing around €150 per user/month​ planetcrust.com.) Thus, the TCO is lower: companies avoid recurring license fees, paying only for infrastructure or optional support. This open source (opensource) model also means no vendor lock-in – the enterprise system you build remains yours.

. There are also platform-only user licenses for custom app access, but costs remain significant for large user counts. Salesforce’s pricing includes hosting and support, but additional fees can accrue for extra data storage, advanced features (e.g. Einstein Analytics, Salesforce Shield), or third-party AppExchange apps.

Heroku’s Model: Heroku operates on a usage-based pricing model – it has a free tier for hobby projects, but professional use entails paying for dyno resources, databases, add-ons, etc. This offers flexibility (pay for what you use), but costs can scale up quickly with heavier usage or larger deployments​

peerspot.com. In summary, Salesforce targets enterprise budgets (justified by robust capabilities and ROI for large organizations​ peerspot.com), whereas Corteza’s open-source approach drastically lowers licensing expenses, appealing to cost-sensitive scenarios.

cortezaproject.org. The platform is delivered as Docker containers, making it easy to deploy on scalable infrastructure (Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, etc.). In practice, Corteza can scale to organizations of all sizes by adding more server resources or instances as needed​

cortezaproject.org. There is no inherent multi-tenant limit; one can run multiple Corteza server instances behind a load balancer to handle increased load. However, scalability is managed by the user/hoster – i.e., the onus is on the deploying organization to provision and tune the infrastructure for high availability and throughput (similar to other self-hosted enterprise systems). With proper setup, Corteza can support large user counts and data volumes (as evidenced by its use as an alternative to large CRM suites), but it may require engineering effort to achieve the seamless elasticity that proprietary clouds offer out-of-the-box.

peerspot.com. Organizations can start small and grow to thousands of users without fundamental re-architecture, as Salesforce will allocate the necessary resources (though higher usage may prompt purchasing larger editions or add-ons for capacity). Heroku Scaling: Heroku provides on-demand scalability for custom apps by scaling out dynos (containers). It excels in quick scaling for web workloads and offers tools to horizontally or vertically scale apps with a few settings changes. This is very agile for developers, but cost and certain limits are considerations – e.g. at very large scale, the cost grows linearly, and some specialized scaling (like large Docker containers or certain regional restrictions) may face constraints​ peerspot.com. In summary, Salesforce/Lightning offers effortless scaling as a service, while Heroku gives developer-controlled scaling of apps; Corteza can be scaled to enterprise levels but requires self-management.

planetcrust.com, ensuring that users only see or modify what they are authorized to. Data residency and security are under the user’s control since Corteza is self-hosted; organizations can deploy it on-premises or in their private cloud to meet specific compliance needs (e.g. deploying in an EU data center for GDPR compliance). The platform supports marking sensitive personal data and other privacy features to help comply with regulations​

docs.cortezaproject.org. Being open-source, its codebase is transparent and can be audited for security by the community. That said, Corteza as software does not carry certifications by itself – compliance (HIPAA, ISO27001, etc.) will depend on your hosting environment and procedures. Enterprise users can obtain professional support to implement security best practices, and hosting providers offering Corteza (or the company behind Corteza) may have their own compliance attestations. In short, Corteza gives you the tools (and freedom) to build a secure, compliant solution, but you are responsible for the configuration and environment.

compliance.salesforce.com. This significantly reduces the compliance burden on customers, as Salesforce’s infrastructure meets many regulatory standards by default. Additionally, Salesforce offers add-on products like Salesforce Shield for enhanced encryption, event monitoring, and field audit tracking, catering to highly regulated industries.

Heroku Security: Heroku, as part of Salesforce, inherits a strong security ethos – it sandboxed apps in isolated containers and provides enterprise features like Heroku Private Spaces and Heroku Shield (which offers HIPAA-compliant environments) for higher security needs. It also aligns with compliance programs (e.g. ISO, SOC) through Salesforce’s Compliance program. In summary, Salesforce/Heroku deliver a high level of security and compliance readiness out-of-the-box (with extensive documentation on shared responsibility), whereas Corteza’s security is highly configurable but largely in the hands of the user due to its self-hosted nature.

planetcrust.com. This suits organizations that need sovereignty or have specific IT policies, as well as those who prefer open-source in their existing IT stack.

peerspot.com.

Heroku Deployment: Heroku is also a cloud service (hosted on AWS on Salesforce’s behalf). Users deploy apps to Heroku’s multi-tenant runtime by pushing code; for more control, Heroku offers Private Spaces which allocate dedicated resources (in specific regions) for enterprise customers, and Heroku Shield for environments that meet stringent compliance. Nonetheless, all these are managed by Heroku/Salesforce – the user cannot self-host Heroku. In summary, Salesforce’s offerings are cloud-first and cloud-only: you gain ease of deployment at the cost of control. Corteza, by contrast, can be run anywhere, giving you a choice between convenience (hosted by a provider) and control (self-hosted).

cortezaproject.org). There are community forums, documentation, and community-contributed extensions (e.g. app templates) available to help citizen developers succeed. For organizations that require guaranteed assistance, Corteza’s primary sponsor (Planet Crust) offers professional support contracts and development services​ cortezaproject.org. This means enterprises can get SLAs, training, and custom development if needed, despite the software being free. The community, while not as large as Salesforce’s, is passionate and responsive within open-source channels. Corteza’s governance under a foundation and its commitment to being “free forever” also encourage a transparent, collaborative culture. Overall, support is two-fold: community support for those who self-serve, and enterprise support via vendors for those who need dedicated help – a model common in open-source Business Enterprise Software platforms.