Introduction: Why a "Post Mortem" for Heroku Connect?

For years, Heroku Connect has served as a primary conduit for synchronizing data between Salesforce environments and Heroku Postgres databases.¹ It enables developers to build custom applications on the Heroku platform that leverage and interact with critical CRM data stored within Salesforce.³ However, the term "Post Mortem" in this context signifies more than an analysis of a single failure; it represents a critical examination of the service's overall health, its history of operational challenges, user-reported difficulties, and its future prospects within the evolving Salesforce ecosystem.

This analysis is prompted not by a single catastrophic event, but by a confluence of factors. Documented limitations, persistent user pain points, and broader strategic shifts within Salesforce including the retirement of adjacent services like Salesforce Functions ⁴ and the phasing out of Heroku's free tiers ⁶ collectively cast a shadow of uncertainty over Heroku Connect's long-term trajectory. While no official end-of-life announcement has been made for Heroku Connect specifically, the changing landscape necessitates a thorough review.

The objective of this report is to provide a comprehensive, evidence-based assessment for developers, architects, and technical managers who currently rely on Heroku Connect or are evaluating it against alternatives. We will delve into its core functionality, scrutinize its limitations and historical reliability, analyze user-reported challenges and their impact, investigate potential signals regarding its future, and explore the landscape of alternative solutions.

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Defining Heroku Connect: Purpose, Functionality, and Use Cases

Heroku Connect is fundamentally a Heroku add-on designed explicitly for data synchronization between a Salesforce organization and a Heroku Postgres database.¹ It acts as a bridge, allowing data to flow between these two distinct environments.³

Core Functionality:

• Synchronization Modes: It supports both bi-directional (read-write) and uni-directional (read-only) data synchronization, configured on a per-object basis.² This allows developers to choose whether their Heroku application only reads Salesforce data or can also modify it, with changes propagating back to Salesforce.
• Declarative Mapping: Configuration is primarily handled through a point-and-click user interface within the Heroku dashboard. Users map Salesforce objects and their fields to corresponding tables and columns in the Heroku Postgres database.²
• Data Replication & Consistency: Heroku Connect replicates the selected Salesforce data into Postgres tables. It operates on a principle of eventual consistency, meaning that while it strives to keep the data synchronized, updates are not instantaneous and temporary discrepancies can occur.²
• API Utilization: The service leverages Salesforce APIs (primarily SOAP and, for larger volumes with specific configurations, the Bulk API, requiring Salesforce API v39 or higher) to transfer data.¹⁰ Notably, API calls generated by Heroku Connect for read-write synchronization do not count against an organization's standard Salesforce API limits, which can be a significant advantage.¹⁰
• Heroku External Objects: Included as part of Heroku Connect, this feature provides an OData (Open Data Protocol) wrapper around the synchronized Heroku Postgres database. When used with Salesforce Connect, it allows data residing in Heroku Postgres to be viewed, searched, and related within the Salesforce UI as "External Objects," without actually storing (replicating) that data back into Salesforce storage.²

The very design of Heroku Connect tightly couples its value to the Heroku platform, specifically Heroku Postgres.² It assumes an architecture where applications running on Heroku require direct, database-level access to Salesforce data, using Postgres as the operational data store or a performance cache. This inherent coupling is a defining characteristic, offering seamless integration for those committed to the Heroku ecosystem but presenting a significant barrier for others.¹⁴

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A History of Turbulence: Documented Incidents & Outages

Assessing the specific reliability history of Heroku Connect based solely on public status information presents challenges. Heroku's status page typically categorizes incidents broadly under "Apps," "Data Services," or "Tools".¹⁹ Issues impacting Heroku Connect might be reported under "Data Services" ¹⁹ or even masked by larger platform-wide events.

However, examining available incident reports reveals instances where Heroku Connect was explicitly affected.

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Incident 2775 (March 17-18, 2025): Heroku Connect DB_UNAVAILABLE

• Description: Over approximately 23 hours (from 10:00 UTC March 17 to 09:06 UTC March 18), some Heroku Connect customers experienced their instances becoming stuck in a DB_UNAVAILABLE state.²⁰ This state indicates that Heroku Connect was unable to establish a connection with its associated Heroku Postgres database.²¹ Potential causes for this state include issues with the database itself, incorrect configuration variables linking Connect to the database, or, in some cases, the disappearance of essential Heroku Connect metadata tables (_hcmeta, _trigger_log, _trigger_log_archive) within the database schema.²³
• Impact: While data already synchronized to Postgres remained accessible, new changes from either Salesforce or Postgres were not synced during the incident. The flow of data was effectively paused.²⁰
• Resolution: Heroku engineers resolved the underlying issue, allowing Heroku Connect to resume syncing the data that had been paused. Users were also advised that clicking the "Recover from Error" button in the Heroku Connect dashboard might refresh the connection earlier.²⁰ Public post-incident details are sparse, though one external status aggregator referenced "Salesforce Technology Service Delivery Performance Degradation" potentially related to this event.²⁴

Incident 1059 (February 28 - March 1, 2017): Broader Platform Outage Impact

• Description: This was a significant, multi-hour disruption affecting multiple Heroku platform components.²⁵ The root cause was linked to a major outage of Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 storage in the US-East-1 region, highlighting Heroku's dependency on underlying AWS infrastructure.²⁵
• Impact on Heroku Connect: During the incident, Heroku Status explicitly reported that "Heroku Connect syncing for US apps is delayed".²⁵ This confirms that the platform-wide issues directly impacted Heroku Connect's ability to function correctly.²⁵
• Resolution: Recovery of Heroku Connect functionality was tied to the resolution of the upstream AWS S3 issues and the subsequent restoration of Heroku's own platform services.²⁵ Sync throughput eventually returned to normal levels post-incident.²⁵

Other Potential Impacts and Transient Issues:

Beyond these specific latests incidents, Heroku Connect's operation can be affected by:

• General Platform Instability: Any significant issue with the Heroku platform, such as API unavailability ²⁷, routing problems ²⁸, or database service degradation, can indirectly impact Connect's ability to run or communicate.
• Salesforce API Issues: Heroku Connect relies heavily on Salesforce APIs. Transient errors reported by Salesforce, such as UNABLE_TO_LOCK_ROW or SERVER_UNAVAILABLE, can temporarily interrupt synchronization, although these often resolve automatically.²⁹
• Configuration Errors: As noted previously, errors like OPERATION_TOO_LARGE are often configuration-related (missing View All permissions) rather than service outages.²⁹

The history indicates that Heroku Connect's reliability is intertwined with the stability of several components: the Heroku Connect service itself, Heroku Postgres, the broader Heroku platform, Salesforce APIs, and the underlying cloud infrastructure (AWS). Failures can originate at multiple points in this dependency chain.²⁰ While major outages attributed solely and specifically to Heroku Connect appear relatively infrequent in the available public records, the DB_UNAVAILABLE state seen in Incident 2775 represents a critical failure mode. Periods of degraded performance, such as sync delays or transient errors, are acknowledged operational risks inherent in such a complex, multi-system integration.²¹

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Table 2: Latest Heroku Connect Incidents/Impacts based on community posts

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The User Experience: Common Pain Points & Challenges

Beyond documented limitations and major incidents, day-to-day usage of Heroku Connect often involves navigating a series of practical challenges, as reported by users across forums like Stack Overflow and Reddit, as well as technical blogs. These recurring pain points paint a picture of a service that can be significantly more complex and demanding than its initial setup might suggest.

Sync Brittleness and Error Handling:

• Users report that synchronization processes can be "relatively brittle," where a single error on one record or mapping can potentially halt or disrupt the entire sync flow.¹⁴
• Troubleshooting these errors is frequently cited as difficult.¹⁴ The system sometimes experiences "silent failures" where data inconsistencies arise without clear error flags, requiring manual data validation efforts.⁹
• Resolving errors often requires manual intervention, diagnosing issues that could stem from Salesforce configuration, database state, or Connect itself.⁹ Specific user-reported errors include:

• INVALID_CROSS_REFERENCE_KEY when inserting records (e.g., Opportunity Owner ID issues), potentially caused by conflicting Salesforce automation (flows/triggers) or incorrect External ID setup.³⁰
• Mappings getting stuck in the "Altering DB schema" state, often due to database locks held by application queries or unexpected foreign key constraints defined on the Connect-managed tables.³¹
• DB_UNAVAILABLE errors, indicating a loss of connection to the Postgres database.²⁰
• Read-only errors ("This object is read-only...") typically stemming from insufficient Salesforce permissions for the integration user.³²
• Database connection failures after Heroku maintenance periods, sometimes due to underlying database credentials changing unexpectedly.³³
• Basic connection refused errors, often due to misconfiguration (e.g., application trying to connect to localhost instead of the Heroku database URL).³⁵
• "Streaming Error Encountered" messages related to Salesforce PushTopic issues.³⁷

Performance and Latency:

• The "eventual consistency" model, with polling delays (potentially minutes), is a frequent complaint for use cases requiring near real-time data visibility, such as interactive customer support applications.⁹

Cost:

• Heroku Connect is widely perceived as expensive, with costs potentially reaching "tens of thousands per year".¹⁴ Pricing is often bundled with Heroku Enterprise plans ³⁸ and can be based on the total number of rows synced across all mappings, regardless of change frequency, which can escalate quickly with large Salesforce datasets.⁹ This cost factor is a significant driver for seeking alternatives.¹⁵

Platform Lock-in:

• The strict dependency on Heroku Postgres and the Heroku platform is a major strategic limitation for teams utilizing other cloud providers (like AWS or GCP) or database technologies. It prevents architectural flexibility and hinders cloud migration initiatives.⁹

Complexity and Configuration:

• While basic mapping is declarative, implementing more advanced workflows, such as triggering custom actions based on data changes, is difficult and requires writing custom code to monitor the Postgres database, adding complexity and potential interference with Connect's own triggers.⁹
• Reliable operation, especially for write-backs to Salesforce, necessitates careful configuration regarding Salesforce permissions, dedicated integration users, and the proper use of External ID fields.³
• Effective troubleshooting demands a broad skillset, requiring familiarity with Heroku logs, Postgres diagnostics (like checking for locks), Salesforce administration (permissions, flows), and the intricacies of Heroku Connect's behavior.³⁰

There appears to be a notable gap between the initial user experience of setting up Heroku Connect via its point-and-click interface and the subsequent operational reality. The underlying complexity of bi-directionally syncing two sophisticated platforms often surfaces through performance bottlenecks, challenging troubleshooting scenarios, and unexpected costs, demanding significant ongoing attention and expertise.¹⁴ Cost and platform lock-in, in particular, emerge as critical strategic concerns pushing users to explore alternative integration solutions.¹⁴

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Impact Analysis: Consequences of Failures and Limitations

The limitations, reliability issues, and user-reported challenges associated with Heroku Connect translate into tangible business and technical consequences for organizations relying on the service. These impacts extend beyond mere technical inconveniences, affecting data integrity, operational continuity, development velocity, customer satisfaction, and overall IT strategy.

• Data Integrity Risks: Silent synchronization failures, errors that require manual resolution, or data discrepancies caused by issues like precision loss can lead to inconsistent data between the Salesforce CRM and applications running on Heroku.⁹ This inconsistency can corrupt reports, mislead business decisions based on inaccurate data, and negatively impact interactions that rely on synchronized information.
• Operational Disruptions: Outages, such as Incident 2775 where sync was paused due to the DB_UNAVAILABLE state ²⁰, or even prolonged sync delays caused by performance bottlenecks or errors, can halt critical business processes. Workflows that depend on the timely flow of data between Salesforce and Heroku (e.g., order processing, customer updates, support ticket handling) can be significantly disrupted.¹⁴
• Reduced Developer Productivity: The brittleness of the sync process and the complexity involved in troubleshooting errors across Salesforce, Heroku, and Postgres demand significant developer and administrator time.⁹ Time spent diagnosing obscure sync issues, manually retrying failed operations, optimizing mapping performance, or managing intricate configurations is time taken away from building and enhancing core application features and business logic.
• Negative Customer Experience: For customer-facing applications built on Heroku that rely on Heroku Connect for data exchange with Salesforce, synchronization delays or data inconsistencies directly impact the user experience. Customers might see outdated information, face errors during transactions, or experience slow application responsiveness, potentially leading to frustration and even customer churn, as reported by at least one user.¹⁴
• High Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): The direct subscription costs for Heroku Connect, often bundled with enterprise plans and potentially scaling with synced row counts, can be substantial.⁹ When combined with the indirect costs of operational overhead – the engineering and administrative effort required for monitoring, troubleshooting, and maintenance – the TCO can become significant.
• Strategic Architectural Limitations: The strict dependency on the Heroku platform and Heroku Postgres imposes architectural constraints.⁹ It hinders organizations seeking to adopt multi-cloud strategies, standardize on alternative database technologies, or migrate workloads away from Heroku, forcing them to either maintain Heroku specifically for this integration or undertake complex migration projects to replace Heroku Connect.

These impacts underscore that the decision to use or continue using Heroku Connect involves trade-offs that go beyond initial setup convenience, touching upon core aspects of business operations, financial expenditure, and long-term IT architecture.

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Root Causes & Resolutions: Understanding Failures and Fixes

Understanding the common failure modes of Heroku Connect and their typical resolutions is crucial for effective operation and troubleshooting. Issues generally fall into categories related to synchronization errors, performance degradation, or service availability.

Debunking Myths: Addressing Common Misconceptions

Several misconceptions about Heroku Connect's capabilities and operation can arise, potentially leading to misaligned expectations or incorrect architectural decisions. Addressing these based on the available evidence is important for a clear understanding of the service.

• Myth: Heroku Connect provides real-time data synchronization.

• Reality: Heroku Connect is designed for eventual consistency, not real-time synchronization. It relies on polling mechanisms that introduce inherent latency between when a change occurs in one system and when it's reflected in the other.⁹ While polling can be frequent (potentially down to 10 seconds for writes under specific conditions), it's not instantaneous.⁹ Use cases demanding true real-time updates might be better served by event-driven architectures using Salesforce Platform Events ² or Change Data Capture.

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• Myth: Heroku Connect is a simple "set-and-forget" integration tool.

• Reality: While the initial mapping setup uses a declarative UI, ongoing operation often requires significant monitoring, performance tuning, and potentially complex troubleshooting.³ Resolving issues can necessitate deep knowledge of Salesforce permissions and automation, Heroku logging, Postgres database behavior (like locking), and Connect's specific error states.¹⁴ It demands ongoing attention rather than being a hands-off solution.³

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• Myth: Heroku Connect can synchronize Salesforce data with any database.

• Reality: Heroku Connect is exclusively designed to work with Heroku Postgres. It does not support any other database systems or even other hosting providers for Postgres.³ This tight coupling is a fundamental aspect of the service's design and a major limitation.

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• Myth: All API calls made by Heroku Connect count against Salesforce API limits.

• Reality: This is partially incorrect. API calls made specifically for bi-directional (read-write) synchronization operations by Heroku Connect do not count towards the standard Salesforce daily API request limits.¹⁰ However, other Salesforce limits, such as the number of concurrent API requests allowed per user (typically 10), still apply and can become a bottleneck, necessitating the use of dedicated integration users.³

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• Myth: Heroku Connect is the only or primary way to integrate Heroku applications with Salesforce.

• Reality: Heroku Connect is just one of several integration patterns available between Heroku and Salesforce. Other common methods include: utilizing Salesforce Platform Events for event-driven integration, making direct Salesforce REST/SOAP API calls from Heroku applications, using Apex callouts or Workflow outbound messages to trigger actions in Heroku apps from Salesforce, and leveraging Salesforce Connect (potentially with Heroku External Objects) for data virtualization.² MuleSoft also provides a comprehensive integration platform option.² Heroku Connect specifically addresses the use case of database-level synchronization between Salesforce and Heroku Postgres.

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Clarifying these points helps establish realistic expectations about Heroku Connect's capabilities, limitations, operational requirements, and its place within the broader Salesforce integration landscape.

The Future of Heroku Connect: Deprecation, EOL, or Continued Support?

Assessing the future trajectory of Heroku Connect requires looking beyond direct announcements and considering the broader context of Salesforce's platform strategy and actions within the Heroku ecosystem.

No Official End-of-Life Announcement:

Crucially, as of the latest information available in the research materials (up to mid-2024/early 2025 based on snippet dates), there has been no specific, official announcement from Salesforce or Heroku stating that Heroku Connect is being deprecated or scheduled for end-of-life.

Context of Broader Retirements and Shifts:

However, the environment surrounding Heroku Connect has seen significant changes that raise questions about its long-term prioritization:

• Service Retirements: Salesforce has retired related services, notably Salesforce Functions (also known as Elastic Services), which provided compute capabilities adjacent to Heroku, with an EOL date of January 31, 2025.⁴ Other retirements include older Salesforce API versions, Salesforce for Outlook, and the Cloud Security Website.⁴¹
• Heroku Ecosystem Changes: Heroku discontinued its popular free product plans (Dynos, Postgres, Redis) in late 2022, signaling a strategic shift towards paying, "mission-critical" customers.⁶ Heroku also follows a regular cadence for deprecating and retiring older Heroku stacks (e.g., Heroku-16 EOL'd in 2021 ⁴³, Heroku-20 EOL scheduled for May 2025 ⁴⁴) and older Heroku Postgres versions (e.g., PG12 EOL May 2024 ⁴⁵, PG13 EOL Oct 2024 ⁴⁶), including smaller Mini/Basic Postgres plans.⁴⁷ This demonstrates a pattern of actively managing and retiring older components.
• Heroku's Deprecation Policy: Heroku's stated policy distinguishes between "deprecation" (actively suggesting users no longer use a feature, often pointing to alternatives) and "sunsetting" (gradual phase-out and removal).⁴⁸

Salesforce and Heroku Strategy Signals:

• Stated Focus: In 2022, Salesforce emphasized its focus on Heroku's future, prioritizing security, reliability, regional availability, and compliance for mission-critical applications.⁶ A public roadmap for Heroku was launched on GitHub.⁶
• Promotion of Alternatives: Salesforce actively promotes other integration solutions:

• MuleSoft: Positioned as the strategic Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) for complex, multi-system integrations.²
• Data Cloud: Increasingly central to Salesforce's strategy, with connectors being developed to ingest data from various sources, including a specific (one-way) connector from Heroku Postgres to Data Cloud.²
• Platform Events & APIs: Consistently highlighted as core integration mechanisms.²
• New Heroku Integration Add-on: Mentioned in conjunction with Salesforce Functions retirement and TDX 2025 sessions, suggesting new, potentially simpler or more focused integration tools are being developed.⁴

• Conference Messaging: Recent Salesforce events (like TDX 2025, Dreamforce 2024) still feature Heroku Connect in some use case examples ⁵², but also heavily showcase alternatives like MuleSoft, Data Cloud integration, and next-generation Heroku plans involving Kubernetes.⁵²
• User Perception: Some technically savvy users perceive the Heroku Connect roadmap as effectively stagnant or "basically dead," suggesting a lack of visible innovation or feature enhancements compared to alternatives.⁵⁴

Interpreting the Signals:

While Heroku Connect remains operational and supported, the cumulative evidence points towards a service that is likely in a state of maintenance rather than active strategic development. The retirement of adjacent services, the removal of free tiers impacting broader adoption, the lack of significant recent feature announcements for Connect itself, and Salesforce's clear strategic push towards MuleSoft and Data Cloud as primary integration and data platforms all suggest that Heroku Connect may no longer be a central part of Salesforce's future integration vision.

Its continued existence might serve existing enterprise customers who rely heavily on it, avoiding disruption. However, the lack of investment signals and the promotion of alternatives align with Heroku's definition of "deprecation" in spirit, even without a formal announcement.⁴⁸ This uncertainty makes long-term reliance on Heroku Connect a potential strategic risk for organizations planning new integrations or major architectural changes.

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Alternatives & Strategies: Moving Beyond Heroku Connect

Given the limitations, operational complexities, and uncertain future surrounding Heroku Connect, exploring alternative solutions for integrating Salesforce and PostgreSQL databases, or adopting different integration patterns altogether, is prudent. The landscape offers a variety of options catering to different needs, technical capabilities, and budgets.

Direct Heroku Connect Alternatives (Focus on Bi-Directional Database Sync):

These tools aim to replicate or improve upon Heroku Connect's core functionality of syncing Salesforce data with a relational database, often addressing specific pain points like platform lock-in or real-time performance.

• Stacksync: A modern, enterprise-ready Heroku Connect replacement. Real-time, bi-directional synchronization between Salesforce and various databases (including PostgreSQL hosted anywhere, Snowflake, MySQL, etc.).
  Key differentiators include a no-code trigger editor for workflow automation, improved error handling and observability dashboards, avoidance of Heroku lock-in, and potentially more transparent pricing based on Monthly Active Rows. It supports over 200 connectors
• Bracket: Another direct competitor focusing on real-time, two-way sync between Salesforce and databases like Postgres (any host), MySQL, DynamoDB, MongoDB, and even Airtable. It emphasizes broader database support compared to Heroku Connect, active development, and a significantly lower price point.¹⁴ Setup is described as quick via a web app interface.⁵⁸
• Skyvia: A cloud data integration platform offering multiple tools for Salesforce-Postgres integration:

• Replication: One-way ELT sync from Salesforce to Postgres.⁵⁹
• Import: ETL tool capable of bi-directional sync through configuration, with data transformation capabilities.⁵⁹
• Synchronization: A dedicated tool for bi-directional sync, optimized for incremental updates after an initial load.⁵⁹ Skyvia supports scheduled synchronization (up to once per minute) and offers a no-code interface with a free tier available.⁵⁹

• DBSync: Mentioned as a solution offering real-time, bi-directional data synchronization between PostgreSQL and Salesforce with customizable workflows.⁶¹

Middleware / Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS):

These platforms offer broader integration capabilities beyond simple database synchronization.

• MuleSoft Anypoint Platform: Salesforce's flagship iPaaS solution. It enables complex integrations through API-led connectivity, providing pre-built connectors, data transformation tools, workflow automation, and full API lifecycle management.² While it can certainly handle Salesforce-Postgres sync, it represents a more comprehensive (and typically more complex and expensive) integration strategy compared to Heroku Connect.⁴⁹
• Other iPaaS/ETL Tools: Platforms like Jitterbit, Talend Open Studio, Informatica Cloud, and Integrate.io are also used for Salesforce integration, offering varying levels of ETL/ELT capabilities, pre-built connectors, and pricing models.⁶⁴ Their suitability specifically for real-time, bi-directional Postgres sync needs individual evaluation. Zapier is suitable for simpler, task-based automation rather than database sync.⁶⁴

Salesforce Platform Native Features:

Leveraging Salesforce's own platform capabilities can provide alternative integration patterns.

• Salesforce Connect (External Objects): Allows Salesforce to access data in external systems (like Heroku Postgres via the OData wrapper provided by Heroku External Objects, or other databases via OData or custom Apex adapters) in real time, by reference. Data is not replicated into Salesforce storage. This is ideal for scenarios where users need to view, search, or relate external data within the Salesforce UI but don't need to perform heavy processing on it within Salesforce or require offline access.²
• Platform Events: Enables building decoupled, event-driven architectures. Salesforce can publish events when data changes, and external systems (like Heroku apps) can subscribe to these events in near real-time to trigger actions or update their own data stores. Heroku apps can also publish events to Salesforce.² This is well-suited for high-throughput, asynchronous communication.⁶⁷
• Change Data Capture (CDC): Provides a stream of data change events (creates, updates, deletes, undeletes) for Salesforce records, which external systems can subscribe to for near real-time data replication (primarily uni-directional from Salesforce).⁶⁷
• Salesforce APIs (REST, SOAP, Bulk, Tooling): Building custom integration logic using Salesforce APIs remains a viable, albeit development-intensive, option. External applications can poll or be triggered to call Salesforce APIs, or Apex code within Salesforce can make callouts to external APIs.²
• Data Cloud Connectors: Salesforce is expanding Data Cloud's connectivity. A connector exists for one-way sync from Heroku Postgres to Data Cloud, focused on unifying customer data within that platform.⁵⁰

Cloud-Native Solutions (e.g., AWS):

For organizations heavily invested in other cloud platforms like AWS.

• AWS AppFlow: An AWS service specifically designed for data flow between SaaS applications (including Salesforce) and AWS services. It offers read/write capabilities for Salesforce and can integrate with databases like RDS.¹⁵
• AWS Glue / Lambda / EventBridge: Building custom ETL or event-driven synchronization pipelines using AWS's serverless and data processing services. Glue typically requires an intermediary data store for Salesforce data.¹⁵

The choice among these alternatives is highly dependent on specific requirements: the direction of data flow (uni- vs. bi-directional), latency tolerance (batch vs. near real-time), the need for data replication versus virtualization, budget constraints, available technical expertise, and the organization's overall cloud and integration strategy.⁷

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Table 3: Heroku Connect Alternatives Comparison (Selected)

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Conclusion: Findings of the Heroku Connect Post Mortem

This analysis of Heroku Connect reveals a service that successfully carved out a niche by providing a relatively straightforward mechanism for synchronizing data between Salesforce and Heroku Postgres databases. Its declarative mapping interface and the benefit of not consuming standard Salesforce API limits for write operations made it an attractive option for developers building custom applications on the Heroku platform.

However, the "post mortem" reveals significant challenges and uncertainties. The service operates under numerous constraints, most notably its strict dependency on the Heroku platform and Heroku Postgres, creating vendor lock-in. Its "eventual consistency" model, reliant on polling, falls short of real-time requirements for many modern applications. Achieving reliable performance often demands careful configuration, deep understanding of both Salesforce and Postgres internals, significant database resources, and ongoing tuning. User reports highlight issues with synchronization brittleness, difficult error handling, silent failures, and operational complexity that belie the simplicity of its initial setup. Furthermore, the associated costs, often tied to Heroku Enterprise plans, can be substantial.

Past incidents, while not necessarily frequent solely due to Heroku Connect itself, underscore its dependency on the stability of Heroku Postgres, the broader Heroku platform, Salesforce APIs, and underlying infrastructure like AWS. The DB_UNAVAILABLE state experienced during Incident 2775 highlights a critical potential failure point.

Most significantly, the future of Heroku Connect appears uncertain. While no official end-of-life has been announced, the context is telling: Salesforce is retiring adjacent services, Heroku has shifted focus away from free tiers, and Salesforce's strategic integration efforts clearly emphasize MuleSoft, Data Cloud, and native platform capabilities like Platform Events and APIs. Compared to these actively developed areas and the emergence of modern, dedicated alternatives addressing its key weaknesses, Heroku Connect shows signs of being in maintenance mode rather than receiving active strategic investment.

Therefore, the findings of this post mortem suggest caution. For organizations currently relying on Heroku Connect, a thorough evaluation of its ongoing costs, operational burden, and the strategic risk associated with its uncertain future is warranted. For those considering new Salesforce-Postgres integrations, the landscape now offers numerous alternatives—like Stacksync, Bracket, Skyvia, or leveraging Salesforce native features or iPaaS platforms—that may provide greater flexibility, better performance, broader compatibility, more transparent pricing, and clearer long-term viability. A careful assessment of specific integration requirements against the capabilities and drawbacks of Heroku Connect and its modern alternatives is essential before making a commitment.

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