I've deployed some Node.js code on both Azure and Heroku, and I have to say the Heroku experience is in many ways superior:
* Both seem to do Node quite well, supporting both web instances and workers
* Deployment to Azure can take 30 minutes. On Heroku we average 30 seconds
* App setup on Heroku uses environment variables and the simple Procfile. On Azure you need to deal with poorly-documented XML files (most documentation deals with how to generate those with wizards in Visual Studio)
* Heroku's toolbelt works on Linux, Mac, and Windows. With Azure you have to use Visual Studio or Windows Powershell
* Azure provides some useful services like table storage and message queue. But Heroku has a much wider array of nicely-working add-ons to choose from, many of these things you could run on your own servers as well, like Redis or Postgres
* Last time I checked, Azure was quite expensive. This may have changed with their recent pricing cuts
* On the plus side, Azure lets you choose where to run your app geographically (USA, Europe, Asia?)
* Both seem to do Node quite well, supporting both web instances and workers
* Deployment to Azure can take 30 minutes. On Heroku we average 30 seconds
* App setup on Heroku uses environment variables and the simple Procfile. On Azure you need to deal with poorly-documented XML files (most documentation deals with how to generate those with wizards in Visual Studio)
* Heroku's toolbelt works on Linux, Mac, and Windows. With Azure you have to use Visual Studio or Windows Powershell
* Azure provides some useful services like table storage and message queue. But Heroku has a much wider array of nicely-working add-ons to choose from, many of these things you could run on your own servers as well, like Redis or Postgres
* Last time I checked, Azure was quite expensive. This may have changed with their recent pricing cuts
* On the plus side, Azure lets you choose where to run your app geographically (USA, Europe, Asia?)
Compare:
http://universalruntime.tumblr.com/post/14303346830/running-...
https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/nodejs