AppHarbor
AppHarbor was a self-serve .NET Platform-as-a-Service that automatically built, tested, and deployed .NET web and background-worker applications on AWS for individual developers and small teams.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2010
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What AppHarbor does
AppHarbor was a Platform-as-a-Service provider focused exclusively on .NET applications, founded around 2010-2011 by Rune Sorensen and operated by AppHarbor Inc. out of San Francisco. The platform delivered Heroku-style deployment for the Microsoft stack: developers pushed code from Git, Mercurial, or Subversion repositories, and AppHarbor automatically built, tested (including NuGet restore), and deployed .NET applications to web and background worker processes on Windows Server 2012 R2 and IIS 8.5, running on Amazon Web Services in US-East and EU-West (Dublin) regions. Beyond hosting, the product offered vertical and horizontal scaling of worker units, real-time logging built on Heroku's Logplex, integrated performance metrics (CPU, memory, response-time percentiles), multi-region deployment, WebSocket and SPDY support, Google PageSpeed optimizations, SSL variants (piggyback, SNI, IP-based), and a Heroku-compatible add-on marketplace spanning databases (SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, CouchDB, RavenDB), caching, monitoring (New Relic, Librato, AirBrake, Appfail), search (Elasticsearch variants), email, and image/load-testing services.
AppHarbor firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- AppHarbor
- Legal name
- AppHarbor Inc.
- Website
- https://appharbor.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2010
- Operating status
- Closed
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- AppHarbor was a self-serve .NET Platform-as-a-Service that automatically built, tested, and deployed .NET web and background-worker applications on AWS for individual developers and small teams.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
AppHarbor industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Cloud Application Platform (PaaS)
- NAICS
- Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Platform Engineering & Internal Developer Platforms (IDP) for Compute (HDABADAI)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Managed Databases (Relational/NoSQL/In-Memory DBaaS) (HDABAAAE)
Keywords
Where AppHarbor is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Markets served
AppHarbor business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Platform Hosting Subscription: AppHarbor charged for hosting .NET applications based on worker unit allocation. Pricing was structured around 'plans' that included worker units, with vertical scaling options. All prices were prorated - customers only paid for the time resources were provisioned.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Monthly | Yacht Plan - 4 worker units |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels2 records
Marketing channels4 records
AppHarbor product offering
Product offeringCore offering
AppHarbor provides a .NET Platform-as-a-Service that enables developers to push code from Git, Mercurial, or Subversion repositories and have it automatically built, tested, and deployed to a scalable cloud environment running Windows Server 2012 R2, IIS 8.5, and .NET 4.5.x. The platform offers vertical and horizontal worker scaling, real-time logging via Logplex, WebSocket and SPDY support, and an integrated catalog of third-party add-ons for databases (MSSQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, CouchDB, RavenDB), caching, search, monitoring, email, and performance tools.
Product overview
AppHarbor was a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) built for .NET applications, providing a complete application deployment and hosting platform. The core offering consisted of the AppHarbor PaaS Platform for building, deploying, and scaling .NET applications, paired with database add-ons including MSSQL and MySQL. The platform supported vertical scaling with configurable worker sizes (1x to 4x), and maintained an extensive add-ons catalog featuring third-party integrations for databases (RavenDB via CloudBird/RavenHQ, PostgreSQL via ElephantSQL, MongoDB via JustOneDB, CouchDB via Cloudant, Memcached via MemCachier), search services (Elasticsearch via SearchBox and Found), monitoring (New Relic, Librato, Hosted Graphite, AirBrake, Appfail), email (SendGrid, Cloudmailin), and performance tools (Google PageSpeed, Cloudinary, Loader.IO). Additional developer tools included a REST API with .NET SDK, CLI, and open-source libraries for authentication (AppHarbor.Web.Security), cloud storage uploads (Nupload), and custom metrics (MetricReporter). The platform operated in US and EU regions on AWS infrastructure and supported WebSocket, SPDY, and real-time logging via Logplex. All services were terminated on December 5, 2022 after nearly 12 years of operation.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- AppHarbor PaaS Platform Platform-as-a-Service for .NET applications providing automated build, deployment, hosting, and scaling on Windows Server 2012 R2 and IIS 8.5. Supports .NET 4.5 through 4.5.2, ASP.NET MVC 5, Visual Studio 2013 solutions, automatic NuGet package restore, unit test execution, web and background workers, vertical and horizontal scaling, WebSocket and SPDY support, real-time logging, and integrated performance metrics.
- MSSQL Add-on Hosted Microsoft SQL Server database service offered as a paid add-on for applications running on the AppHarbor PaaS. Available in shared and dedicated configurations, automatically provisioned based on application region.
- MySQL Add-on Hosted MySQL database service running on AWS RDS with multi-AZ support, offered as a paid add-on for .NET applications on the AppHarbor PaaS.
Quantifiable outcome
- 80-100ms (~40%) reduction in average response time when scaling vertically 3x, with doubled request throughput
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use AppHarbor
Customer profileNamed customers2 records
Segments1 record
Ideal customer profiles1 record
AppHarbor technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration29 records
Feature11 records
AppHarbor partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Twelve partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- LibratocoreLibrato integration provided turnkey solution for monitoring and analyzing application performance metrics. AppHarbor wrote metrics to log stream in l2met format, and Librato visualized and aggregated the data with alerting capabilities.
- New ReliccoreNew Relic was offered as an add-on for performance monitoring, real user monitoring (RUM), application transaction tracing, and SQL analysis. Professional plan was available for $19/month per worker unit (reduced from $45).
- FoundcoreFully hosted and managed Elasticsearch service with replication and automatic failover to secondary site for mission-critical environments. HTTPS API compatible with NEST, Tire, PyES libraries.
- LogentriescoreAutomated integration for sending AppHarbor logs to Logentries service when add-on was provisioned. AppHarbor's log format was automatically recognized by Logentries.
- ElephantSQLcoreCloud-hosted PostgreSQL as-a-service with free plan available. Updated PostgreSQL-NHibernate example MVC app to work with ElephantSQL.
- SearchBox (ElasticSearch)coreSearchBox provided fully hosted and managed ElasticSearch full-text search service as an add-on. NEST was the preferred .NET client for integration.
- Found (Elasticsearch)coreFully hosted and managed Elasticsearch clusters with reserved memory and storage, HTTPS API, replication and automatic failover. Available as add-on from Found.
- MemCachiercoreFully managed Memcached service offered as an add-on. Provided MEMCACHIER_SERVERS, MEMCACHIER_USERNAME, and MEMCACHIER_PASSWORD configuration variables. EnyimMemcached recommended as .NET client.
- XeroundcoreScalable, highly-available database-as-a-service for MySQL applications. Provisioned via add-on with XEROUND_DATABASE_URL configuration variable.
- CloudantcoreHosted CouchDB service for NoSQL document storage. CLOUDANT_URL configuration variable provided after provisioning.
- IronMQcoreMessage queue service for distributed task processing. IRON_MQ_TOKEN and IRON_MQ_PROJECT_ID configuration variables injected when provisioning.
- Heroku Add-on EcosystemcoreAppHarbor's add-on API was compatible with Heroku's add-on API, allowing existing Heroku add-ons to easily port to AppHarbor. Supported regions parameter to provision resources in US or EU based on application location.
Scale indicators2 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
AppHarbor competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Heroku (Salesforce): Heroku is the original multi-language Platform-as-a-Service that pioneered the git-push, dyno-based, add-on marketplace model that AppHarbor directly emulated for the .NET ecosystem. Both target developers seeking a managed deployment platform with an ecosystem of third-party add-ons.
- CloudBees: CloudBees offers a managed CI/CD and cloud-based Jenkins platform for building, testing, and deploying applications. It overlaps with AppHarbor's automated build, test, and deploy workflow for .NET, positioned as a managed alternative to self-hosted Jenkins.
- Jelastic: Jelastic is a PaaS that provides automated scaling, devops workflows, and multi-language support (Java, PHP, Node.js, .NET, Ruby, Python) across multiple cloud providers. It targets the same developer-led managed PaaS use case as AppHarbor, with comparable add-on and scaling features.
- Engine Yard: Engine Yard is a managed PaaS historically focused on Ruby on Rails, with support for Node.js and PHP, offering git-based deployment, scaling, and add-on services. It competes in the same managed-application PaaS category as AppHarbor, targeting developers who want cloud-abstracted hosting.
- dotCloud (Docker): dotCloud was a multi-language PaaS that pioneered container-based application packaging before pivoting to become Docker. As a PaaS, it competed head-on with AppHarbor for developers who wanted a managed deployment platform across multiple runtimes.
Emerging players
- Railway: Railway is a modern PaaS offering git-push deployment, managed databases, and one-click service provisioning, with a developer experience similar to Heroku (and by extension AppHarbor). It is a newer entrant rebuilding the Heroku-style PaaS category for current-generation developers.
Broad incumbents
- Microsoft Azure App Service: Azure App Service is Microsoft's first-party PaaS offering for .NET, Java, Node.js, Python, and PHP applications, with built-in CI/CD, scaling, and slots. It is the most direct .NET-targeted PaaS competitor to AppHarbor, backed by Microsoft's enterprise sales force and global infrastructure.
- OpenShift (Red Hat / IBM): Red Hat OpenShift is a container-based application platform with PaaS-style developer workflows, supporting multiple runtimes including .NET. It overlaps with AppHarbor's developer-experience-first platform positioning while addressing enterprise Kubernetes workloads.
- AWS Elastic Beanstalk: AWS Elastic Beanstalk is Amazon's PaaS layer for deploying and scaling web applications and services, including support for .NET on IIS. It overlaps with AppHarbor's core value proposition of managed application deployment, but as part of the broader AWS portfolio with deeper enterprise reach.
- Google App Engine: Google App Engine is a fully managed serverless application platform supporting multiple runtimes. It is a broad PaaS incumbent offering similar automated build, deploy, and scale capabilities as AppHarbor, with substantially greater resources and language coverage.
Market position
Strengths1 record
Weaknesses2 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
AppHarbor social profiles
Digital presenceAppHarbor financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
AppHarbor leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
AppHarbor funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds1 record
Investors2 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
AppHarbor M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about AppHarbor
What does AppHarbor do?
AppHarbor provides a .NET Platform-as-a-Service that enables developers to push code from Git, Mercurial, or Subversion repositories and have it automatically built, tested, and deployed to a scalable cloud environment running Windows Server 2012 R2, IIS 8.5, and .NET 4.5.x. The platform offers vertical and horizontal worker scaling, real-time logging via Logplex, WebSocket and SPDY support, and an integrated catalog of third-party add-ons for databases (MSSQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, CouchDB, RavenDB), caching, search, monitoring, email, and performance tools.
Is AppHarbor a public or private company?
AppHarbor is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently closed.
When was AppHarbor founded?
AppHarbor was founded in 2010. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is AppHarbor based?
AppHarbor is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does AppHarbor make money?
One revenue line is on record: platform Hosting Subscription.
Who are AppHarbor's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Heroku (Salesforce), CloudBees, Jelastic, Engine Yard and dotCloud (Docker). Railway is listed as an emerging player. Broad incumbents are Microsoft Azure App Service, OpenShift (Red Hat / IBM), AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Google App Engine.
Does AppHarbor have an API?
Yes. AppHarbor provides a REST-based API that allows developers to create and manage applications, handle configuration variables, manage hostnames, retrieve build and test status, access application error logs, and more. The API supports OAuth v2 authentication. Key API endpoints include Applications API, Builds API, Collaborators API, Errors API, Configuration Variables API, Hostnames API, Service Hooks API, Users API, Tests API, Log Session API, and Drains API. A .NET SDK (AppHarbor.NET) is available via NuGet for .NET developers. An AppHarbor CLI is also available for command-line deployment and management. Developer documentation is at support.appharbor.com/kb/api/api-overview.
What industry is AppHarbor in?
AppHarbor's product category is Cloud Application Platform (PaaS). Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDABADAI, Platform Engineering & Internal Developer Platforms (IDP) for Compute, with a secondary code of HDABAAAE, Managed Databases (Relational/NoSQL/In-Memory DBaaS). Its NAICS code is 518 and its SIC code is 7372.