How do I install additional software packages that my application requires?

Issue

Some applications or frameworks require additional software packages to be installed on the dyno, that are not part of the standard Ubuntu .

Resolution

We don't offer official support for installing extra packages but there are a couple of unsupported options.

One is the experimental heroku-apt-buildpack https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-apt. You can use this by including any APT package in an Aptfile in your application. The buildpack will then install these packages on the dyno when you deploy your application.

You can also use a custom buildpack. See Third party buildpacks for more information. Please be aware though, that third party buildpacks are an option but the buildpacks themselves are unsupported. They might not be maintained by the original authors and have stopped working. If that's the case, you'll need to contact the original author to see if they can help.

Additionally we support Docker Deploys via our Container Registry, providing you much more control over your applications stack.

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