You can just turn the pinging off. Then they're going to go to sleep by themselves. I've got a hobby app and it goes it sleep. The dyno comes back up in seconds. It's not bad.
Google App Engine also seems like a good place for a hobby app. More constrained, but Heroku is not really that much more flexible compared to totally free-form architecting.
Google App Engine also seems like a good place for a hobby app. More constrained, but Heroku is not really that much more flexible compared to totally free-form architecting.