node.js - Load Balancing with Node and Heroku

I have a web app that accepts api requests from an ios app. My web app is hosted on Heroku using their free dyno which is able to process 512 mb of data per request. Because node is a single threaded application this will be a problem once we start getting higher levels of traffic from the ios end to the web server. I'm also not the richest person in the world so i'm wondering if it would be smart to create another free heroku app and use a round robin approach to balance the load received from the ios app?

I just need to be pointed into the right direction. Vertical scaling is not really an option financially.

Answer

As mentioned by Daniel it's against Heroku rules. Having said that there are probably other services that would allow you to do that.
One way to approach this problem is to use cluster module with ZeroMQ (you need to have ZeroMQ installed before using the module - see module description).

var cluster = require('cluster');
var zmq = require('zmq');


var ROUTER_SOCKET = 'tcp://127.0.0.1:5555';
var DEALER_SOCKET = 'tcp://127.0.0.1:7777';

if (cluster.isMaster) {
  // this is the main process - create Router and Dealer sockets
  var router = zmq.socket('router').bind(ROUTER_SOCKET);
  var dealer = zmq.socket('dealer').bind(DEALER_SOCKET);

  // forward messages between router and dealer

  router.on('message', function() {
    var frames = Array.prototype.slice.cal(arguments);
    dealer.send(frames);
  });

  dealer.on('message', function() {
    var frames = Array.prototype.slice.cal(arguments);
    router.send(frames);
  });


  // listen for workers processes to come online
  cluster.on('online', function() {
    // do something with a new worker, maybe keep an array of workers
  });

  // fork worker processes
  for (var i = 0, i < 100; i++) {
    cluster.fork();
  }
} else {

  // worker process - connect to Dealer
  let responder = zmq.socket('rep').connect(DEALER_SOCKET);

  responder.on('message', function(data) {
    // do something with incomming data
  })
}

This is just to point you in the right direction. If you think about it you can create a script with a parameter that will tell it if it's a master or a worker process. Then on the main server run it as is, and on additional servers run it using worker flag which will force it to connect to the main dealer.

Now your main app needs to send the requests to the router, which will be later forwarded to the worker processes:

var zmq = require('zmq');
var requester = zmq.socket('req');

var ROUTER_SOCKET = 'tcp://127.0.0.1:5555';

// handle replies - for example completion status from the worker processes
requester.on('message', function(data) {

  // do something with the replay
});

requester.connect(ROUTER_SOCKET);

// send requests to the router
requester.send({
  // some object describing the task
});