Controlling object creation

I have a class whose object must be created on the heap. Is there any better way of doing this other than this:

class A
{
public:
  static A* createInstance(); //Allocate using new and return
  static void deleteInstance(A*); //Free the memory using delete

private:
  //Constructor and destructor are private so that the object can not be created on stack
  A(); 
  ~A();
};

From stackoverflow

• This is pretty much the standard pattern for making the object heap-only.

  Can't really be simplified much, except that you could just make the destructor private without forcing the use of a factory method for creation.

• I'd suggest making only the constructor private and return a shared_ptr to the object instead.

  class A
  {
  public:
    static sharedPtr<A> createInstance(); //Allocate using new and return
  
  private:
    //Constructor is private so that the object can not be created on stack
    A(); 
  };
  

• Check this at C++ FAQ lite:

  [16.21] How can I force objects of my class to always be created via new rather than as locals or global/static objects?