by DigitalOceanCloud servers (VPS)
Bundled virtual servers billed per second up to a 672-hour monthly cap, from $4 a month, with pooled transfer, IPv4 included and backups from 20% of the server price.
A 2 vCPU, 4 GiB server with 4,000 GiB of pooled transfer and a public IPv4 address for $24 a month, billed per second and capped at 672 hours.
DigitalOcean bundles vCPU, memory, SSD, transfer and an IPv4 address into one monthly price, billed per second and capped at 672 hours, so a month never costs more than the listed price. Transfer allowances add up across the team, overage is $0.01 per GiB and inbound is free. Backups are a flat share of the server price (20% weekly, 30% daily), and firewalls, VPC networking, monitoring alerts and DDoS protection come at no extra charge. It suits developers who want simple, predictable bills.
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Cloud servers (VPS): what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | DigitalOcean Droplets | Akamai Cloud (Linode) | Vultr Cloud Compute | Amazon Lightsail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Worth the priceA 2 vCPU, 4 GiB server with 4,000 GiB of pooled transfer and a public IPv4 address for $24 a month, billed per second and capped at 672 hours. | Worth the priceA 2 vCPU, 4 GB Linode for $24 a month with 4 TB of pooled transfer, overage at $0.005 per GB and ISO 27001 coverage for compute. | Worth the priceA 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB server for $20 a month with 3 TB of pooled transfer, backed by Vultr's own SOC 2 Type II report and ISO 27001. | Easy to adoptA fixed-price AWS server: 2 vCPUs, 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB of transfer and an IPv4 address for $24 a month, with a path to Amazon EC2. |
| Overall score | 6.6 | 6.7Best | 6.6 | 5.6 |
| Free option | Free trial | Free trial | Free trial | Free trial |
| Card to start | Card required | Card required | Card required | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $4/mo | $5/mo | $2.50/mo | $3.50/mo |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Reference server | Basic Regular: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GiB, 80 GiB SSD, 4,000 GiB transfer, $24/mo | Linode 4 GB: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB transfer, $24/mo | Regular Performance: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 3 TB transfer, $20/mo | Linux General Purpose: 2 vCPU (burstable), 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB transfer, $24/mo with IPv4 |
| Reference scenario (US, monthly) | $28.80: $24 plan + $4.80 weekly backups, computed | $29: $24 plan + $5 Backups add-on, computed | $24: $20 plan + $4 backups (20%), computed | $28: $24 plan + $4 for one 80 GB snapshot, computed |
| Billing | Per second, 60-second minimum, capped at 672 hours a month | Hourly, rounded up, capped at the monthly price; G8 plans and extra IPv4 uncapped | Hourly, 1-hour minimum, capped at 672 hours; VX1 and GPU at 730 hours | Hourly up to the monthly bundle price |
| Transfer overage | $0.01/GiB in every region; pooled across the team; inbound free | $0.005/GB (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific); pooled; inbound free | $0.01/GB; pooled across the account with 2 TB free; inbound free | $0.09/GB in US regions; inbound counts toward the allowance; pooled per plan and region |
| Public IPv4 | Included on bundled plans; reserved IPv4 $5/mo when unassigned | One per Linode included; extra addresses need justification, price not listed | One included; reserved IP $3/mo; extra addresses for an unlisted fee | Included in IPv4 bundles; IPv6-only bundles $1.50 to $4 less |
| Backups | Weekly 20% or daily 30% of the Droplet price; usage-based from $0.01/GiB | Priced per plan ($2 to $5/mo at small sizes); daily, weekly and biweekly copies | 20% of the server price; daily to monthly schedules; two most recent kept | Automatic daily snapshots, latest 7 kept, billed as snapshot storage (Linux only) |
| Snapshots | $0.06/GB-month | One manual snapshot in Backups; captured images $0.10/GB-month | $0.05/GB-month of compressed size | $0.05/GB-month, incremental |
| Free credit | $5 for 90 days, payment method required | $100 for new customers via promo page or referral, payment method required | Coupon credit up to $300 (up to 30 days); free tier server by application | $100 in AWS credits, up to $100 more, Free plan up to 6 months |
| Dedicated vCPU from | $42/mo (CPU-Optimized, 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 25 GiB) | $36/mo (G6 Dedicated 4 GB) or $43 (G7) | $28/mo (CPU Optimized, 1 vCPU, 2 GB); 2 vCPU, 4 GB at $40 | Not offered (burstable plans) |
| Image export | No snapshot download; custom image import (raw, qcow2, VHDX, VDI, VMDK) | No backup download; raw .img image upload up to 6 GB | No snapshot download; ISO and raw image import from a URL | Snapshot export to Amazon EC2 only; no download or import |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type II; own ISO 27001 not stated | SOC 2 Type 1 for compute; ISO 27001:2022 covers compute | SOC 2 Type II (with HIPAA) in the console; ISO 27001:2022 | Lightsail not listed in AWS SOC or ISO scope |
| HIPAA BAA | Through sales or support | On request; compute listed in HIPAA scope | By contract, after an architecture review | Lightsail not on the HIPAA eligible services list |
| EU regions | Amsterdam, Frankfurt (London in the UK) | Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Stockholm | Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Warsaw, Milan | Frankfurt, Ireland, Paris, Stockholm, Spain (opt-in) |
| Spend cap | Spend alerts only | None; transfer emails at 80, 90 and 100% | None self-serve; bandwidth usage emails | AWS Budgets alerts; project spend limits that pause resources only in AWS's new sign-up experience, which is in limited release |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, DigitalOcean is a predictable choice for small servers: IPv4 included, a monthly cap, pooled transfer at $0.01 per GiB and backups at a flat share of the price. Images cannot be downloaded, and new accounts start with limits. | From its public pages, Akamai Cloud keeps Linode's clear plan list and adds low-cost pooled transfer ($0.005 per GB over the allowance), ISO 27001 for compute and free support. Compute has a SOC 2 Type 1 report, and G8 plans are billed without a cap. | From its public pages, Vultr has the lowest list price for the reference server and a broad compliance file with free SSO. Some regional prices are missing from the pricing page, and several pages disagree on details such as DDoS protection. | From its public pages, Lightsail is a simple way to a fixed-price AWS server, with snapshots billed by storage and an export path to EC2. It is not on AWS's compliance scope lists, and transfer beyond the allowance costs $0.09 per GB. |
Evidence: DigitalOcean Droplets: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Akamai Cloud (Linode): facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Vultr Cloud Compute: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Amazon Lightsail: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Review from public pages
Written from DigitalOcean Droplets's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
We read DigitalOcean's Droplet pricing page (including the plan data embedded in it for the Premium CPU tabs), the Droplet, backup, snapshot, custom image, reserved IP, bandwidth and pricing docs, the sign-up credit, spend alert, late payment, resource limit and team docs, the trust, HIPAA and GDPR pages, the DPA and the terms of service on Oct 16, 2026; we did not sign up, create a Droplet or call the API for this review. All prices are listed in US dollars, with one price per plan for every region.
The pricing model is easy to follow. Bundled Droplets are billed per second with a minimum of 60 seconds or $0.01 and capped at 672 hours a month, so the listed monthly price is the most a server costs. Powered-off Droplets are billed until they are destroyed. A new team starts at Tier 1: up to 3 Droplets on Basic plans of up to $48 a month; dedicated-CPU plans need Tier 2, reached with a $50 prepayment, payment history or a request in the console.
A few points need a question. The newer v5 Droplets (US only) have no 672-hour cap and list public IPv4 at an introductory $0.00 an hour that is subject to change. The pricing docs bill per second, while the bandwidth docs say seconds are rounded to the nearest minute. And the plan guide describes sizes that differ from the price list, such as Memory-Optimized from 8 GB where the price list starts at 16 GiB.
Bundled plans include a public IPv4 address, and billing stops at 672 hours, so the $24 plan never costs more than $24 a month before add-ons.
Compared: Hetzner Cloud charges $0.60 a month for each primary IPv4 address on top of the server price.
Allowances add up across every Droplet on the team, overage is $0.01 per GiB with no regional variation, and inbound transfer is free.
vs Amazon Lightsail: Amazon Lightsail charges $0.09 per GB over the allowance in US regions and pools only instances of the same plan in a region.
Weekly backups cost 20% of the Droplet price and daily 30%; usage-based backups run as often as every 4 hours at $0.01 to $0.04 per GiB-month, kept from 3 days to 6 months.
The trust pages list a SOC 2 Type II report, teams can enforce OIDC single sign-on, and Security History records each action with the user and IP address.
Compared: Hetzner Cloud states no SOC 2 report and no single sign-on.
The docs say backups and snapshots cannot be downloaded; they can be copied to other regions or transferred to another DigitalOcean team.
Workaround: The Recovery ISO and console let you mount the disk and copy data off with scp or SFTP.
Tier 1 allows 3 Droplets on Basic plans up to $48 a month; dedicated CPU needs Tier 2, reached with a $50 prepayment, payment history or a request.
Workaround: The resource limits docs list each tier and how to request an increase from the console.
Droplets are HIPAA eligible, but new customers request the BAA from sales and existing customers from support; there is no online acceptance.
Spend alerts warn at a budget but do not limit usage, and the late-payment docs give no fixed timeline before resources are deleted.
Droplets are priced per bundle and billed per second up to a 672-hour cap. For our scenario, the Basic Regular plan with 2 vCPUs, 4 GiB and 80 GiB costs $24 a month with 4,000 GiB of transfer and a public IPv4 address, and weekly backups add 20% ($4.80), so $28.80 a month (computed); daily backups would make it $31.20. The 2 TB of transfer fits in the allowance; beyond it, outbound costs $0.01 per GiB. Premium CPU versions of the same size cost $28, and dedicated CPU starts at $42 (CPU-Optimized, 25 GiB disk). Snapshots are $0.06 per GB-month, volumes $0.10 per GiB-month and an unassigned reserved IPv4 $5 a month. Paid support plans run from $24 to $999 a month per team.
Backups and snapshots cannot be downloaded; they can only be copied to another region or transferred to another DigitalOcean team. To leave, boot the Recovery ISO, mount the disk and copy files off with scp or SFTP, or copy data from the running server. Custom images can be imported (raw, qcow2, VHDX, VDI, VMDK), but no export is described. The late-payment docs publish no fixed timeline before resources are deleted.
From its public pages, DigitalOcean is a predictable choice for small servers: IPv4 included, a monthly cap, pooled transfer at $0.01 per GiB and backups at a flat share of the price. Images cannot be downloaded, and new accounts start with limits.
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Reference server | Basic Regular: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GiB, 80 GiB SSD, 4,000 GiB transfer, $24/mo |
| Reference scenario (US, monthly) | $28.80: $24 plan + $4.80 weekly backups, computed |
| Billing | Per second, 60-second minimum, capped at 672 hours a month |
| Transfer overage | $0.01/GiB in every region; pooled across the team; inbound free |
| Public IPv4 | Included on bundled plans; reserved IPv4 $5/mo when unassigned |
| Backups | Weekly 20% or daily 30% of the Droplet price; usage-based from $0.01/GiB |
| Snapshots | $0.06/GB-month |
| Free credit | $5 for 90 days, payment method required |
| Dedicated vCPU from | $42/mo (CPU-Optimized, 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 25 GiB) |
| Image export | No snapshot download; custom image import (raw, qcow2, VHDX, VDI, VMDK) |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type II; own ISO 27001 not stated |
| HIPAA BAA | Through sales or support |
| EU regions | Amsterdam, Frankfurt (London in the UK) |
| Spend cap | Spend alerts only |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 16, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for DigitalOcean Droplets yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 16, 2026.
We have not published API calls for DigitalOcean Droplets yet.
DigitalOcean Droplets lists 4 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Basic Regular 512 MiB, costs $4/mo.
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-16.
Source: digitalocean.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.
We read the pricing, billing, transfer, backup, trust and legal pages of three developer clouds on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What a 2 vCPU, 4 GB server with backups costs, how transfer is billed, how you leave, and who should pick which.
