# Azure Kubernetes Service vs DigitalOcean Kubernetes

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/azure-aks-vs-digitalocean-kubernetes/

Every value below is read from Azure Kubernetes Service's and DigitalOcean Kubernetes's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Azure Kubernetes Service | DigitalOcean Kubernetes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | Not readable. The page names three tiers — Free with no SLA, Standard with one, Premium for long-term version support — and prints no figure against any of them in text, the same way Azure's SLA pages and Amazon's OpenSearch OCU rate do not. | Nothing for the control plane. Nodes start at $12/month each on the Basic tier, so the smallest real cluster is the node bill and nothing else. |
| Pricing model | Tiered by what the control plane promises rather than by capacity: Free has no SLA, Standard has one and raises the node limit to 5,000, Premium buys long-term support for older Kubernetes versions. Nodes are billed as ordinary Azure compute underneath. | Nodes only, with the control plane free and high availability for it sold as a $40/month upgrade. Inbound transfer is free and outbound starts at 2,000 GiB a month. |
| Autoscaling | Supported — Standard tier raises the node limit to 5,000; Free does not say | Supported |
| Uptime SLA | None on the Free tier, stated in those words. Standard adds a financially backed API server uptime SLA and a pod readiness SLA; no percentage is printed on the pricing page. | None published for Kubernetes: /sla/kubernetes and /sla/kubernetes-service both soft-404. The docs describe the control plane as highly available, which is a description of the service rather than a commitment about it. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- Azure Kubernetes Service: Not readable. The page names three tiers — Free with no SLA, Standard with one, Premium for long-term version support — and prints no figure against any of them in text, the same way Azure's SLA pages and Amazon's OpenSearch OCU rate do not. ([source](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/kubernetes-service/))
- DigitalOcean Kubernetes: Nothing for the control plane. Nodes start at $12/month each on the Basic tier, so the smallest real cluster is the node bill and nothing else. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/kubernetes))

### Pricing model

- Azure Kubernetes Service: Tiered by what the control plane promises rather than by capacity: Free has no SLA, Standard has one and raises the node limit to 5,000, Premium buys long-term support for older Kubernetes versions. Nodes are billed as ordinary Azure compute underneath. ([source](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/kubernetes-service/))
- DigitalOcean Kubernetes: Nodes only, with the control plane free and high availability for it sold as a $40/month upgrade. Inbound transfer is free and outbound starts at 2,000 GiB a month. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/kubernetes))

### Uptime SLA

- Azure Kubernetes Service: None on the Free tier, stated in those words. Standard adds a financially backed API server uptime SLA and a pod readiness SLA; no percentage is printed on the pricing page. ([source](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/kubernetes-service/))
- DigitalOcean Kubernetes: None published for Kubernetes: /sla/kubernetes and /sla/kubernetes-service both soft-404. The docs describe the control plane as highly available, which is a description of the service rather than a commitment about it. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/kubernetes/details/limits/))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Azure Kubernetes Service if Starting without paying for a control plane at all: the Free tier costs nothing and you pay only for nodes, which is the cheapest way into managed Kubernetes on a hyperscaler.

Pick DigitalOcean Kubernetes if The node bill and nothing else. The control plane is free at any size, inbound transfer is free, and the smallest real cluster is one $12 node — no per-cluster fee to amortise across workloads.

Consider something else: Azure Kubernetes Service — You want to know what production costs. The Free tier has no SLA in Azure's own words, Standard buys one, and the page prints no figure for either — the tier names render and the prices are filled in by an API after load.

Consider something else: DigitalOcean Kubernetes — You need a commitment in writing. DigitalOcean publishes no Kubernetes SLA — both SLA URLs soft-404 — and high availability for the control plane is a $40/month upgrade rather than the default, which is more than the control plane costs anywhere else.

## Documented by only one

- Included bandwidth: DigitalOcean Kubernetes: Free inbound transfer, and free outbound from 2,000 GiB a month upward on the Basic tier.
- Containers: Azure Kubernetes Service: Supported
- Dedicated infrastructure: DigitalOcean Kubernetes: High availability for the control plane is an explicit $40/month upgrade rather than the default, so a cluster is single-control-plane until you pay for it not to be.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Azure Kubernetes Service or DigitalOcean Kubernetes?**

Azure Kubernetes Service: Not readable. The page names three tiers — Free with no SLA, Standard with one, Premium for long-term version support — and prints no figure against any of them in text, the same way Azure's SLA pages and Amazon's OpenSearch OCU rate do not.
DigitalOcean Kubernetes: Nothing for the control plane. Nodes start at $12/month each on the Basic tier, so the smallest real cluster is the node bill and nothing else.

**Should I choose Azure Kubernetes Service or DigitalOcean Kubernetes?**

Pick Azure Kubernetes Service if Starting without paying for a control plane at all: the Free tier costs nothing and you pay only for nodes, which is the cheapest way into managed Kubernetes on a hyperscaler.
Pick DigitalOcean Kubernetes if The node bill and nothing else. The control plane is free at any size, inbound transfer is free, and the smallest real cluster is one $12 node — no per-cluster fee to amortise across workloads.