# DigitalOcean vs Hostinger VPS

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/digitalocean-vs-hostinger-vps/

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | DigitalOcean | Hostinger VPS |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes — App Platform static sites only: up to three static-site-only apps, 1 GiB outbound data each | No — KVM VPS plans appear only under the 30-day money-back guarantee, not among the free-trial offerings. |
| Kind of free offer | Free tier | No free offer |
| Entry paid plan | $4.00 | $11.99/month on renewal for KVM 1, on a two-year term. The advertised $6.49 is an introductory rate for the first term only. |
| Pricing model | billed per second with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher | Prepaid multi-year terms at a discounted first term, renewing at roughly 1.85x. KVM 1 is $6.49/month on a two-year prepay and $11.99/month on renewal. Milder than the shared-hosting line, where the same structure renews at 3.7x. |
| Egress over allowance | $0.01 per GiB (Droplets); inbound transfer is free and allowances pool across the team. | No per-GB overage price; at the plan monthly bandwidth limit the VPS connection is throttled to 10 Mbps for the rest of the month, resetting at the start of the next month. |
| Storage (entry plan) | 10 GiB SSD on the cheapest Basic Droplet (Regular CPU, 512 MiB / 1 vCPU, $4.00/mo). | 50 GB NVMe on KVM 1, the cheapest plan |
| Memory (entry plan) | 512 MiB on the cheapest Basic Droplet (Regular CPU, 1 vCPU, $4.00/mo). | 4 GB RAM on KVM 1, the cheapest plan |
| Included bandwidth | 500 GiB of included outbound transfer on the cheapest Basic Droplet ($4.00/mo, 512 MiB / 1 vCPU). | 4 TB on KVM 1, rising to 8 TB on KVM 2, 16 TB on KVM 4 and 32 TB on KVM 8 |
| Docker deployment | Supported | Supported |
| Containers | Supported | Supported |
| Persistent processes | Supported | Supported |
| Persistent storage | Supported | Supported |
| Regions | Thirteen regions holding 16 datacenters: New York City (NYC1, NYC2, NYC3), Amsterdam (AMS3), San Francisco (SFO2, SFO3), Singapore, London, Frankfurt, Toronto, Bangalore, Sydney, Atlanta, Richmond, Kansas City and Memphis. | Data centers in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. Hostinger names the continents on the VPS page rather than listing the locations. |
| SOC 2 | SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 Type II certifications issued by independent auditor Schellman & Company; reports via the Security Reports & Certifications Center. | Not SOC 2 certified; the Trust Center states Hostinger holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022 instead. |
| ISO 27001 | Listed only for DigitalOcean's colocated data center facilities, not as a DigitalOcean corporate certification; certificates via the Certifications Center. | ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified; certificate viewable in the Hostinger Trust Center. |
| HIPAA | Annual third-party HIPAA/HITECH attestation; BAA offered through sales; ePHI allowed only on listed HIPAA Eligible products such as Droplets, Kubernetes, Spaces. | Hostinger states its hosting services are not intended to provide a HIPAA-compliant environment. |
| GDPR / data residency | Customer selects the datacenter location at account creation; EU/UK residency available via the Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London datacenters. | GDPR Data Processing Addendum published; EU Standard Contractual Clauses apply to Customer Data transferred outside the EEA. |
| PCI DSS | PCI-DSS SAQ-A validation under a Zero-Footprint data policy; DigitalOcean does not store, process or transmit cardholder data in its admin environment. | Hostinger hosting plans are not designed to meet PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance standards. |
| Encryption at rest | Volumes block storage is encrypted with LUKS; the storage cluster is fully encrypted at rest and snapshots inherit that encryption. | DPA security standards include encrypting Personal Data and sensitive data at rest in databases and shared directories. Hostinger-side processing measure; not a statement about customer-managed VPS disks. |
| Customer-managed keys | Spaces object storage supports SSE-C (server-side encryption with customer-provided keys); bucket-level encryption settings are not supported. Spaces object storage only; read from the Spaces S3-compatible API reference. | Not supported: Hostinger states it does not currently support customer-managed KMS or BYOK and manages key management internally. |
| Role-based access control | Teams have six predefined roles, plus custom roles containing only the permissions you choose. | Account Sharing grants a Collaborator or Admin role, scoped to selected services; each role has a different set of permissions. |
| Dedicated infrastructure | Four of the five bundled Droplet plans use dedicated CPUs with guaranteed full hyper-thread access; only the Basic plan shares hyper-threads. | Each KVM VPS is a dedicated, isolated environment on a physical server, with CPU and RAM not shared with other users. |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- DigitalOcean: Yes — App Platform static sites only: up to three static-site-only apps, 1 GiB outbound data each ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/details/pricing/))
- Hostinger VPS: No — KVM VPS plans appear only under the 30-day money-back guarantee, not among the free-trial offerings. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583320-are-free-hosting-plans-available-at-hostinger/))
- Lean: 78% DigitalOcean / 22% Hostinger VPS — whether it is offered at all. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Kind of free offer

- DigitalOcean: Free tier ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/details/pricing/))
- Hostinger VPS: No free offer ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583320-are-free-hosting-plans-available-at-hostinger/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Entry paid plan

- DigitalOcean: $4.00 ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets))
- Hostinger VPS: $11.99/month on renewal for KVM 1, on a two-year term. The advertised $6.49 is an introductory rate for the first term only. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: 75% DigitalOcean / 25% Hostinger VPS — inversely proportional to the documented price. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Pricing model

- DigitalOcean: billed per second with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/))
- Hostinger VPS: Prepaid multi-year terms at a discounted first term, renewing at roughly 1.85x. KVM 1 is $6.49/month on a two-year prepay and $11.99/month on renewal. Milder than the shared-hosting line, where the same structure renews at 3.7x. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Egress over allowance

- DigitalOcean: $0.01 per GiB (Droplets); inbound transfer is free and allowances pool across the team. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/billing/bandwidth/))
- Hostinger VPS: No per-GB overage price; at the plan monthly bandwidth limit the VPS connection is throttled to 10 Mbps for the rest of the month, resetting at the start of the next month. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/8789965-what-happens-if-your-vps-bandwidth-resource-limits-are-exceeded/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Storage (entry plan)

- DigitalOcean: 10 GiB SSD on the cheapest Basic Droplet (Regular CPU, 512 MiB / 1 vCPU, $4.00/mo). ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets))
- Hostinger VPS: 50 GB NVMe on KVM 1, the cheapest plan ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: 18% DigitalOcean / 82% Hostinger VPS — proportional to the documented capacity. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Memory (entry plan)

- DigitalOcean: 512 MiB on the cheapest Basic Droplet (Regular CPU, 1 vCPU, $4.00/mo). ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets))
- Hostinger VPS: 4 GB RAM on KVM 1, the cheapest plan ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: 11% DigitalOcean / 89% Hostinger VPS — proportional to the documented capacity. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Included bandwidth

- DigitalOcean: 500 GiB of included outbound transfer on the cheapest Basic Droplet ($4.00/mo, 512 MiB / 1 vCPU). ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets))
- Hostinger VPS: 4 TB on KVM 1, rising to 8 TB on KVM 2, 16 TB on KVM 4 and 32 TB on KVM 8 ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: 12% DigitalOcean / 88% Hostinger VPS — proportional to the documented capacity. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Regions

- DigitalOcean: Thirteen regions holding 16 datacenters: New York City (NYC1, NYC2, NYC3), Amsterdam (AMS3), San Francisco (SFO2, SFO3), Singapore, London, Frankfurt, Toronto, Bangalore, Sydney, Atlanta, Richmond, Kansas City and Memphis. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/regional-availability/))
- Hostinger VPS: Data centers in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. Hostinger names the continents on the VPS page rather than listing the locations. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### SOC 2

- DigitalOcean: SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 Type II certifications issued by independent auditor Schellman & Company; reports via the Security Reports & Certifications Center. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/certification-reports))
- Hostinger VPS: Not SOC 2 certified; the Trust Center states Hostinger holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022 instead. ([source](https://trust.hostinger.com/api/statuspage/share/9dc9a6f0-bac9-4f51-93b7-d99aaf0aa3b4/public/kb/search?page=1&sortField=lastUpdatedAt&sortDirection=desc&entriesPerPage=500&productIds=default))
- Lean: 82% DigitalOcean / 18% Hostinger VPS — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### ISO 27001

- DigitalOcean: Listed only for DigitalOcean's colocated data center facilities, not as a DigitalOcean corporate certification; certificates via the Certifications Center. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/certification-reports))
- Hostinger VPS: ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified; certificate viewable in the Hostinger Trust Center. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583287-what-security-measures-does-hostinger-use/))
- Lean: 36% DigitalOcean / 64% Hostinger VPS — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### HIPAA

- DigitalOcean: Annual third-party HIPAA/HITECH attestation; BAA offered through sales; ePHI allowed only on listed HIPAA Eligible products such as Droplets, Kubernetes, Spaces. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/hipaa-at-do))
- Hostinger VPS: Hostinger states its hosting services are not intended to provide a HIPAA-compliant environment. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583287-what-security-measures-does-hostinger-use/))
- Lean: 82% DigitalOcean / 18% Hostinger VPS — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### GDPR / data residency

- DigitalOcean: Customer selects the datacenter location at account creation; EU/UK residency available via the Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London datacenters. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/gdpr-at-do))
- Hostinger VPS: GDPR Data Processing Addendum published; EU Standard Contractual Clauses apply to Customer Data transferred outside the EEA. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/legal/dpa))
- Lean: 64% DigitalOcean / 36% Hostinger VPS — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### PCI DSS

- DigitalOcean: PCI-DSS SAQ-A validation under a Zero-Footprint data policy; DigitalOcean does not store, process or transmit cardholder data in its admin environment. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/certification-reports))
- Hostinger VPS: Hostinger hosting plans are not designed to meet PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance standards. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/pci-and-hipaa-compliance-on-hostinger-hosting-plans/))
- Lean: 82% DigitalOcean / 18% Hostinger VPS — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Encryption at rest

- DigitalOcean: Volumes block storage is encrypted with LUKS; the storage cluster is fully encrypted at rest and snapshots inherit that encryption. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/volumes/details/features/))
- Hostinger VPS: DPA security standards include encrypting Personal Data and sensitive data at rest in databases and shared directories. Hostinger-side processing measure; not a statement about customer-managed VPS disks. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/legal/dpa))
- Lean: 64% DigitalOcean / 36% Hostinger VPS — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Customer-managed keys

- DigitalOcean: Spaces object storage supports SSE-C (server-side encryption with customer-provided keys); bucket-level encryption settings are not supported. Spaces object storage only; read from the Spaces S3-compatible API reference. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/spaces/reference/s3-compatibility/))
- Hostinger VPS: Not supported: Hostinger states it does not currently support customer-managed KMS or BYOK and manages key management internally. ([source](https://trust.hostinger.com/api/statuspage/share/9dc9a6f0-bac9-4f51-93b7-d99aaf0aa3b4/public/kb/search?page=1&sortField=lastUpdatedAt&sortDirection=desc&entriesPerPage=500&productIds=default))
- Lean: 64% DigitalOcean / 36% Hostinger VPS — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Role-based access control

- DigitalOcean: Teams have six predefined roles, plus custom roles containing only the permissions you choose. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/teams/roles/))
- Hostinger VPS: Account Sharing grants a Collaborator or Admin role, scoped to selected services; each role has a different set of permissions. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583777-how-to-share-access-to-your-account-at-hostinger/))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### Dedicated infrastructure

- DigitalOcean: Four of the five bundled Droplet plans use dedicated CPUs with guaranteed full hyper-thread access; only the Basic plan shares hyper-threads. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/concepts/choosing-a-plan/))
- Hostinger VPS: Each KVM VPS is a dedicated, isolated environment on a physical server, with CPU and RAM not shared with other users. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/8852150-what-is-a-self-managed-vps-at-hostinger/))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

## Which should you choose?

Pick DigitalOcean if Teams that want plain Linux virtual machines with predictable per-second billing from $4 a month, and the option of managed databases beside them. App Platform adds Git and Docker deploys on top.

Pick Hostinger VPS if Running Docker applications on a cheap KVM server with root access, where 4 GB of RAM at the entry plan matters more than a managed control plane. The one-click catalog covers the usual self-hosted stack.

Consider something else: DigitalOcean — You want a platform that manages the runtime for you rather than a server you administer.

Consider something else: Hostinger VPS — The advertised price is introductory. Compare the two-year renewal rate, and note that Hostinger publishes continents rather than data centre locations, so you cannot pick a specific region before buying.

## Documented by only one

One side documents these and the other does not. An absence is a missing source, not a stated "no" — except where a line says the other page was READ on a date and does not mention it, which is a sourced observation and the only one-sided case this site leans on.

- When you exceed a cap: DigitalOcean: Billed automatically — outbound transfer beyond the pooled plan allowance is charged at $0.01 per GiB; inbound transfer is free
- Startup credit program: DigitalOcean: DigitalOcean Startups (formerly Hatch): credits (amount varies, up to $10,000/month) for 12 months, plus 15 months of free Standard Tier support. Requires ≤$10M raised and a registered business account; service-based startups are not eligible.
- Sites or apps included: DigitalOcean: No more than 10 Droplets can be created at the same time through the Control Panel or the API
- File, inode or volume limit: DigitalOcean: Up to 5000 Block Storage volumes per account
- Max request duration: DigitalOcean: The maximum timeout is 15 minutes. This includes initialization and function execution.
- Managed connection pooling: DigitalOcean: Supported
- Git deployment: DigitalOcean: Supported
- Scheduled jobs: DigitalOcean: Supported
- Managed databases: DigitalOcean: Supported
- Edge network: DigitalOcean: Limited
- Scales to zero: DigitalOcean: Not supported
- Autoscaling: DigitalOcean: Supported — App Platform autoscales on CPU or on request metrics; containers are added and removed by workload.
- Uptime SLA: DigitalOcean: 99.99% monthly uptime per individual Droplet, with a 100% service credit for any month below it. Instance-level, and the same for every customer.
- Backup retention: Hostinger VPS: Automatic weekly backups included, plus manual snapshots. Hostinger does not state how many weekly backups are kept.
- Support on entry paid plan: DigitalOcean: Free ticket-based support for everyone, 24/7. Paid plans buy speed and channels rather than infrastructure: Developer $24/month, Standard $99/month with live chat, Premium $999/month with a dedicated Slack channel and video calls.
- Response time commitment: DigitalOcean: Under 8 hours on Developer ($24/month), the cheapest paid support plan. Free is under 24 hours, Standard under 2 hours and Premium under 30 minutes. Not severity-based.
- Private networking / VPC: DigitalOcean: VPC networks are private interfaces inaccessible from the public internet; traffic within a VPC or between peered VPCs in the same datacenter is free.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: DigitalOcean or Hostinger VPS?**

DigitalOcean: $4.00
Hostinger VPS: $11.99/month on renewal for KVM 1, on a two-year term. The advertised $6.49 is an introductory rate for the first term only.

**Free tier: DigitalOcean or Hostinger VPS?**

DigitalOcean: Yes — App Platform static sites only: up to three static-site-only apps, 1 GiB outbound data each
Hostinger VPS: No — KVM VPS plans appear only under the 30-day money-back guarantee, not among the free-trial offerings.

**Egress over allowance: DigitalOcean or Hostinger VPS?**

DigitalOcean: $0.01 per GiB (Droplets); inbound transfer is free and allowances pool across the team.
Hostinger VPS: No per-GB overage price; at the plan monthly bandwidth limit the VPS connection is throttled to 10 Mbps for the rest of the month, resetting at the start of the next month.

**Should I choose DigitalOcean or Hostinger VPS?**

Pick DigitalOcean if Teams that want plain Linux virtual machines with predictable per-second billing from $4 a month, and the option of managed databases beside them. App Platform adds Git and Docker deploys on top.
Pick Hostinger VPS if Running Docker applications on a cheap KVM server with root access, where 4 GB of RAM at the entry plan matters more than a managed control plane. The one-click catalog covers the usual self-hosted stack.