# DigitalOcean

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/hosting/digitalocean/

Cloud infrastructure provider offering Linux virtual machines, managed databases, object storage and an app platform across global datacenter regions.

## Who it suits

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.

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

## Adoption signals

- Detected running on 2,189,877 live sites (BuiltWith, checked 2026-09-12)

## iScore

65 / 100 (80% interval 59–71), rank 1 of 17 in hosting — interval overlaps the next rank, so this is an ordering, not a finding.

inetGeek's own reading, computed from sourced facts against category peers by disclosed rules. Not a provider claim. Intervals are 80%; a provider with few documented facts is pulled toward the category middle rather than scored on what little is known.
Method: https://inetgeek.com/iscore/. Full output with every criterion's basis: https://inetgeek.com/scores.json. Every hosting peer ranked: https://inetgeek.com/hosting/digitalocean/alternatives/

- Price: 58 (41–74), weight 29%, 4 of 5 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: free_card_required
- Capacity and limits: 50 (39–60), weight 29%, 5 of 6 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: backup_retention
- Capabilities: 80 (73–87), weight 10%, 11 of 11 criteria scored
- Trust and compliance: 80 (72–88), weight 14%, 13 of 13 criteria scored
- Evidence: 100 (100–100), weight 10%, 4 of 4 criteria scored
- Adoption: 62 (52–72), weight 10%, 1 of 2 criteria scored

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: 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/), read 2026-09-13)
- Kind of free offer: Free tier ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/details/pricing/), read 2026-09-13)
- Entry paid plan: $4.00 ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets), read 2026-09-13)
- Pricing model: 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/), read 2026-09-05)
- Egress over allowance: $0.01 per GiB (Droplets); inbound transfer is free and allowances pool across the team. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/billing/bandwidth/), read 2026-09-14)
- When you exceed a cap: Billed automatically — outbound transfer beyond the pooled plan allowance is charged at $0.01 per GiB; inbound transfer is free ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/), read 2026-09-05)
- Startup credit program: 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. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/hatch), read 2026-09-11)

### Limits

- Storage (entry plan): 10 GiB SSD on the cheapest Basic Droplet (Regular CPU, 512 MiB / 1 vCPU, $4.00/mo). ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets), read 2026-09-13)
- Memory (entry plan): 512 MiB on the cheapest Basic Droplet (Regular CPU, 1 vCPU, $4.00/mo). ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets), read 2026-09-13)
- Sites or apps included: No more than 10 Droplets can be created at the same time through the Control Panel or the API ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/limits/), read 2026-09-05)
- Included bandwidth: 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), read 2026-09-13)
- File, inode or volume limit: Up to 5000 Block Storage volumes per account ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/volumes/details/limits/), read 2026-09-05)
- Max request duration: The maximum timeout is 15 minutes. This includes initialization and function execution. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/functions/details/limits/), read 2026-09-05)

### Execution

- Managed connection pooling: Supported ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/databases/postgresql/how-to/manage-connection-pools/), read 2026-09-05)

### Deployment

- Git deployment: Supported ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/), read 2026-09-05)
- Docker deployment: Supported ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/how-to/deploy-from-container-images/), read 2026-09-05)
- Containers: Supported ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/how-to/deploy-from-container-images/), read 2026-09-14)
- Scheduled jobs: Supported ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/functions/how-to/schedule-functions/), read 2026-09-05)

### Infrastructure

- Persistent processes: Supported ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/), read 2026-09-05)
- Persistent storage: Supported ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/volumes/details/features/), read 2026-09-14)
- Managed databases: Supported ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/databases/), read 2026-09-05)
- Edge network: Limited ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/spaces/details/features/), read 2026-09-05)
- Scales to zero: Not supported ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/), read 2026-09-07)
- Autoscaling: Supported — App Platform autoscales on CPU or on request metrics; containers are added and removed by workload. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/how-to/scale-app/), read 2026-09-14)
- 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. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/regional-availability/), read 2026-09-14)
- Uptime SLA: 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. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/sla/cpu-droplets), read 2026-09-14)

### Support

- Support on entry paid plan: 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. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/support-plans/), read 2026-09-14)
- Response time commitment: 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. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/support-plans/), read 2026-09-14)

### Compliance

- 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. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/certification-reports), read 2026-09-13)
- ISO 27001: 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), read 2026-09-13)
- HIPAA: 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), read 2026-09-13)
- GDPR / data residency: 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), read 2026-09-13)
- 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. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/certification-reports), read 2026-09-13)
- Encryption at rest: 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/), read 2026-09-13)
- 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. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/spaces/reference/s3-compatibility/), read 2026-09-13)
- Role-based access control: Teams have six predefined roles, plus custom roles containing only the permissions you choose. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/teams/roles/), read 2026-09-13)
- Private networking / VPC: VPC networks are private interfaces inaccessible from the public internet; traffic within a VPC or between peered VPCs in the same datacenter is free. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/vpc/details/pricing/), read 2026-09-13)
- 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. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/concepts/choosing-a-plan/), read 2026-09-13)

## Compared with

- [DigitalOcean vs Hetzner](https://inetgeek.com/compare/digitalocean-vs-hetzner/)
- [DigitalOcean vs Hostinger VPS](https://inetgeek.com/compare/digitalocean-vs-hostinger-vps/)
- [DigitalOcean vs Vultr](https://inetgeek.com/compare/digitalocean-vs-vultr/)
- [DigitalOcean vs Linode (Akamai Cloud)](https://inetgeek.com/compare/digitalocean-vs-linode/)