# DigitalOcean Kubernetes

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/kubernetes/digitalocean-kubernetes/

Managed Kubernetes with no charge for the control plane, billed only for the nodes and an optional high-availability upgrade.

## Who it suits

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 if 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.

## iScore

83 / 100 (80% interval 75–90), rank 1 of 4 in kubernetes — 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 kubernetes peer ranked: https://inetgeek.com/kubernetes/digitalocean-kubernetes/alternatives/

- Price: 81 (59–100), weight 36%, 1 of 2 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: minimum_paid_price
- Capabilities: 100 (94–100), weight 29%, 1 of 2 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: containers
- Trust and compliance: 50 (44–56), weight 21%, 0 of 1 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: uptime_sla
- Evidence: 100 (100–100), weight 14%, 4 of 4 criteria scored

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: Yes ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/kubernetes), read 2026-09-15)
- Entry paid plan: 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), read 2026-09-15)
- Pricing model: 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), read 2026-09-15)

### Limits

- Included bandwidth: Free inbound transfer, and free outbound from 2,000 GiB a month upward on the Basic tier. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/kubernetes), read 2026-09-15)

### Infrastructure

- Autoscaling: Supported ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/kubernetes/details/limits/), read 2026-09-15)
- Uptime SLA: 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/), read 2026-09-15)

### Compliance

- Dedicated infrastructure: 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. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/kubernetes), read 2026-09-15)

## Compared with

- [DigitalOcean Kubernetes vs Amazon EKS](https://inetgeek.com/compare/amazon-eks-vs-digitalocean-kubernetes/)
- [DigitalOcean Kubernetes vs Google Kubernetes Engine](https://inetgeek.com/compare/google-gke-vs-digitalocean-kubernetes/)
- [DigitalOcean Kubernetes vs Azure Kubernetes Service](https://inetgeek.com/compare/azure-aks-vs-digitalocean-kubernetes/)