Beam
vs
DigitalOcean
What's good about each
- Pay-per-millisecond billing, only while code is running
- Sub-second cold starts from memory snapshots
- No egress or bandwidth fees on any plan
- Runs in your own AWS, GCP or Azure account
- Recurring monthly credit on every plan
- Monthly price caps on bundled Droplet plans
- Nvidia and AMD GPU Droplets, plus bare metal
- Outbound traffic allowance shared across the whole account
- Large tutorial library and 1-click app marketplace
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | Beam | DigitalOcean | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | -- Not listed | $6.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (Basic) | |
| Medium VM | -- Not listed | $48.00 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM (Basic) | |
| Large VM | -- Not listed | $168.00 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (CPU-Optimized) | |
| Block storage | $2.10 /mo 100 GB beyond free allowance · First 1 TB included | $10.00 /mo 100 GB | 79% cheaper on Beam |
| Object storage | -- Not listed | $20.00 /mo 1 TB | |
| PostgreSQL | -- Not listed | $60.90 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 60 GB storage | |
| Redis | -- Not listed | $15.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM (Valkey) | |
| Load balancer | -- Not listed | $12.00 /mo Regional HTTP, 1 node | |
| Serverless | -- Not listed | $34.69 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration | |
| Egress allowance | Free and unlimited | 500 GB - 12 TB / mo per instance, pooled | |
| Egress | -- Not listed | $10.00 /TB $0.01 / GB |
Heads up: Figures take each provider's closest plan to a common setup, and vary by region and usage. Hover a service for the reference configuration. Verify before provisioning. More on how we price.
GPUs
Beam and DigitalOcean each offer 10 GPU models. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | Beam | DigitalOcean | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
H100
2 configs · 3 configs
|
$1.83 /GPU/hr On-demand | $4.41 /GPU/hr On-demand | 59% cheaper on Beam |
|
B300
1 config · 2 configs
|
-- On request | $7.94 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | |
|
H200
2 configs · 3 configs
|
$2.09 /GPU/hr On-demand | $4.47 /GPU/hr On-demand | 53% cheaper on Beam |
|
L40S
1 config · 1 config
|
$0.76 /GPU/hr On-demand | $1.57 /GPU/hr On-demand | 52% cheaper on Beam |
|
B200
2 configs
|
$4.11 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | Beam only |
|
RTX PRO 6000
1 config
|
$1.09 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | Beam only |
|
RTX 5090
1 config
|
$0.72 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | Beam only |
MI355X
1 config
|
-- | $2.97 /GPU/hr Spot | DigitalOcean only |
|
MI300X
3 configs
|
-- | $1.91 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | DigitalOcean only |
|
RTX 6000 Ada
1 config
|
-- | $1.57 /GPU/hr On-demand | DigitalOcean only |
Beam bills on-demand; DigitalOcean bills on-demand, spot and reserved (12 months). The line under each price names the billing type shown.
Services
Managed services each provider offers.
Compliance
Frameworks each provider states on its own site, each linked to its source.
| Framework | Beam | DigitalOcean |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | Type II |
| ISO 27001 | -- | Data centers only |
| HIPAA | -- | Yes |
| GDPR | Yes | Yes |
| PCI DSS | -- | SAQ-A |
Heads up: Each entry links to the provider's own statement. An attestation can cover one tier, one region or the platform alone rather than every service. Verify the scope before you rely on it. A dash means we found nothing to link to, not that the provider lacks it.
Company details
| Fact | Beam | DigitalOcean |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2021 | 2012 |
| Headquarters | USA | USA |
| Locations | -- | 16 |
| Example customers | Coke, Ogilvy, EdgeImpulse, Magellan AI, Geospy, Frase | Crisp, ScraperAPI, GHost, and CTO.ai |
| Website | www.beam.cloud | digitalocean.com |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Beam and DigitalOcean against other cloud providers.
Our data for Beam was last updated on Oct. 1, 2026, and for DigitalOcean on Oct. 1, 2026.