Contabo
vs
DigitalOcean
Both sell VPS, object storage and GPUs on four continents. Contabo charges less for medium VMs and storage, while DigitalOcean adds managed databases, Kubernetes, an app platform and H100 GPUs.
What's good about each
- Low-cost VPS and dedicated servers
- Offers GPUs and object storage too
- Available in 9 regions around the world
- 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 | Contabo | DigitalOcean | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | $6.17 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (Cloud VPS 4) | $6.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (Basic) | Within 5% |
| Medium VM | $8.42 /mo 6 vCPU, 12 GB RAM (Cloud VPS 6) | $48.00 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM (Basic) | 82% cheaper on Contabo |
| Large VM | $15.72 /mo 8 vCPU, 24 GB RAM (Cloud VPS 8) | $168.00 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (CPU-Optimized) | 91% cheaper on Contabo |
| Block storage | -- Not listed | $10.00 /mo 100 GB | |
| Object storage | $11.18 /mo 1 TB | $20.00 /mo 1 TB | 44% cheaper on Contabo |
| 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 | Unlimited, fair usage policy applies 200 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s port by plan | 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
Contabo offers 4 GPU models, while DigitalOcean offers 10. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | Contabo | DigitalOcean | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
H200
3 configs · 3 configs
|
$2.87 /GPU/hr Reserved (1 mo) | $3.40 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | Different terms |
|
L40S
2 configs · 1 config
|
$1.08 /GPU/hr Reserved (1 mo) | $1.57 /GPU/hr On-demand | Different terms |
|
RTX PRO 6000
2 configs
|
$2.18 /GPU/hr Reserved (1 mo) | -- | Contabo only |
|
RTX PRO 5000
2 configs
|
$1.08 /GPU/hr Reserved (1 mo) | -- | Contabo only |
|
B300
2 configs
|
-- | $7.94 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | DigitalOcean only |
|
H100
3 configs
|
-- | $3.26 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | DigitalOcean only |
MI300X
3 configs
|
-- | $1.91 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | DigitalOcean only |
|
MI355X
1 config
|
-- | $2.97 /GPU/hr Spot | DigitalOcean only |
|
RTX 6000 Ada
1 config
|
-- | $1.57 /GPU/hr On-demand | DigitalOcean only |
|
MI325X
3 configs
|
-- | $2.88 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | DigitalOcean only |
Contabo bills reserved (1 months); 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 | Contabo | DigitalOcean |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | -- | 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 | Contabo | DigitalOcean |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2003 | 2012 |
| Headquarters | Germany | USA |
| Locations | 9 | 16 |
| Example customers | -- | Crisp, ScraperAPI, GHost, and CTO.ai |
| Website | contabo.com | digitalocean.com |
Alternatives to consider
Compare Contabo and DigitalOcean against other cloud providers.
Our data for Contabo was last updated on Sept. 18, 2026, and for DigitalOcean on Oct. 4, 2026.