DigitalOcean
vs
Fly.io
DigitalOcean provides a mix of managed cloud services and VPS. Fly.io focuses on deploying managed containers at the edge for low-latency applications.
What's good about each
- Simple, developer-first cloud
- Predictable pricing & monthly caps
- AI platform powered by Paperspace GPUs
- Vast library of tutorials & 1-click apps
- Excellent tooling and developer experience
- Fast deployments, scale to zero, little config needed
- Per-second billing, with a 40% discount for reserved compute blocks
- Anycast networking and global load balancing included at no extra cost
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | DigitalOcean | Fly.io | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | $6.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (Basic) | $5.70 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM (shared-cpu-1x) | 5% cheaper on Fly.io |
| Medium VM | $48.00 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM (Basic) | $42.79 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (shared-cpu-4x) | 11% cheaper on Fly.io |
| Large VM | $168.00 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (CPU-Optimized) | $248.00 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (performance-8x) | 32% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Block storage | $10.00 /mo 100 GB | $15.00 /mo 100 GB | 33% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Object storage | $20.00 /mo 1 TiB | $20.50 /mo 1 TB (Tigris) | Within 5% |
| PostgreSQL | $60.00 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 60 GB storage | $86.00 /mo 2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB storage (Starter) | 30% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Redis | $15.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM | $20.00 /mo 1 GB data (Upstash Fixed 1GB) | 25% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Load balancer | $12.00 /mo | Included with apps | |
| Serverless | $34.69 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration | -- Not listed | |
| Egress allowance | 100 GB - 10 TB / mo per instance | -- Not listed | |
| Egress | $10.00 /TB $0.01 / GB | $20.00 /TB $0.02 / GB (North America and Europe) | 2x more expensive on Fly.io |
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
DigitalOcean offers 10 GPU models. We track no GPU listings from Fly.io. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | DigitalOcean | Fly.io | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
H100
3 configs
|
$3.26 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
B300
2 configs
|
$7.94 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
H200
3 configs
|
$3.40 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | DigitalOcean only |
MI300X
3 configs
|
$1.91 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
MI355X
1 config
|
$4.50 /GPU/hr Spot | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
L40S
1 config
|
$1.57 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | 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 |
|
RTX 4000 Ada
1 config
|
$0.76 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
MI350X
2 configs
|
$4.00 /GPU/hr Spot | -- | DigitalOcean only |
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.
Company details
| Fact | DigitalOcean | Fly.io |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2011 | 2017 |
| Headquarters | USA | USA |
| Locations | 14 | 18 |
| Example customers | Crisp, ScraperAPI, GHost, and CTO.ai | Cars.com, Fanatics, Tailscale, Supabase |
| Website | digitalocean.com | fly.io |
Alternatives to consider
Compare DigitalOcean and Fly.io against other cloud providers.
Our data for DigitalOcean was last updated on Sept. 11, 2026, and for Fly.io on Aug. 24, 2026.