DigitalOcean
vs
Fly.io
Both run containers, managed Kubernetes, Postgres, Redis and object storage. DigitalOcean charges less for egress and adds GPUs, serverless and MySQL, while Fly.io places apps as small VMs near users on six continents.
What's good about each
- 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
- 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 TB | $20.50 /mo 1 TB (Tigris) | Within 5% |
| PostgreSQL | $60.90 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 60 GB storage | $86.00 /mo 2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB storage (Starter) | 29% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Redis | $15.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM (Valkey) | $20.00 /mo 1 GB data (Upstash Fixed 1GB) | 25% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Load balancer | $12.00 /mo Regional HTTP, 1 node | Included with apps | |
| Serverless | $34.69 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration | -- Not listed | |
| Egress allowance | 500 GB - 12 TB / mo per instance, pooled | -- Not listed | |
| Egress | $10.00 /TB $0.01 / GB | $20.00 /TB $0.02 / GB (North America and Europe) | 50% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
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 |
MI355X
1 config
|
$2.97 /GPU/hr Spot | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
MI300X
3 configs
|
$1.91 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | 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
|
$2.46 /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.
Compliance
Frameworks each provider states on its own site, each linked to its source.
| Framework | DigitalOcean | Fly.io |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | Type II |
| ISO 27001 | Data centers only | Data centers only |
| HIPAA | Yes | 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 | DigitalOcean | Fly.io |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2012 | 2017 |
| Headquarters | USA | USA |
| Locations | 16 | 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 Oct. 1, 2026, and for Fly.io on Sept. 18, 2026.