DigitalOcean
vs
Render
Both run managed containers, Postgres, Redis, cron jobs and static sites. DigitalOcean charges less for VMs and egress and adds VPS, Kubernetes and GPUs, while Render deploys from Git with preview environments.
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
- Postgres with point-in-time recovery, read replicas and high availability
- Unlimited seats on paid plans, no per-seat billing
- Free plans for web services, Postgres and Key Value
- Full-stack preview environments for each pull request
- SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and HIPAA-compliant workspaces
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | DigitalOcean | Render | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | $6.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (Basic) | $25.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM (1c-2g) | 76% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Medium VM | $48.00 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM (Basic) | $175.00 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (4c-8g) | 73% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Large VM | $168.00 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (CPU-Optimized) | $300.00 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (8c-16g) | 44% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Block storage | $10.00 /mo 100 GB | $25.00 /mo 100 GB | 60% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Object storage | $20.00 /mo 1 TB | -- Not listed | |
| PostgreSQL | $60.90 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 60 GB storage | $90.00 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB storage (2c-4g) | 32% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Redis | $15.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM (Valkey) | $32.00 /mo 1 GB RAM (1g) | 53% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Load balancer | $12.00 /mo Regional HTTP, 1 node | Included in plan | |
| Serverless | $34.69 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration | -- Not listed | |
| Egress allowance | 500 GB - 12 TB / mo per instance, pooled | 5 GB (Hobby), 25 GB (Pro), 1 TB (Scale) | |
| Egress | $10.00 /TB $0.01 / GB | $150.00 /TB $0.15 / GB | 93% 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 Render. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | DigitalOcean | Render | 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
|
$2.97 /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
|
$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 | Render |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | Type II |
| ISO 27001 | Data centers only | Yes |
| 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 | Render |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2012 | 2018 |
| Headquarters | USA | USA |
| Locations | 16 | 5 |
| Example customers | Crisp, ScraperAPI, GHost, and CTO.ai | OpenAI, ReadMe, Plane, Hodinkee, Every |
| Website | digitalocean.com | render.com |
Alternatives to consider
Compare DigitalOcean and Render against other cloud providers.
Our data for DigitalOcean was last updated on Sept. 30, 2026, and for Render on Sept. 18, 2026.