DigitalOcean vs Vultr Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| DigitalOcean | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $4/mo | $2/mo |
| Number of plans | 20 | 3 |
| Free plan | — | |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Pricing model | usage-based | usage-based |
Inference
- Access leading AI models
- Compare cost, speed, and capability
- Deploy with a single API
- No infrastructure management
- Pay only for what you use
GPU Droplets
- Run training and inference on AI/ML models
- Process large data sets and complex neural networks
- Serve additional use cases like high-performance computing (HPC)
Additional GPU Options
- Simple provisioning interface
- Build, train, and deploy large models
- Scale AI/ML workloads on demand
Evaluations
- Run LLM-as-a-Judge evaluations on any LLM, dedicated endpoint, or inference routing policy on DigitalOcean Inference
- Compare quality and performance in one run
- Use your own datasets and configurations
- Billed only for candidate + judge token usage
App Platform
- Build, deploy and scale apps quickly
- Fully managed solution, zero infrastructure management
- Highly scalable
Droplets
- Per-sec billing with 60 sec minimum or $0.01, whichever is higher
- Deploy in seconds
- Scale up on demand
- Run any workload - from mission critical apps to low-traffic sites
Kubernetes
- Simple, managed Kubernetes built for scale
- Free control plane, free bandwidth allowance, and more
- Automate and optimize to peak performance
Functions
- Focus on building great apps
- Pay for what you use
- Scale automatically
Cloudways Managed Hosting
- Optimized for Wordpress & PHP based apps
- SSD stack with PHP 8 & Redis
- Unlimited apps, Git & staging
Backups
- Choose flexible frequencies from Weekly, Daily, or Every 12/6/4 hours.
- Set custom retention periods from 3 days up to 6 months.
- Fast and fully-automated.
Databases
- Managed MongoDB, Kafka, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Caching, Valkey, and OpenSearch
- Worry-free setup, maintenance, and easy migration
- Free daily backups, automated failover, and more!
Spaces
- S3-compatible object storage
- Highly scalable
- Built in CDN
Network File Storage
- Standard tier: $0.15 per GiB-month
- High performance tier: $0.30 per GiB-month
- Starting from 50 GiB
- Flat pricing across all supported regions
Volumes
- Block storage
- Highly available
- Easily scale block storage, resize when needed, and move them between droplets
Container Registry
- Easily store and manage private container images
- Transfer container images over high-speed HTTPs connections to servers across four continents
Load Balancers
- Improve availability, performance, and scalability
- Let's Encrypt and HTTP/3 support
- Compatible with Droplets and DigitalOcean Kubernetes
- Global Load Balancers now available
Support Plans
- Find answers to common questions, development guidelines written by experts and get free email support
- Ideal for those testing ideas and hosting small applications
Virtual Private Cloud
- Create unlimited VPCs at no additional cost.
- Ingress data transfer to VPCs is free. Egress data transfer from VPCs to the internet counts against bandwidth quotas.
- Intra-datacenter VPC peering is free. Inter-datacenter VPC peering is $0.01/GiB.
- VPC NAT Gateway: $40.00 per node, includes 100 GiB bandwidth (overage $0.01/GiB), supports up to 500,000 connections.
Uptime
- Uptime and latency checks
- Alerts by email and Slack
- One Uptime Check/month included with every account
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
- Agentless by design
- Prioritized findings
- Guided remediation
- Unified visibility
VX1™ Cloud Compute
- 2–192 vCPUs
- 8–768 GB Memory
- 5–10 TB Bandwidth
- Block Storage or NVMe SSD Storage options
- Up to 50 Gbps networking
- Dedicated CPU resources
- Instant provisioning in under 15 seconds
- 48% more energy efficient than Optimized Cloud Compute
- General Purpose and Memory Optimized configurations
- Billed on actual hours used (not capped at 672 hours)
Cloud Compute – Regular Performance
- 1–24 vCPUs
- 0.5–96 GB Memory
- 0.50–15 TB Bandwidth
- 10–1600 GB SSD Storage
- Powered by previous generation Intel CPUs and regular SSD
- IPv6 Only option available
Cloud Compute – High Performance
- 1–12 vCPUs
- 1–24 GB Memory
- 2–12 TB Bandwidth
- 25–500 GB NVMe SSD Storage
- Powered by new generations of AMD EPYC or Intel Xeon CPUs
- NVMe SSD storage
- AMD and Intel CPU options
DigitalOcean vs Vultr FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- Vultr is the cheaper option, starting at $2/mo vs $4/mo for DigitalOcean.
- Can I use either one for free?
- DigitalOcean has a free plan. Vultr doesn't — you'll need to pay from day one.
- How do they charge?
- Both use a usage-based model, so the comparison is straightforward — it comes down to features and limits at each price point.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. DigitalOcean: DigitalOcean is firmly the developer-friendly, mid-market alternative to AWS/GCP — cheaper and simpler than hyperscalers, but not trying to compete on enterprise features. They're hunting indie developers, startups, and SMBs who find AWS overwhelming and overpriced for their actual needs. Vultr: Vultr positions as the scrappy, developer-friendly alternative to AWS/GCP/Azure — comparable to DigitalOcean and Linode/Akamai on price, but competing hard on global data center footprint and raw per-dollar compute value. They're not chasing enterprise logos; they're winning on price transparency and simplicity for technical buyers.
Keep tabs on both.
We'll monitor pricing changes for DigitalOcean and Vultr and let you know when something moves.