8 of 52 providers reward us when you sign up through our links. It never changes a ranking. Which ones
DigitalOcean vs Vultr
Entry prices are within a dollar of each other (DigitalOcean $4, Vultr $3.50), so price alone does not decide it.
DigitalOcean
$4/mo entry
DigitalOcean pricingDevelopers who want a real server with predictable billing and no surprise egress invoice.
Vultr
$3.50/mo entry
Get $300 free Vultr creditLatency-sensitive projects that need a specific city, and price-driven builders comfortable alone.
New Vultr accounts opened through our link get $300 of credit to use within 30 days. A card or PayPal is required; duplicate accounts are not eligible. Vultr pays us a referral fee if you stay a paying customer.
Vultr lists more regions, which matters if latency to a specific city is your constraint. DigitalOcean is the better pick for developers who want a real server with predictable billing and no surprise egress invoice.
Specification differences
Entry plans compared line by line. Rows marked with a dash are preferences rather than measurable wins, so we do not pick a side on them.
| Attribute | DigitalOcean | Vultr | Better |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan price / month | $4 | $3.50 | Vultr |
| Entry plan vCPU | 1 | 1 | |
| Entry plan RAM | 0.5 GB | 0.5 GB | |
| Entry plan storage | 10 GB | 10 GB | |
| Included transfer | 0.5 TB | 0.5 TB | |
| Listed regions | 15 | 32 | Vultr |
| Management model | Unmanaged (you run the OS) | Unmanaged (you run the OS) | |
| Support | Ticket support on all plans; paid support tiers for faster response. | Ticket support; documentation is sparse relative to competitors. | |
| Billing | Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price. | Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price. | |
| Free tier | No permanent free tier. Trial credit is offered to new accounts from time to time. | No free tier. |
Same size, side by side
The cheapest plan from each provider that meets each size, so the comparison is between equal servers rather than two entry plans. Prices include a separately-billed IPv4 address where the provider charges for one.
| Size | DigitalOcean | Vultr | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU / 1 GB | $6Basic 1GB · 1 vCPU · 1 GB · 25 GBEntry Droplet. Adequate for a single small app or a low-traffic site. | $5Regular 1GB · 1 vCPU · 1 GB · 25 GBEntry plan with a public IPv4 address and 1GB of RAM. | Vultr cheaper by $1 |
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB | $24Basic 4GB · 2 vCPU · 4 GB · 80 GBComfortable for a production app with a local database. | $20Regular 4GB · 2 vCPU · 4 GB · 80 GBDirect competitor to the DigitalOcean 4GB Droplet, priced below it. | Vultr cheaper by $4 |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB | $48Basic 8GB · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 160 GBHeadroom for several services on one host. | $40Regular 8GB · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 160 GBFour cores at a lower list price than most rivals here. | Vultr cheaper by $8 |
| 8 vCPU / 16 GB | $96Basic 16GB · 8 vCPU · 16 GB · 320 GBEight shared cores and 16GB for a busy single-server stack. | $160Regular 32GB · 8 vCPU · 32 GB · 640 GBEight shared cores and 32GB on the Regular Performance line. | DigitalOcean cheaper by $64 |
Every provider at these sizes, ranked: 1 GB RAM · 4 GB RAM · 8 GB RAM · 16 GB RAM
Where each one wins and loses
DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean built its reputation on flat monthly pricing and documentation that a solo developer can finish reading. Droplets are plain virtual machines: you get root access and you own the operating system, the patching and the backups. It is the usual first step off shared hosting for people who want control without a cloud-architecture certification.
Strengths
- Flat monthly price per Droplet size, so the invoice is predictable
- Generous included egress compared with the hyperscalers
- Documentation and community tutorials are unusually good
- Managed databases, object storage and Kubernetes available alongside
Weaknesses
- Unmanaged: OS updates, security hardening and backups are your job
- Fewer regions than AWS or Google Cloud
- Backups and snapshots are billed on top of the Droplet price
Support: Ticket support on all plans; paid support tiers for faster response.
Billing: Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price.
Free tier: No permanent free tier. Trial credit is offered to new accounts from time to time.
Vultr
Vultr competes on footprint and price rather than on hand-holding. It lists more data center locations than any other cloud server provider we track, which matters if latency to a specific city is your binding constraint. The trade-off is a thinner documentation library and a support experience aimed at people who already know what a kernel panic is.
Strengths
- Largest region list here, including several markets rivals do not cover
- High Frequency instances put NVMe and faster clocks at a low price point
- Hourly billing with no minimum commitment
Weaknesses
- Unmanaged, with noticeably less tutorial content than DigitalOcean
- Support is functional rather than educational
- Cheapest plans are IPv6-only in some regions - check before you commit
Support: Ticket support; documentation is sparse relative to competitors.
Billing: Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price.
Free tier: No free tier.
The full cost stack
What a server costs beyond its sticker price, shown for 2 vCPU / 4 GB. Only figures read from each provider's own documentation appear; a gap says “not captured yet”.
| Item | DigitalOcean | Vultr |
|---|---|---|
| Plan (2 vCPU / 4 GB) | $24 | $20 |
| Automatic backups | 20% = +$4.80 ($28.80 total) | 20% = +$4 ($24 total) |
| Outbound traffic beyond the allowance | $0.01/GB over allowance | $0.01/GB over allowance |
| Smallest managed load balancer | $12/mo | $10/mo |
Sources: docs.digitalocean.com · docs.digitalocean.com · docs.digitalocean.com · docs.vultr.com · docs.vultr.com · www.vultr.com
Price changes we have logged
No tracked price change for either provider yet.
Full record at the change log.
Every plan
The complete plan ladders, with the date and source of every price, are on each provider's page: DigitalOcean and Vultr.
These are the providers' own list prices, shown in US dollars and last updated 23 Oct 2026. Where a provider bills a public IPv4 address on top, it is added to the monthly price, the ranking and every cost per vCPU or per GB, and the row shows the parts: the server, any disk priced apart, and the IPv4 charge. Each row says when we read its price, and whether it excludes VAT or needs a term. Check the provider's page before you buy.
Related comparisons
Where both sell
DigitalOcean and Vultr both have data centers in these places. Each page ranks every provider there at the price charged in that location.
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DigitalOcean vs Vultr — frequently asked
Every answer is computed from this pair's own prices and costs.
- Which is cheaper for 1 vCPU / 1 GB, DigitalOcean or Vultr?
- Vultr Regular 1GB at $5/mo, which is $1 (17%) less than DigitalOcean Basic 1GB at $6/mo.
- How many data center locations do DigitalOcean and Vultr have?
- DigitalOcean lists 15 and Vultr lists 32.
- What do backups add at DigitalOcean and Vultr?
- DigitalOcean: 20% of the plan price; Vultr: 20% of the plan price.