DigitalOcean vs. AWS: 2026 Pricing & Cost Comparison
In 2026, DigitalOcean is on average 42% to 58% cheaper than AWS for standard compute workloads and managed databases, with substantially lower outbound bandwidth egress costs.
48% Cheaper on DigitalOcean
Standard on-demand list pricing comparison for general purpose memory and vCPU tiers.
55% Cheaper on DigitalOcean
PostgreSQL and MySQL database clusters with high availability and automated daily backups.
AWS Generous Free Pools
DigitalOcean includes up to 11 TB of free outbound bandwidth per Droplet, whereas AWS charges $0.09/GB after the first 100 GB.
Direct Head-to-Head Configuration Shootout
Monthly prices based on 730 hours/month on-demand consumption.
| Workload Profile | DigitalOcean SKU & Rate | AWS SKU & Rate | Cost Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
Entry Compute (Dev/Test) 1 vCPU • 2 GB RAM • 50 GB SSD | s-1vcpu-2gb $12.00/mo | t3.small $15.18/mo | AWS saves 21% |
General Purpose App 2 vCPU • 4 GB RAM • 80 GB SSD | s-2vcpu-4gb $24.00/mo | t3.medium $30.37/mo | AWS saves 21% |
Production Backend 4 vCPU • 16 GB RAM • 160 GB SSD | s-4vcpu-8gb (2x pool) / g-4vcpu-16gb $84.00/mo | t3.xlarge $121.47/mo | AWS saves 31% |
High-Memory Compute 8 vCPU • 32 GB RAM • 320 GB SSD | m-8vcpu-32gb $168.00/mo | t3.2xlarge $242.94/mo | AWS saves 31% |
Interactive 1-Click Code Transpiler
Translate your Terraform / OpenTofu HCL code between DigitalOcean and AWS instantly.
1-Click Multi-Cloud Migration Transpiler
OpenTofu / Terraform HCLDrop or paste your existing Terraform / OpenTofu HCL code below. Our semantic normalizer automatically translates resource shapes, network VPCs, managed databases, and storage buckets into ready-to-run code for your target cloud provider.
// Transpiling infrastructure...