AWS is a comprehensive enterprise cloud platform with 200+ services and global reach, while DigitalOcean is a simplified, developer-focused cloud provider offering core infrastructure services at lower costs and with easier pricing models.
AWS vs DigitalOcean — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Enterprise cloud computing platform offering 200+ services from compute to AI/ML to databases.
Developer-friendly cloud provider offering simplified Droplets, Kubernetes, and managed databases at transparent, flat-rate pricing.
Service Count. Starting Price (Monthly). Global Data Centers. Learning Curve. Target Market. Pricing Transparency. Market Share (2025)
Choose AWS if you need enterprise-grade scalability, advanced AI/ML services, global compliance certifications, and don't mind complexity or cost management challenges. Choose DigitalOcean if you're bootstrapping a startup, building straightforward web applications, value simplicity and predictable costs, and want to get running in minutes rather than hours.
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.023 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.004 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Multiple models via Bedrock | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS Outposts (limited) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Fargate (feature-rich) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 32% | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 200+ | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 33 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 5/10 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 8/10 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Moderate (Outposts) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 4/10 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Largest | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Strong (ECS/EKS) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Via Athena/Redshift | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS only | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Pay-per-use only | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 33 regions | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 105+ zones | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 190+ native services | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 30-45 (via Console/CLI) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS CloudFormation requires manual GitHub setup | DigitalOcean: N/A
Monthly Cost (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM, Standard Instance)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $9.50 (t3.micro on-demand) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.0116 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 33 regions | DigitalOcean: 12 regions
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 32% of global cloud infrastructure (2024) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.0416 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.02 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 8-12 hours (SageMaker) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 15-30 seconds (Athena, 1TB scan) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $15,000 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 18-25 steps (EKS setup) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 12 months + always-free services | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 1 hour (Business Support) | DigitalOcean: 30 minutes
Amazon Web Services (AWS): SageMaker, Bedrock, Forecast, Lookout, Kendra | DigitalOcean: N/A
Monthly Cost for 10TB Egress Data Transfer
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $116 (after 1GB free) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 120 minutes | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 125ms (Lambda standard) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 45-60 (configure VPC, IAM, EC2, security groups) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 8+ (RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora, ElastiCache, Neptune, DocumentDB, Keyspaces, Timestream) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 99.99% (us-east-1 region) | DigitalOcean: 99.99%
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 50,000+ (t3.large EC2) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Estimated Learning Time for New Developer
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 80-100 hours | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A (not a single GitHub repo) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 3 languages (YAML, JSON, TypeScript/Python/Java via CDK) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 200+ AWS-specific services (largest portfolio in cloud) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Free (1 year, then pay-as-you-go infrastructure costs) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 33+ geographic regions with 105+ availability zones | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 1M+ AWS Certified professionals | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0 (free tier + pay-per-use) | DigitalOcean: $4 (1GB RAM droplet)
Cost for Standard Production App (2 dynos + add-ons)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $100-150 (EC2 Reserved + RDS) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 24,576 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 100-3000 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): No, requires CodePipeline ($0.02/active pipeline) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 32 regions | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 31 regions | DigitalOcean: 16 data centers
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 200+ services | DigitalOcean: 15-20 services
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.01 (variable by service) | DigitalOcean: $5.99 (Droplet)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): No (Shield Advanced: $3,000/month) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 120+ minutes (full configuration) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 15+ (RDS, DynamoDB, Redshift, etc.) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): ~80ms (median global) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): ~700 Gbps (AWS Shield Advanced) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): ~75% | DigitalOcean: N/A
Compute Instance Starting Price (hourly)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.0116/hour (t3.micro) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): up to 72% | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): RDS for SQL Server (third-party) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): SageMaker (launched 2017) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 200+ services | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 105+ zones across 33 regions | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 50-150ms | DigitalOcean: 150-300ms (8 region average)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Layer 3/4 only (Advanced costs $3,000+/mo) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Pay-as-you-go from $0 | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 30-60+ minutes (account setup, IAM, networking) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 32% of public cloud (2024) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 120-240 minutes | DigitalOcean: 45 minutes
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 0.75GB RDS micro (750 hours/month) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): $3,000-8,000 (optimized EC2 + RDS) | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Extensive—full SQL, custom queries, advanced analytics | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 8-12 weeks | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 32% of developers use AWS | DigitalOcean: N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS): 99.99% (multi-region) | DigitalOcean: 99.99% (Droplets)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $4.00
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 8
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 99.99%
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: DOKS (DigitalOcean Kubernetes Service)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Highly favored by startups
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Intel Xeon
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Beginner-friendly, modern
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 5
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 50+
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $4
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $15 (1vCPU, 1GB RAM)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Flat-rate, predictable; per-second billing (min $0.01) as of Jan 2026
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Basic ML tools, no proprietary AI platform
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Community forums, standard support, documentation-heavy
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Beginner-friendly with intuitive dashboard
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 2 vCPU
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 4 GB
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 80 GB SSD
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 4 TB
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Comprehensive with extensive tutorials
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 12 regions
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Kafka
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $6.00/month
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $140/month
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 25GB SSD
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 1GB
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 2000+ tutorials
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Yes (DOKS)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $4/month
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 1 dedicated
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $0
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Manual setup required
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 5 types
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 5,000 req/hr
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Requires Kubernetes ($12+/month)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 20 minutes (manual install)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $15
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Yes (full SSH access)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Instant (no sleep)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 3 (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $0.00595 (6GB RAM droplet / 730 hours)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 5,000
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: No free tier; $6/month minimum
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Via App Platform (secondary to droplets)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $4/month (Basic Droplet)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 3 (basic APIs)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: DOKS (Simplified, limited customization)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 3-5 minutes
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $100/month
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $4-6
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $12
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 45
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 5-10
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 3
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $200 (60 days)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $0.0066/hour
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $200
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 14 core services
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 512 GB
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 2/10 (simple)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $5/month (Droplet)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 60 days ($200 credit)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 2-5 minutes (average)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Limited API integrations, no native ML
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: SOC2, ISO 27001
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Simple: Fixed pricing per resource, no hidden fees
Cost for Production App (2 dynos/Droplets + DB)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $30-50/month
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 10-30 minutes
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: <1 second
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Managed services via Marketplace
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Full control (root SSH, custom runtime)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: Free tier with $200/month credits
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: None
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 40+
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 8 (SOC 2, ISO 27001)
Managed Kubernetes Pricing (Per Cluster)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: $12 (DOKS)
Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A | DigitalOcean: 70,000+ questions
How to choose between Amazon Web Services (AWS) and DigitalOcean
Compare Amazon Web Services (AWS) vs DigitalOcean
AWS vs DigitalOcean — Structured Comparison Data
Machine-readable comparison dataset for AWS vs DigitalOcean. Contains 182 attribute comparisons, 5 FAQ pairs.
AWS vs DigitalOcean — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for AWS vs DigitalOcean.
DigitalOcean is significantly cheaper for small projects. A basic DigitalOcean Droplet costs $5.99-$12/month with predictable pricing, while AWS's free tier covers limited usage and costs escalate quickly once you exceed thresholds. For a simple WordPress blog or API, DigitalOcean saves 70-80% annually.
Can I scale from DigitalOcean to AWS later?
Yes, but migration requires planning. Both use standard Linux/Docker, so applications are portable. However, AWS-specific services (Lambda, SageMaker, DynamoDB) have no direct DigitalOcean equivalents. Plan to refactor 20-40% of infrastructure if moving to leverage AWS's unique services.
Which is better for machine learning projects?
AWS is the clear winner with 40+ ML services including SageMaker, Rekognition, Forecast, and Textract. DigitalOcean doesn't offer managed ML services—you'd manually configure TensorFlow or PyTorch on a Droplet. AWS reduces ML deployment time by 60-70% through pre-built models and training pipelines.
How easy is it to estimate costs upfront?
DigitalOcean's pricing is transparent and predictable: a $12/month Droplet with 2GB RAM costs exactly that. AWS requires using their pricing calculator with 100+ variables (storage, data transfer, compute hours, service combinations), making accurate estimates difficult without expert analysis.
Which has better documentation for beginners?
DigitalOcean's documentation is beginner-friendly with step-by-step tutorials, often completable in 15-30 minutes. AWS documentation is comprehensive but dense, requiring 2-3 hours to deploy equivalent infrastructure. DigitalOcean's community tutorials are 10x more abundant for basic use cases.
How to Choose Between Amazon Web Services (AWS) and DigitalOcean
Service Count: Amazon Web Services (AWS) has 200+ services, while DigitalOcean has 15-20 core services.
Starting Price (Monthly): Amazon Web Services (AWS) has $0.01-$50+ (varies by service), while DigitalOcean has $5.99-$12/month (Droplets).
Global Data Centers: Amazon Web Services (AWS) has 31 regions worldwide, while DigitalOcean has 16 data centers globally.
Learning Curve: Amazon Web Services (AWS) has Steep - extensive documentation required, while DigitalOcean has Gentle - intuitive control panel.
Target Market: Amazon Web Services (AWS) has Enterprise, Fortune 500, complex workloads, while DigitalOcean has Startups, small teams, straightforward apps.
Pricing Transparency: Amazon Web Services (AWS) has Complex calculator with 100+ variables, while DigitalOcean has Flat-rate, predictable pricing.
Market Share (2025): Amazon Web Services (AWS) has 32% of cloud market, while DigitalOcean has 1-2% of cloud market.