DigitalOcean review
A good pick when the ecosystem and tutorials matter more than RAM per dollar.
From $4/mo · Entry droplet. 4GB is already around $24/month.
Best for: Developers, APIs, containers, learning
DigitalOcean is the developer cloud people learned on. Droplets are straightforward VMs. Around them sit managed databases, Spaces object storage, load balancers, Kubernetes, and a documentation library that still beats most of the industry at “paste this, it works.”
That ecosystem is the reason it is on this ranking at all. On raw RAM and traffic, Hetzner is usually cheaper. If the only variable is the monthly number and a European VM is fine, Hetzner should win. DigitalOcean wins when you want the next thing after the VM without leaving the account, or when you are following a tutorial that assumes a droplet.
The 4GB comparison is unkind. What looks like a $4 entry droplet becomes a much larger invoice once you add a managed database and bandwidth. Read the extras. Traffic overage is less forgiving than Hetzner’s included transfer on similarly sized instances.
Regions are a practical advantage: it is easy to put a droplet near users in more places than Hetzner covers well. For a US-heavy product, that can matter more than a few euros of RAM.
Choose DigitalOcean as a learning cloud and as a product cloud when you like the surrounding services. Do not choose it as a cheap WordPress host — Hostinger will be simpler — and do not choose it to win a price war with Hetzner.
Pros
- Some of the best docs in the industry
- Extras around the VM: databases, Spaces, Kubernetes
- Easy global regions
Cons
- Much more expensive than Hetzner at the same RAM
- Traffic and overage are less generous