Short answer
As of October 23, 2026, DigitalOcean sells 11 VPS plans from $4.00/month (Basic 512 MB (s-1vcpu-512mb-10gb): 1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, 10 GB SSD, 500 GB traffic) in 13 locations. It ranks #15 of 160 providers overall and #2 of 34 for VPS in Virginia. Trustpilot rates it 4.5 from 2,581 reviews.
Key takeaways
- Cheapest plan: Basic 512 MB (s-1vcpu-512mb-10gb) at $4.00/month (1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, 10 GB SSD, 500 GB traffic).
- 13 data-center locations in 8 countries: Amsterdam, Atlanta, Bangalore, Frankfurt, Kansas City, London and 7 more.
- Free credit: $5 automatic signup credit for your first team, expires after 90 days (no promo code needed).
- Ranks #15 of 160 overall; best placing #2 of 34 for VPS in Virginia.
Key facts
| Website | digitalocean.com |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Broomfield, United States |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Cheapest plan | Basic 512 MB (s-1vcpu-512mb-10gb), $4.00/month |
| Price per GB RAM (median) | $7.00 |
| Data centers | 13 locations in 8 countries (Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania) |
| Virtualization | KVM |
| Billing | Hourly, monthly |
| Windows Server | No No Windows Server images; Droplets are Linux-only and custom images are limited to 'Linux and Unix-like' systems. |
| Operating systems | Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, CentOS Stream |
| Storage | Yes NVMe (NVMe, SSD) |
| DDoS protection | Yes |
| Backups / snapshots | Paid backups; snapshots: Yes |
| IPv4 / IPv6 | IPv4 included: Yes; IPv6: Yes |
| API | Yes |
| Dedicated CPU plans | Yes |
| Payment methods | Card, paypal, crypto, alipay, other |
| Trial or credit | $5 automatic signup credit for your first team, expires after 90 days (no promo code needed) |
| Money-back | Not published |
| Support | Free 24/7 ticket support (Starter, <24 h response); paid plans Developer $24/mo, Standard $99/mo (adds 24/7 live chat), Premium $999/mo; no phone support |
| Email / port 25 | Opt-in email only (spam banned) |
| Uptime SLA | 99.99% |
| Trustpilot | 4.5 / 5 from 2,581 reviews (profile) |
Plans and prices
11 plans recorded across 4 lines. Monthly list prices in US dollars; the highlighted row is the cheapest.
| Plan | Line | CPU | vCPU | RAM | Storage | Traffic | $/month | $/GB RAM | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic 512 MB (s-1vcpu-512mb-10gb) | Basic (Regular CPU) | Shared | 1 | 512 MB | 10 GB SSD | 500 GB | $4.00 | $8.00 | $0.00595/hr, per-second billing capped at 672 h/month; IPv4 included; shared vCPU |
| Basic 1 GB (s-1vcpu-1gb) | Basic (Regular CPU) | Shared | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB | $6.00 | $6.00 | $0.00893/hr |
| Basic 2 GB (s-1vcpu-2gb) | Basic (Regular CPU) | Shared | 1 | 2 GB | 50 GB SSD | 2 TB | $12.00 | $6.00 | $0.01786/hr |
| Basic 4 GB (s-2vcpu-4gb) | Basic (Regular CPU) | Shared | 2 | 4 GB | 80 GB SSD | 4 TB | $24.00 | $6.00 | $0.03571/hr |
| Basic 8 GB (s-4vcpu-8gb) | Basic (Regular CPU) | Shared | 4 | 8 GB | 160 GB SSD | 5 TB | $48.00 | $6.00 | $0.07143/hr |
| Basic 16 GB (s-8vcpu-16gb) | Basic (Regular CPU) | Shared | 8 | 16 GB | 320 GB SSD | 6 TB | $96.00 | $6.00 | $0.14286/hr |
| Basic Premium AMD 1 GB (s-1vcpu-1gb-amd) | Basic Premium AMD (NVMe) | Shared | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB NVMe | 1 TB | $7.00 | $7.00 | Shared 2nd/3rd-gen AMD EPYC with guaranteed NVMe; price taken from DigitalOcean docs pricing-table reference (public pricing page hides the Premium tabs from non-JS readers) |
| Basic Premium AMD 8 GB (s-4vcpu-8gb-amd) | Basic Premium AMD (NVMe) | Shared | 4 | 8 GB | 160 GB NVMe | 5 TB | $56.00 | $7.00 | Shared AMD EPYC, NVMe |
| CPU-Optimized 4 GB (c-2) | CPU-Optimized (Regular) | Dedicated | 2 | 4 GB | 25 GB SSD | 4 TB | $42.00 | $10.50 | $0.0625/hr; dedicated vCPU; Premium Intel variant with NVMe and up to 10 Gbps also offered |
| CPU-Optimized 8 GB (c-4) | CPU-Optimized (Regular) | Dedicated | 4 | 8 GB | 50 GB SSD | 5 TB | $84.00 | $10.50 | $0.125/hr; dedicated vCPU |
| General Purpose 8 GB (g-2vcpu-8gb) | General Purpose (Regular) | Dedicated | 2 | 8 GB | 25 GB SSD | 4 TB | $63.00 | $7.88 | $0.09375/hr; dedicated vCPU |
Native USD pricing; no conversion needed (2026-10-14)
Data-center locations
DigitalOcean lets you deploy in 13 locations: 7 in North America, 3 in Europe, 2 in Asia and 1 in Oceania. Countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Netherlands, Singapore, United Kingdom and United States.
Map of DigitalOcean locations
Click a marker to see which providers sell servers there. Marker size reflects the number of providers in that city.
Pros and cons
Strengths
- Per-second billing with a monthly cap and a $4/mo entry Droplet
- Layer 3/4 DDoS protection, cloud firewalls and VPC networking included at no charge
- Free 24/7 ticket support and a 99.99% per-Droplet uptime SLA with 100% credit
Limitations
- Regular Basic Droplets use plain SSD; NVMe requires Premium Intel/AMD plans from $7/mo
- Backups cost 20% (weekly) or 30% (daily) of the Droplet price; snapshots $0.06/GB/mo
- No Windows images, custom images are Linux/Unix-only, and no refunds are offered
Acceptable use
Crypto mining is prohibited without written permission; open proxies, open relays and Tor exit nodes are banned, while VPNs are not explicitly addressed. Crawling that impairs the target system and unsolicited bulk email are prohibited; torrents and IPTV are not specifically mentioned.
Where DigitalOcean ranks
Positions in the rankings on this site, based on the data above.
- Best VPS in Virginia #2 of 34
- Best VPS for Developers #12 of 157
- Best VPS in Netherlands #7 of 83
- Best VPS in Europe #11 of 129
- Best VPS in Amsterdam #7 of 76
- All VPS providers #15 of 160
- SSD VPS Hosting #15 of 151
- Best TeamSpeak VPS #16 of 157
- Best VPS in North America #12 of 113
- Best VPS in Asia #9 of 84
- Best VPS in United States #12 of 109
- Best VPS for Proxies #18 of 157
- Linux VPS Hosting #16 of 139
- Best VPS for a VPN Server (WireGuard, OpenVPN) #19 of 157
- Best VPS in Singapore #8 of 64
- Best VPS in Canada #6 of 47
- Ubuntu VPS Hosting #15 of 115
- Best VPS for Discord and Telegram Bots #21 of 157
- Hourly Billed VPS #6 of 44
- Best VPS in Singapore #9 of 64
- High-Performance VPS #12 of 82
- Best VPS in Frankfurt #9 of 60
- VPS Hosting That Accepts PayPal #14 of 90
- Cloud VPS Hosting #5 of 32
Alternatives to DigitalOcean
Providers closest to DigitalOcean by region, price and features. LikeVPS, Cloudzy and Akamai Cloud (Linode) are the nearest matches.
| # | Provider | Plan | $/month | RAM | $/GB RAM | Locations | Windows | Trustpilot |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lite 2.0 | $10.00 | 2 GB | $5.00 | 26 | Yes | — | |
| 2 | 512 MB DDR5 | $2.48 | 512 MB | $4.96 | 13 | No | — | |
| 3 | Nanode 1 GB | $5.00 | 1 GB | $5.00 | 26 | No | 2.5 (207) | |
| 4 | NVMe 2 | $5.69 | 2 GB | $2.85 | 9 | No | 4.5 (31,911) | |
| 5 | NVMe 2 GB | $4.00 | 2 GB | $2.00 | 14 | No | 2.7 (91) | |
| 6 | Leaseweb VPS 1 | $5.58 | 6 GB | $0.93 | 9 | No | 3.4 (319) |
Frequently asked questions
How much does DigitalOcean VPS cost?
Plans start at $4.00 per month for Basic 512 MB (s-1vcpu-512mb-10gb) (1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, 10 GB SSD, 500 GB traffic); $0.00595/hr, per-second billing capped at 672 h/month; IPv4 included; shared vCPU. Across its published plans the median price is $7.00 per GB of RAM.
Where are DigitalOcean's data centers?
DigitalOcean lets you deploy in 13 locations: 7 in North America, 3 in Europe, 2 in Asia and 1 in Oceania. Countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Netherlands, Singapore, United Kingdom and United States.
Does DigitalOcean offer Windows VPS?
No Windows Server images; Droplets are Linux-only and custom images are limited to 'Linux and Unix-like' systems.
Does DigitalOcean have hourly billing?
Yes, servers are billed by the hour with a monthly cap.
Is DigitalOcean good?
As of October 23, 2026, DigitalOcean sells 11 VPS plans from $4.00/month (Basic 512 MB (s-1vcpu-512mb-10gb): 1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, 10 GB SSD, 500 GB traffic) in 13 locations. It ranks #15 of 160 providers overall and #2 of 34 for VPS in Virginia. Trustpilot rates it 4.5 from 2,581 reviews. Strengths: per-second billing with a monthly cap and a $4/mo entry droplet and layer 3/4 ddos protection, cloud firewalls and vpc networking included at no charge. Limitations: regular basic droplets use plain ssd; nvme requires premium intel/amd plans from $7/mo and backups cost 20% (weekly) or 30% (daily) of the droplet price; snapshots $0.06/gb/mo.
Sources
Data was read from these pages (provider data checked October 14, 2026; rankings updated October 23, 2026). Prices change; check the provider's site before buying.
- https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets
- https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing
- https://www.digitalocean.com/products/droplets
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/index.html.md
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/style/hugo/shortcodes/droplet-pricing-table
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/resources/choose-plan
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/images/
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/features/
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/custom-images/
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/regional-availability/index.html.md
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/ddos/
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/support-plans/
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/manage-payment-methods/index.html.md
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/promo-codes/
- https://docs.digitalocean.com/support/can-i-have-a-refund/index.html.md
- https://www.digitalocean.com/sla/cpu-droplets
- https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy
- https://www.digitalocean.com/about
- https://investors.digitalocean.com/
- https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1582961/000158296126000019/docn-20251231.htm
- https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/announcing-new-basic-premium-plans
- https://www.trustpilot.com/review/digitalocean.com