DigitalOcean alternatives you can deploy today
We sell DigitalOcean droplets, and we sell seven alternatives beside them: Vultr, Hetzner, Amazon EC2 and Lightsail, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud and our own custom line. Same account, same prepaid balance, so comparing is not a sales pitch here. Pick whichever fits.
The usual reasons to shop around
Price per GB of RAM
Hetzner in particular undercuts droplet pricing on memory-heavy workloads.
Region coverage
Our droplet line covers 9 locations; EC2, Google Cloud and Vultr each cover far more in our catalog.
Windows and GPU
Droplets are Linux only in our catalog. Vultr adds Windows Server and NVIDIA GPU plans; Lightsail adds Windows too.
How you pay
Every provider here is payable from one prepaid balance: PayPal or 18 cryptocurrencies, no card required.
The seven alternatives at a glance
| Platform | From | Locations we sell | Windows | GPU | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean (baseline) | $12/mo | 9 | No | No | Déployer → |
| Vultr | $10/mo | 32 | Yes | Yes | Déployer → |
| Hetzner Cloud | $9/mo | 5 | No | No | Déployer → |
| Amazon EC2 | $7/mo | 60 | No | No | Déployer → |
| Amazon Lightsail | $7.50/mo | 14 | Yes | No | Déployer → |
| Google Cloud | $18/mo | 38 | No | No | Déployer → |
| Alibaba Cloud | $10/mo | 13 | No | No | Déployer → |
| Initech custom Linux VPS | build to spec | 1 | No | No | Déployer → |
Prices are our retail USD pricing, cheapest monthly plan per platform. Location counts are the regions currently orderable in our store, not the providers' global totals. Vultr Windows plans start at $52/mo, Lightsail Windows at $14.25/mo, NVIDIA GPU plans at $90/mo.
Honest picks, platform by platform
Vultr
The closest like-for-like swap: hourly-friendly cloud compute with a similar plan ladder, more locations in our catalog than droplets, and the only line here with both Windows Server and NVIDIA GPU plans.
Read Vultr vs DigitalOcean →Hetzner Cloud
The price-per-GB champion. If your workload is RAM-hungry and its footprint works for you (Germany, Finland, US East and West, Singapore), Hetzner usually costs less than the droplet equivalent.
Read Hetzner vs DigitalOcean →Amazon EC2
The widest footprint we sell: 60 locations and the AWS ecosystem behind it. Configurable instance types instead of fixed droplet sizes.
EC2 plans →Amazon Lightsail
AWS with droplet-style simplicity: fixed bundles, predictable monthly pricing, and the cheapest Windows Server entry point in our catalog.
Read Lightsail vs EC2 →Google Cloud
Compute Engine machine types on Google's backbone, 38 locations in our catalog. Strong when your users are spread globally.
Google Cloud plans →Alibaba Cloud
The Asia-Pacific specialist, including a separate manually-reviewed Mainland China line for workloads that must live inside China.
Alibaba Cloud plans →Every alternative, one account
Going direct means a separate account, billing profile and card on file per provider. Here one prepaid balance funds any mix of the platforms above, topped up by PayPal or 18 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Monero, with signup that asks for an email address and a country. Try an alternative next to your droplets without a second vendor relationship.
Choosing an alternative
What is the best DigitalOcean alternative?
It depends on what pushed you to look. For a like-for-like swap, Vultr is closest and adds Windows and GPU plans. For the lowest price per GB of RAM, Hetzner. For the widest region coverage or AWS tooling, EC2 or Lightsail. All of them deploy from the same account here.
Are these real provider instances or your own hardware?
Real instances, provisioned into each provider's cloud under our account. You get full root or administrator access; the hardware and network are the provider's own.
Can I run DigitalOcean and an alternative side by side?
Yes, and it is the sanest way to migrate: deploy the alternative next to your existing droplet, test, move traffic, then drop whichever loses. One balance pays for both while they overlap.
Can I pay for these alternatives with crypto?
Yes. Every platform here is funded from the same prepaid balance, topped up with PayPal or 18 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Lightning and Monero. No card required.
Do the prices match going to the provider directly?
The prices shown are our retail USD pricing and include our managed billing layer. What you trade is a second vendor account; what you keep is one dashboard, one balance and crypto payment across all eight platforms.
Deploy the alternative next to your droplet
Seven platforms, one prepaid balance, from $7/mo.
Browse plans