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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    DigitalOcean Droplets

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/ADigitalOcean's Droplets is designed to help the user spin up a virtual machine in just 55 seconds. Standard, General Purpose, CPU-Optimized, or Memory-Optimized configurations provide flexibility to build, test, and grow an app from startup to scale.

    $4

    per month

    Microsoft Azure

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.

    $29

    per month

    Pricing
    DigitalOcean DropletsMicrosoft Azure
    Editions & Modules
    Basic
    $4
    per month
    CPU-Optimized
    $42
    per month
    General Purpose
    $63
    per month
    Memory-Optimized
    $84
    per month
    Storage-Optimized
    $131
    per month
    Developer
    $29
    per month
    Standard
    $100
    per month
    Professional Direct
    $1000
    per month
    Basic
    Free
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    DigitalOcean DropletsMicrosoft Azure
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsPricing for DigitalOcean Droplets varies depending on the size of the virtual environment and the associated data needs.The free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    DigitalOcean DropletsMicrosoft Azure
    Considered Both Products
    DigitalOcean
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    33 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    8 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    30 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    88%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    34 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    88%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    34 Answers
    Features
    DigitalOcean DropletsMicrosoft Azure
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of DigitalOcean Droplets and Microsoft Azure
    Feature
    DigitalOcean Droplets
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Azure
    8.5
    19 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings9.018 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.018 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing00 Ratings9.017 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.017 Ratings
    Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.418 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.016 Ratings
    Operating system support00 Ratings8.818 Ratings
    Security controls00 Ratings9.018 Ratings
    Automation00 Ratings8.016 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    DigitalOcean DropletsMicrosoft Azure
    Small Businesses
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    Score8.9 out of 10
    DigitalOcean Droplets
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9.5 out of 10
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    DigitalOcean DropletsMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.9
    (7 ratings)
    8.8
    (88 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (16 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.4
    (28 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (28 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    DigitalOcean DropletsMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    DigitalOcean
    DigitalOcean Droplets are the best choice for developers teams that need reliable Linux servers to deploy their projects, the ability to create a droplet for testing purposes then destroy it, and only get charged for the few hours used makes the chances of messing up very slim. DigitalOcean Droplets is a great solution because the servers are scalable and the process of adding more resources like CPU or RAM to an existing droplet takes only a few minutes and once a server is scaled up it can also be scaled down if necessary which is perfect for supporting a temporary peak in traffic for example.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Azure is particularly well suited for enterprise environments with existing Microsoft investments, those that require robust compliance features, and organizations that need hybrid cloud capabilities that bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructure. In my opinion, Azure is less appropriate for cost-sensitive startups or small businesses without dedicated cloud expertise and scenarios requiring edge computing use cases with limited connectivity. Azure offers comprehensive solutions for most business needs but can feel like there is a higher learning curve than other cloud-based providers, depending on the product and use case.
    Read full review
    Pros
    DigitalOcean
    • Simplicity to scale services--the interface is very quick and effective to use
    • Reliability--this is key for us, as any downtime effects our reputation
    • Keeps the costs down--hosting our own equivalent infrastructure would cost a lot more
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Azure is highly scalable and flexible. You can quickly scale up or down additional resources and computing power.
    • You have no longer upfront investments for hardware. You only pay for the use of your computing power, storage space, or services.
    • The uptime that can be achieved and guaranteed is very important for our company. This includes the rapid maintenance for security updates that are mostly carried out by Microsoft.
    • The wide range of capabilities of services that are possible in Microsoft Azure. You can practically put or create anything in Microsoft Azure.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    DigitalOcean
    • In terms of an availability zone, they have limitations not available in most of the geographical locations.
    • No live support is available which can cause problem if you have outage.
    • Number of service is quite limited.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • The cost of resources is difficult to determine, technical documentation is frequently out of date, and documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking.
    • The documentation needs to be improved, and some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation.
    • Microsoft's licensing scheme is too complex for the average user, and Azure SQL syntax is too different from traditional SQL.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    DigitalOcean
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
    Read full review
    Usability
    DigitalOcean
    Other platforms dashboard console is more difficult to use. DigitalOcean's dashboard is clean, simple, and straightforward
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    As Microsoft Azure is [doing a] really good with PaaS. The need of a market is to have [a] combo of PaaS and IaaS. While AWS is making [an] exceptionally well blend of both of them, Azure needs to work more on DevOps and Automation stuff. Apart from that, I would recommend Azure as a great platform for cloud services as scale.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    DigitalOcean
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    DigitalOcean
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    We were running Windows Server and Active Directory, so [Microsoft] Azure was a seamless transition. We ran into a few, if any support issues, however, the availability of Microsoft Azure's support team was more than willing and able to guide us through the process. They even proposed solutions to issues we had not even thought of!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    DigitalOcean
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    DigitalOcean
    DigitalOcean Droplets is continuously evolving to be more and more powerful. It has great features and has low cost options, which is really great for developers. Its CDN, Loadbalancer, etc. make it a good place to host a high-traffic application. Moroever, DigitalOcean Droplets has a nonprofit program that helps nonprofit sites to run their infrastructure, which is tremendous and no competitor of DigitalOcean Droplets does that.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    DigitalOcean
    • Digital Ocean has been great helping us move web apps to the cloud
    • Digital Ocean has been really helpful when hiring contractors
    • The interface could use some work, but overall its not terrible
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • For about 2 years we didn't have to do anything with our production VMs, the system ran without a hitch, which meant our engineers could focus on features rather than infrastructure.
    • DNS management was very easy in Azure, which made it easy to upgrade our cluster with zero downtime.
    • Azure Web UI was easy to work with and navigate, which meant our senior engineers and DevOps team could work with Azure without formal training.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots