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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    DigitalOcean

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/ADigitalOcean is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform from the company of the same name headquartered in New York. It is known for its support of managed Kubernetes clusters and “droplets” feature.

    $5

    Starting Price Per Month

    Azure SQL Database

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AAzure SQL Database is Microsoft's relational database as a service (DBaaS).

    $0.50

    Per Hour

    Pricing
    DigitalOceanAzure SQL Database
    Editions & Modules
    1GB-16GB
    $5.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    8GB-160GB
    $60.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    2 vCORE
    $0.5044
    Per Hour
    6 vCORE
    $1.5131
    Per Hour
    10 vCORE
    $2.52
    Per Hour
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    DigitalOceanAzure SQL Database
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    DigitalOceanAzure SQL Database
    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
    10 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    13 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    10 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    12 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    10 Answers
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    12 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    10 Answers
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    92%
    Implementation went as expected
    12 Answers
    Features
    DigitalOceanAzure SQL Database
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of DigitalOcean and Azure SQL Database
    Feature
    DigitalOcean
    8.3
    33 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Azure SQL Database
    -
    Ratings
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime9.228 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling9.029 Ratings00 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing7.021 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates10.027 Ratings00 Ratings
    Monitoring tools10.032 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images7.531 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operating system support8.331 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security controls9.029 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automation5.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Database-as-a-Service
    Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of DigitalOcean and Azure SQL Database
    Feature
    DigitalOcean
    -
    Ratings
    Azure SQL Database
    9.2
    28 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Automatic software patching00 Ratings9.026 Ratings
    Database scalability00 Ratings9.028 Ratings
    Automated backups00 Ratings10.028 Ratings
    Database security provisions00 Ratings9.028 Ratings
    Monitoring and metrics00 Ratings8.027 Ratings
    Automatic host deployment00 Ratings10.023 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    DigitalOceanAzure SQL Database
    Small Businesses
    DigitalOcean Droplets
    Score8.7 out of 10
    MongoDB Atlas
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Azure Database
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Google BigQuery
    Score8.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    DigitalOceanAzure SQL Database
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.2
    (33 ratings)
    8.0
    (28 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (7 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.8
    (9 ratings)
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    DigitalOceanAzure SQL Database
    Likelihood to Recommend
    DigitalOcean
    DigitalOcean is perfect for hosting client websites, running marketing tools, and managing media storage with Spaces and CDN. The use of Droplets to quickly launch landing pages or WordPress sites for campaigns is a Godsend. It’s great for fast, cheap, and scalable solutions. But for complex microservices or projects needing strict compliance (like HIPAA), DigitalOcean may not always be the best fit, but that depends heavily on your project.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Your upcoming app can be built faster on a fully managed SQL database and can be moved into Azure with a few to no application code changes. Flexible and responsive server less computing and Hyperscale storage can cope with your changing requirements and one of the main benefits is the reduction in costs, which is noticeable.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    DigitalOcean
    • DigitalOcean provides some of the best cost-to-value services available
    • The DigitalOcean cloud console is very intuitive and easy to navigate
    • DigitalOcean has great support for Docker and other dev ops tools like Terraform.
    • DigitalOcean iterates quickly and provides cutting edge features for organizations that want to keep up with the latest and greatest dev ops tooling
    • DigitalOcean has a great developer community and numerous support docs/tutorials
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Maintenance is always an issue, so using a cloud solution saves a lot of trouble.
    • On premise solutions always suffer from fragmented implementations here and there, where several "dba's" keep track of security and maintenance. With a cloud database it's much easier to keep a central overview.
    • Security options in SQL database are next level... data masking, hiding sensitive data where always neglected on premise, whereas you'll get this automatically in the cloud.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    DigitalOcean
    • Some products/services available on other Cloud providers aren't available, but they seem to be catching up as they add new products like Managed SQL DBs.
    • While they have FreeBSD droplets (VMs), support for *BSD OSs is limited. I.e. the new monitoring agent only works on Linux.
    • There are no regions available on South America.
    • They don't seem to offer enterprise-level products, even basic ones as Windows Server, MS SQL Server, Oracle products, etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • One needs to be aware that some T-SQL features are simply not available.
    • The programmatic access to server, trace flags, hardware from within Azure SQL Database is taken away (for a good reason).
    • No SQL Agent so your jobs need to be orchestrated differently.
    • The maximum concurrent logins maybe an unexpected problem.
    • Sudden disconnects.
    • The developers and admin must study the capacity and tier usage limits https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-subscription-service-limits otherwise some errors or even transaction aborts never seen before can occur.
    • Only one Latin Collation choice.
    • There is no way to debug T-SQL ( a big drawback in my point of view).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    DigitalOcean
    I've been very happy with it for my purposes and I plan to continue to use DigitalOcean for the foreseeable future!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    This is best solution as a DBA one could expect from a service provider and as a cloud service, it removes all your hassles.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    DigitalOcean
    I honestly can't think of an easier way to set up and maintain your own server. Being able to set up a server in minutes and have fully control is awesome. The UX is incredibly intuitive for first-time users as well so there's no reason to be intimidated when it comes to giving DigitalOcean a shot.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    It just works!
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    DigitalOcean
    Have not found a single second of down time myself. Superior availability.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    DigitalOcean
    Very quick response and high performance, you have to fine tune configurations on your machines though.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    DigitalOcean
    They have always been fast, and the process has been straight-forward. I haven't had to use it enough to be frustrated with it, to be honest, and when I have an issue they fix it. As with all support, I wish it felt more human, but they are doing aces.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We give the support a high rating simply because every time we've had issues or questions, representatives were in contact with us quickly. Without fail, our issues/questions were handled in a timely matter. That kind of response is integral when client data integrity and availability is in question. There is also a wealth of documentation for resolving issues on your own.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    DigitalOcean
    DigitalOcean is an inexpensive product as compared to other products available in the market. The UI is easy and the beginner can also understand the UI with the step by step guide. It provides a lot of custom features and the user needs to pay only for what they are using. Amazon has a complex UI and is on the expensive side. DigitalOcean is simple to use and is easily manageable and the servers can easily be set up without additional cost and such.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We moved away from Oracle and NoSQL because we had been so reliant on them for the last 25 years, the pricing was too much and we were looking for a way to cut the cord. Snowflake is just too up in the air, feels like it is soon to be just another line item to add to your Azure subscription. Azure was just priced right, easy to migrate to and plenty of resources to hire to support/maintain it. Very easy to learn, too.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    DigitalOcean
    Great scalability, you can start with small plans and move up to premium features at a very good price.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    DigitalOcean
    • Positive - Elastic computer instances make it possible to pay for only for what you need.
    • Positive - Competitive pricing - some of the products that DigitalOcean offers are much cheaper than those offered by competitors.
    • Negative - Having to go to other cloud computing platforms for more specific, advanced services like Computer Vision optimized services, GPU cloud compute instances, etc...
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Perfect for small and medium databases, being very cost effective.
    • As a Platform as a Service, there is no concern about patches, upgrades and end of life.
    • Be aware of security and network capabilities. The service cannot run in the VNET as Azure Virtual Machines do.
    Read full review
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