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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Users can launch instances with a variety of OSs, load them with custom application environments, manage network access permissions, and run images on multiple systems.

    $0.01

    per IP address with a running instance per hour on a pro rata basis

    DigitalOcean

    Score8.5 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

    Pricing
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)DigitalOcean
    Editions & Modules
    Data Transfer
    $0.00 - $0.09
    per GB
    On-Demand
    $0.0042 - $6.528
    per Hour
    EBS-Optimized Instances
    $0.005
    per IP address with a running instance per hour on a pro rata basis
    Carrier IP Addresses
    $0.005 - $0.10
    T4g Instances
    $0.04
    per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES
    T2, T3 Instances
    $0.05 ($0.096)
    per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES (Windows)
    1GB-16GB
    $5.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    8GB-160GB
    $60.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)DigitalOcean
    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
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)DigitalOcean
    Considered Both Products
    Amazon AWS
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    DigitalOcean and Heroku are two other leading competitors to the EC2 in terms of the type of instances they offer.

    Digital Ocean:
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    Using Digital Ocean's droplets was much easier and faster to set up and test, but we needed very specific and custom configurations and hardware for our use case, so we went ahead with using Amazon's EC2 instances.
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    More reliable and flexible in options.
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    - It's great as we can automate everything with API's and Terraform.
    - Cost wise very good as saves lot for Dev and QA etc.
    - Fasten the complete CI-CD pipeline and delivers product faster.
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    I did not select AWS EC2 as my final choice of infrastructure. I picked Linode. Linode, Digital Ocean, AWS EC2 all provide the VPS infrastructure we need. But because I'm a small company, the cost is very important. I also didn't need the other AWS features. I also want to make …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for me is the easy choice for servers. There are so many tools out there, specifically terraform and packer, that allow easy integration with EC2. It is great for any sized company. I have also used Google and Digital Ocean, but my first …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    Migration from Shared/Dedicated to a VPS was the next step in scaling up our eCommerce business platform to our customer demands. Amazon Web Services uptime and speed really met our expectations, but the costs were unpredictable and ended up being too high for us. In hindsight, …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    We selected EC2 because of the maturity of the platform, the ease of deployment and the completeness of Amazon's vision. EC2 by itself, stacks up rather evenly with the competition. Where AWS as a whole excels is in the integration. While you may start with EC2 instances, …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    With twice the years of experience the army of features that AWS brings to the table, it's hard to go wrong with AWS. If you run windows server or strongly need a hybrid cloud partial-on-premises solution, then Azure might be a better fit for you. If lowest-possible-budget is …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    Less downtime. Better services. More performance. Better customer service
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    I currently use GitHub pages and Azure for projects, in addition to EC2. I use GitHub pages for my blog because it's free and convenient, and because my blog is a static site (HTML and client-side JS only) so there's no need for me to pay for an EC2 instance to host a web …
    Incentivized
    DigitalOcean
    Chose DigitalOcean
    The target segment of DigitalOcean is application developers and small teams working in startups for easily configuring and deploying infrastructure in the cloud. We selected DigitalOcean for some of our usecases as it is cost effective and easy to integrate with compared to …
    Incentivized
    Chose DigitalOcean
    DigitalOcean is an easier and cheaper way to [set up] new machines. The UX is really good and it's easy to find what you need. Competition offer[s] a complicated way to manage machines and the cost is sometimes more than [...] double of what DigitalOcean offer[s]. However[,] …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    93%
    Would buy again
    25 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    26 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    27 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    11 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    22 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    26 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    Features
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)DigitalOcean
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and DigitalOcean
    Feature
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    8.7
    27 Ratings
    5% above category average
    DigitalOcean
    9.2
    36 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime9.425 Ratings9.931 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling9.226 Ratings9.932 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing9.725 Ratings9.723 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates8.726 Ratings10.029 Ratings
    Monitoring tools8.125 Ratings9.035 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images8.525 Ratings9.733 Ratings
    Operating system support8.326 Ratings9.033 Ratings
    Security controls8.526 Ratings8.632 Ratings
    Automation8.116 Ratings6.55 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)DigitalOcean
    Small Businesses
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 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 out of 10
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)DigitalOcean
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (73 ratings)
    8.9
    (36 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    9.2
    (11 ratings)
    8.9
    (10 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.5
    (12 ratings)
    8.8
    (9 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)DigitalOcean
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Amazon AWS
    Suitable for companies that are looking for performance at a competitive price, flexibility to switch instance type even with RI, flexibility to add-on IOPS, option to lower running cost with the regular introduction of new instance type that comes with higher performance but at a lower cost.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Pros
    Amazon AWS
    • Huge Diverse range of machine shapes are available which cater to our demand.
    • Ability to combine the machines and integrate them with any other service in AWS (Ex: RDS, S3)
    • Handling performance and scalability using auto-scaling, ELB configuration and high performance machine shapes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Cons
    Amazon AWS
    • The choices on AMIs, instance types and additional configuration can be overwhelming for any non-DevOps person.
    • The pricing information should be more clear (than only providing the hourly cost) when launching the instance. AWS DynamoDB gives an estimated monthly cost when creating tables, and I would love to see similar cost estimation showing on EC2 instances individually, as not all developers gets access to the actual bills.
    • The term for reserving instances are at least 12 months. With instance types changing so fast and better instances coming out every other day, it's really hard to commit to an existing instance type for 1 or more years at a time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Likelihood to Renew
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Usability
    Amazon AWS
    You an start using EC2 instances immediately, is so easy and intuitive to start using them, EC2 has wizard to create the EC2 instances in the web browser or if you are code savvy you can create them with simple line in the CLI or using an SDK. Once you are comfortable using EC2, you can even automate the process.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Reliability and Availability
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    Have not found a single second of down time myself. Superior availability.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    Very quick response and high performance, you have to fine tune configurations on your machines though.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Amazon AWS
    AWS's support is good overall. Not outstanding, but better than average. We have had very little reason to engage with AWS support but in our limited experience, the staff has been knowledgeable, timely and helpful. The only negative is actually initiating a service request can be a bit of a pain.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Alternatives Considered
    Amazon AWS
    Amazon EC2 is super flexible compared to the PaaS offerings like Heroku Platform and Google App Engine since with Amazon EC2, we have access to the terminal. In terms of pricing, it's basically just the same as Google Compute Engine. The deciding factor is Amazon EC2's native integration with other AWS services since they're all in the same cloud platform.
    Read full review
    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
    Scalability
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    DigitalOcean
    Great scalability, you can start with small plans and move up to premium features at a very good price.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Amazon AWS
    • It reduced the need for heavy on-premises instances. Also, it completely eliminates maintenance of the machine. Their SLA criteria are also matching business needs. Overall IAAS is the best option when information is not so crucial to post on the cloud.
    • It makes both horizontal and vertical scaling really easy. This keeps your infrastructure up and running even while you are increasing the capacity or facing more traffic. This leads to having better customer satisfaction.
    • If you do not choose your instance type suitable for your business, it may incur lots of extra costs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
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