DigitalOcean Droplets vs. Google Cloud Platform

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
DigitalOcean'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
Google Cloud Platform
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Google Cloud Platform is a suite of cloud computing services used to build apps or take advantage of cloud infrastructural services, achieve legacy infrastructure modernization, or manage enterprise data and analytic needs.
$0
(25+ apps are currently available at no cost)
Pricing
DigitalOcean DropletsGoogle Cloud Platform
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
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DigitalOcean DropletsGoogle Cloud Platform
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.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DigitalOcean DropletsGoogle Cloud Platform
Features
DigitalOcean DropletsGoogle Cloud Platform
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
DigitalOcean Droplets
8.8
1 Ratings
7% above category average
Google Cloud Platform
7.8
4 Ratings
5% below category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime10.01 Ratings8.03 Ratings
Dynamic scaling10.01 Ratings8.03 Ratings
Elastic load balancing5.01 Ratings7.53 Ratings
Pre-configured templates5.01 Ratings6.53 Ratings
Monitoring tools10.01 Ratings8.03 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images9.01 Ratings6.53 Ratings
Operating system support10.01 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Security controls10.01 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Automation10.01 Ratings7.53 Ratings
Best Alternatives
DigitalOcean DropletsGoogle Cloud Platform
Small Businesses
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
Score 8.9 out of 10
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
DigitalOcean DropletsGoogle Cloud Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(8 ratings)
8.7
(4 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
DigitalOcean DropletsGoogle Cloud Platform
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.
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Google
When most of our stuff is in Google Cloud Platform, it works great to integrate and cross/share data that is all in Google Cloud Platform or BigQuery. It has simplified things from a permissions perspective as well. I'd say it is less appropriate when trying to test something quickly locally, or when half your stuff is in AWS or another provider.
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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
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Google
  • Easy to set up
  • Affordable use of the tool
  • Easy to access billing
  • Reliable service
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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.
Read full review
Google
  • The UI is so confusing. The console is good, but it is like a maze. There are too many menus and settings, and things do not work as expected. It takes time to get friendly, and it is not friendly for new users.
  • Support experience: Sometimes, you get a great engineer, but other times, it's very difficult to talk with them as they are unable to respond as expected and solve issues late.
  • Region and zone are issues, as not all services are available in all regions, which is lacking when deploying something in the same region or zone.
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Usability
DigitalOcean
Other platforms dashboard console is more difficult to use. DigitalOcean's dashboard is clean, simple, and straightforward
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Google
The Google Cloud Platform console is pretty slick for BigQuery especially. I have liked the visibility I get from using that and the way to integrate and see what's in our data lake. The logging console for tracking GKE jobs isn't quite as great, which is why it doesn't get a full 10.
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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.
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Google
Google Cloud Platform is release later than Amazon web service, I think that why Google Cloud Platform can learned and optimized the Dashboard and some features that make it easy to use and can be cheaper than amazon web service.
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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
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Google
  • It allows us to focus our efforts on other, more important items at hand
  • It gives us an affordable option letting me know it's available to all users, not just the largest scale ones out there
  • The customer service is always helpful and reliable, along with the service itself which lets me focus on my work instead of worrying about the service.
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ScreenShots

Google Cloud Platform Screenshots

Screenshot of a view of Google Compute EngineScreenshot of the GCP consoleScreenshot of SLIsScreenshot of various homepages