DigitalOcean vs. Google Cloud SQL

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
DigitalOcean
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
DigitalOcean 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
Google Cloud SQL
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Google Cloud SQL is a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) with the capability and functionality of MySQL.
$0
per core hour
Pricing
DigitalOceanGoogle Cloud SQL
Editions & Modules
1GB-16GB
$5.00
Starting Price Per Month
8GB-160GB
$60.00
Starting Price Per Month
License - Express
$0
per core hour
License - Web
$0.01134
per core hour
Storage - for backups
$.08
per month per GB
HA Storage - for backups
$.08
per month per GB
Storage - HDD storage capacity
$.09
per month per GB
License - Standard
$0.13
per core hour
Storage - SSD storage capacity
$.17
per month per GB
HA Storage - HDD storage capacity
$.18
per month per GB
HA Storage - SSD storage capacity
$.34
per month per GB
License - Enterprise
$0.47
per core hour
Memory
$5.11
per month per GB
HA Memory
$10.22
per month per GB
vCPUs
$30.15
per month per vCPU
HA vCPUs
$60.30
per month per vCPU
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DigitalOceanGoogle Cloud SQL
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing varies with editions, engine, and settings, including how much storage, memory, and CPU you provision. Cloud SQL offers per-second billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DigitalOceanGoogle Cloud SQL
Considered Both Products
DigitalOcean
Chose DigitalOcean
Digital Ocean is easier to start with and was a great choice for that project. On other projects, I may choose Google Cloud products because of their more complex product offerings and advanced features.
Products like Storage or Pub/Sub isn't available on Digital Ocean and the …
Chose DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean isn't nearly as robust as Google Cloud. DigitalOcean provides VPSs, as does Google Cloud. However, Google Cloud offers many other products as well.

ChunkHost is very similar to DigitalOcean, but doesn't have the infrastructure that DigitalOcean has. Geographical …
Google Cloud SQL
Chose Google Cloud SQL
Google Cloud SQL is very similar to other cloud provider options. AWS and DigitalOcean are direct competitors, While Azure is focusing on their own products. At cloud provider level, it's a matter of choosing the provider, and this product will not play a significant role on …
Chose Google Cloud SQL
DigitalOcean Managed database is relatively less costly compared to Google Cloud SQL database.

Google Cloud SQL service is well integrated with other Google Cloud Platform services such as IAM which enables fine grain access to team members.
Features
DigitalOceanGoogle Cloud SQL
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
DigitalOcean
9.0
36 Ratings
9% above category average
Google Cloud SQL
-
Ratings
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime9.831 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic scaling9.832 Ratings00 Ratings
Elastic load balancing9.123 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-configured templates10.029 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring tools9.335 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images9.333 Ratings00 Ratings
Operating system support8.933 Ratings00 Ratings
Security controls8.732 Ratings00 Ratings
Automation6.45 Ratings00 Ratings
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
DigitalOcean
-
Ratings
Google Cloud SQL
8.8
33 Ratings
2% above category average
Automatic software patching00 Ratings9.612 Ratings
Database scalability00 Ratings8.633 Ratings
Automated backups00 Ratings9.033 Ratings
Database security provisions00 Ratings8.433 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics00 Ratings8.432 Ratings
Automatic host deployment00 Ratings9.012 Ratings
Best Alternatives
DigitalOceanGoogle Cloud SQL
Small Businesses
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
DigitalOceanGoogle Cloud SQL
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(36 ratings)
8.5
(33 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(2 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(10 ratings)
8.4
(15 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(9 ratings)
9.1
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(11 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
DigitalOceanGoogle Cloud SQL
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.
Read full review
Google
Does what it promises well, for instance, as a sidecar for the main enterprise data warehouse. However, I would not recommend using it as the main data warehouse, particularly due to the heavy business logic, as other dedicated tools are more suitable for ensuring scalable operations in terms of change management and multi-developer adjustments.
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
Read full review
Google
  • It has a easily and user understandable interface which provides it every necessary feature to come up with.
  • It's backend is very strong that can help us to run big quieres without any hesitation.
  • It's integration with other tools are one of the powerful feature which makes it more suitable to use.
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.
Read full review
Google
  • Increasing support for more database engines may enable a wider range of application needs to be met.
  • Implementing and updating cutting-edge security features on a constant basis.
  • Streamlining and enhancing the tools for transferring data to Google Cloud SQL from on-premises databases or other cloud providers.
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!
Read full review
Google
It fits the current needs and bandwith of out lean organization.
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.
Read full review
Google
As with other cloud tools, users must learn a new terminology to navigate the various tools and configurations, and understand Google Cloud's configuration structure to perform even the most basic operations. So the learning curve is quite steep, but after a few months, it gets easier to maintain.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
DigitalOcean
Have not found a single second of down time myself. Superior availability.
Read full review
Google
No answers on this topic
Performance
DigitalOcean
Very quick response and high performance, you have to fine tune configurations on your machines though.
Read full review
Google
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.
Read full review
Google
GCP support in general requires a support agreement. For small organizations like us, this is not affordable or reasonable. It would help if Google had a support mechanism for smaller organizations. It was a steep learning curve for us because this was our first entry into the cloud database world. Better documentation also would have helped.
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.
Read full review
Google
Unlike other products, Google Cloud SQL has very flexible features that allow it to be selected for a free trial account so that the product can be analyzed and tested before purchasing it. Integration capabilities with most of the web services tools are easier regarding Google Cloud SQL with its nature and support.
Read full review
Scalability
DigitalOcean
Great scalability, you can start with small plans and move up to premium features at a very good price.
Read full review
Google
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...
Read full review
Google
  • With managed database system, it has given us near 100% data availability
  • It has also improved web layer experience with faster processing and authentication using database fields
  • Google Cloud SQL also gels up well with Google Analytics and other analytics systems for us to join up different data points and process them for deeper dives and analysis
Read full review
ScreenShots

Google Cloud SQL Screenshots

Screenshot of migrating to a fully managed database solution - Self-managing a database, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQL Server, can be inefficient and expensive, with significant effort around patching, hardware maintenance, backups, and tuning. Migrating to a fully managed solution can be done using a Database Migration Service with minimal downtime.Screenshot of data-driven application development - Cloud SQL accelerates application development via integration with the larger ecosystem of Google Cloud services, Google partners, and the open source community.