DigitalOcean vs Google Compute Engine comparison

DigitalOcean and Google are both solutions in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category. DigitalOcean is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.8, while Google is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.6. DigitalOcean holds a 2.3% mindshare in ISI, compared to Google’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of DigitalOcean users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Google users who would recommend it.

DigitalOcean

Read 12 DigitalOcean reviews

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1,585 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Google Compute Engine

Read 16 Google Compute Engine reviews

401 Views
240 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

DigitalOcean

Google Compute Engine

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

Google Compute Engine and DigitalOcean compete in the cloud service provider sector. Google Compute Engine is favored for its advanced features and flexibility, whereas DigitalOcean is preferred for its simplicity and ease of use.

Features:Google Compute Engine offers custom virtual machine configurations, auto-scaling, and managed instance groups. It provides robust documentation and flexible infrastructure capabilities. On the other hand, DigitalOcean is known for its user-friendly interface, simplicity in setup, and straightforward platform that supports smaller businesses and developers.

Room for Improvement:Google Compute Engine requires improvement in security complexity, deployment interface, and user support. Its configuration settings need simplification. DigitalOcean faces challenges with droplet stability, network latency, and needs to enhance technical support. Users also desire additional features, particularly for ETL processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Google Compute Engine is flexible in deployment but faces mixed reviews for technical support effectiveness. Its public cloud deployment is praised, yet support reliability is a concern. DigitalOcean offers an easy and straightforward deployment process, but like Google, requires improvement in support for complex problems.

Pricing and ROI:Google Compute Engine employs a competitive pay-as-you-go model, with notable ROI through cost savings and improved performance. Some users, however, find it costly compared to Microsoft Azure. DigitalOcean provides affordable low-cost packages, yet some users feel its feature set does not fully justify the price. Both platforms can improve ROI when effectively integrated into business strategies.

To learn more, read our detailed DigitalOcean vs. Google Compute Engine Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DigitalOcean vs. Google Compute Engine

April 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

DigitalOcean

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

14th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Google Compute Engine

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

10th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of DigitalOcean is 2.3%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Compute Engine is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

Featured Reviews

Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

Enjoy cost-effective hosting with flexible deployment and room for payment model improvement

I use only one feature, which is the droplet, and it has been satisfactory. The droplet feature is valuable for hosting my applications as it is particularly cost-effective and serves my needs well. I also have total freedom over what I use, and I have a better user interface and documentation compared to Oracle.

Read full review

Arundeep Veerabhadraiah

Associate Director - Cloud Infrastructure at Kyndryl

A highly scalable and seamless platform which is easily automated

One of GCE's best features is the managed instance groups. We typically use managed instance groups for high availability. You can set certain parameters for managed instance groups where if the load of the computer or server increases beyond 80%, for example, the solution will automatically spawn another instance, and the load will be automatically divided between two systems. If the load is 80% of one of the VMs or GCEs, once the load is divided, it comes down to 40%, so the availability of your systems goes up. However, that all depends on the parameters or configurations we put on the instance group. You also have regular health checks on these managed instance groups, which are configurable. If these health checks determine something wrong with the VM, they will automatically kick off or spawn a new GCE instance. This way, the outage time is less. Previously, on-premises, unless somebody reported the issue to the helpdesk saying that a particular service was unavailable, then a support team would need to troubleshoot what went wrong, which takes a long time. At least 30 minutes to one hour. But by using these managed instance groups, we can reduce the outage time, and second, we can configure them with minimal resources, bringing down our cost. And if the load increases, the managed instance groups automatically respond to new things. Subsequently, our costs decrease. We have a wide range of VMs. There are general-purpose VMs that can be used for hosting general-purpose applications. If some of our applications are memory intensive, then we have a lot of VMs in the M1 series. We can use a range of memory-optimized VMs for these things. We have C-series VMs for compute-intensive applications. If we use some mathematical formulas and require a very high throughput from that, there are GPU-optimized VMs used for machine learning or 3D visualizations in rendering software. GPU-enabled VMs are pretty powerful and responsive. Again, the best part is that we can spin them up when we need them, and once we're done with our work, we can shut them down, allowing tremendous cost savings for any customer. Previously, if we wanted a very high-configuration VM, we had to own the entire hardware and have it on our on-prem data center. And once we'd done with a particular activity, the system would just be lying there on our premises. That is not the case now. We use and decommission it, so we're only billed for the time we're using the product. One of the best things is the preemptible VMs or Spot VMs. These are the cheapest VMs in Google Cloud, but it has a string attached to it where Google can shut down these VMs whenever Google teams split. You only get about 90 seconds notice before they shut down this particular VM. There are scenarios where customers can use these preemptible VMs, for example, when running a batch job. Batch jobs are run once or twice daily, depending on the customer's requirement. Once we are done running these batches, we can decommission the VM. Even if, in the middle of this batch job, Google shuts down these VMs, we can pick up the processing from wherever the VM left off. These are some of the beautiful things we have on Google Cloud concerning the Compute Engine.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The droplet feature is valuable for hosting my applications as it is particularly cost-effective and serves my needs well."

"It's been a good choice for us for some services. We generally have several deployments. For instance, for some static Angular applications, it was a clear choice to run them on Cloudflare, which performs very well in this context. All the assets go on DigitalOcean."

"The solution is very stable."

"The technical support services are good."

"The user interface is nice, and it is very easy to use. Anyone can use it."

"I like Kubernetes integration."

"The customer support team are very responsive."

"The most valuable feature is the ease with which you can create a phishing server and use it."

More DigitalOcean pros

"Google is managing all hardware. You don't need to provision or pre-provision your computer engine."

"From a feature perspective, I find API integration, automation capabilities, and features like preemptive and Spot instances valuable. Migration tools have also been useful."

"The overall product rating is nine out of ten."

"In GCP, there's a custom configuration feature unlike AWS and Azure"

"I recommend the tool to others since it has high availability features, scalability, and stability."

"The most valuable feature is auto-scaling."

"The solution helps to direct SSH into the machine at the click of a button. It also helps to deploy container images right from the UI. There is no need to manage the containers on the machine. I also like the tool’s Spot provision model."

"The solution is readily available, and software engineers can provision it. It is scalable and allows self-service."

More Google Compute Engine pros

Cons

"The solution could improve by having integration with GitHub."

"The platform could enhance its features, particularly for ETL processes. Additionally, more integration features would be highly beneficial."

"I would like to see improvements to the logging and user interface. The verification process could be more streamlined."

"The issue with DigitalOcean is primarily the latency. So, when you have a mixed system with some components staying here, and then we encounter network latency, it's not optimal. Our"

"DigitalOcean could offer a pay-as-you-go model similar to AWS, where I would pay for what I use rather than having fixed payments."

"I think something needs to be done in terms of technical support."

"Other solutions are proving the monitoring feature, like AWS having GuardDuty and SAP having services for logs and monitoring. DigitalOcean doesn’t have any other benefits."

"DigitalOcean could offer a pay-as-you-go model similar to AWS, where I would pay for what I use rather than having fixed payments."

More DigitalOcean cons

"The licensing process is not a very straightforward process."

"The biggest problem is that it's got a very archaean and complex security environment that has to be very carefully set up and is easy to break."

"It has some limitations. For example, you don't get through layer two connectivity. So I've had some difficulty deploying custom VMs. For example, you can't deploy a KVM file to file directly on GCP."

"Google Compute Engine does not have many options at a lower tier level. If they had more options it will be better. For example, Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure, have more options and different types of instances, of VMs we can select."

"The high availability features in Google are only available in Google Compute Engine in different regions. If I have another server outside Google, the high availability features in Google cannot synchronize with such a server."

"There have been instances when a customer has tried to deploy a certain number of VMs inside a project, and they come across quota issues."

"I rate the product's stability around five to six out of ten."

"Google Compute Engine needs to have multi-region support. It would also be nice to have a tracking mechanism."

More Google Compute Engine cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a pay as you go solution. There is no license and it is usage based."

"The solution provides the cheapest cloud in comparison to the other cloud solutions."

"I am using the cheapest option available, which costs $50 per month."

"The program is cheaper than others."

"The pricing is cheap."

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

"The pricing is moderate and reasonable for a mid-tier cloud platform."

"The price of DigitalOcean could be lower. It is expensive. it's higher than other solutions available in the market. We pay approximately $20 to $25 a month to use the solution. The price we pay is for the shared CPU option."

More DigitalOcean pricing and cost advice

"Google Compute Engine is not the least expensive solution. Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft One, are offering a less expensive solution. The price is based on usage. Whenever we use it, we have to pay for only usage. It is a pay-as-you-go model."

"I rate GCE's pricing a five out of ten since it's affordable."

"In terms of improvement, one is definitely the licensing piece. So there is a feature, the BYOL (Bring Your Own License) licensing piece, to bring your own license. It is not that straightforward. It requires some support from Google to get it sorted, access those licenses, and configure those licenses."

"Google is providing money for learning Google Compute Engine. They offer a $300 free trial to new customers. Any beginner can easily get started."

"The tool is reasonably priced, considering its scalability features. If we want to extend the server's capacity, we can do it, and I think it's reasonable."

"Google Compute Engine's pricing is flexible and the best of all other alternatives."

"It's $60,000 to $70,000 a month to replace about $10,000 a month in data center costs."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

23%

Computer Software Company

16%

University

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about DigitalOcean?

It's been a good choice for us for some services. We generally have several deployments. For instance, for some static Angular applications, it was a clear choice to run them on Cloudflare, which p...

See all answers

What needs improvement with DigitalOcean?

DigitalOcean could offer a pay-as-you-go model similar to AWS, where I would pay for what I use rather than having fixed payments. It would be beneficial to have more flexibility without fixed paym...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for DigitalOcean?

I primarily use DigitalOcean to deploy applications. I rent the system from them, where I deploy my web servers and application servers. I use it to host my applications since moving from Oracle. I...

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What do you like most about Google Compute Engine?

Everything is simple and useful. The initial setup is not challenging.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Compute Engine?

Google resources are cheaper compared to AWS and Microsoft Azure. Among the three, Google is the cheapest option.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Compute Engine?

Google has a lack of focus on their products. They have many products in various areas of the market, but they do not productize or appeal to the market effectively. They should concentrate on prod...

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Firebase vs DigitalOcean

Compared 33% of the time

Amazon AWS vs DigitalOcean

Compared 17% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs DigitalOcean

Compared 13% of the time

Alibaba Cloud vs DigitalOcean

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs DigitalOcean

Compared 6% of the time

More DigitalOcean Competitors

VMware Cloud Foundation vs Google Compute Engine

Compared 33% of the time

Amazon EC2 vs Google Compute Engine

Compared 25% of the time

Google Cloud vs Google Compute Engine

Compared 22% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Google Compute Engine

Compared 20% of the time

More Google Compute Engine Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

DigitalOcean

April 2025

Download DigitalOcean product report

Buyer's Guide

Google Compute Engine

April 2025

Download Google Compute Engine product report

Also Known As

Digital Ocean

No data available

Overview

DigitalOcean has the fastest and most convenient cloud technology to help you easily and more efficiently manage your infrastructure so you can get back to coding. We provide all of our users with high-performance SSD Hard Drives, a flexible API, and the ability to select the nearest data center location.

DigitalOcean

Google Compute Engine delivers virtual machines running in Google's innovative data centers and worldwide fiber network. Compute Engine's tooling and workflow support enable scaling from single instances to global, load-balanced cloud computing.

Compute Engine's VMs boot quickly, come with persistent disk storage, and deliver consistent performance. Our virtual servers are available in many configurations including predefined sizes or the option to create Custom Machine Types optimized for your specific needs. Flexible pricing and automatic sustained use discounts make Compute Engine the leader in price/performance.

Google

Sample Customers

jQuery Foundation, Pertino, TaskRabbit, Compose, InfluxDB, The Able Few

Allthecooks, BetterCloud, Bluecore, Cosentry, Evite, Ezakus, HTC, Infectious Media, iStreamPlanet, Mendelics, SageMathCloud, Sedex, Treeptik, Wibigoo, Wix, zulily, Zync

Buyer's Guide

DigitalOcean vs. Google Compute Engine

April 2025

Free Report: DigitalOcean vs. Google Compute Engine

Find out what your peers are saying about DigitalOcean vs. Google Compute Engine and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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