Raff wins on lower comparable worker prices, a $30 HA control-plane add-on, $0 public egress, and a simpler small-team cost model. DigitalOcean Kubernetes wins on broader regional placement, dedicated CPU and GPU node choices, mature DigitalOcean integrations, and a 99.95% HA control-plane SLA. Choose DigitalOcean Kubernetes when region choice or specialized worker classes are requirements; choose Raff when us-east, lower published worker prices, and predictable transfer costs fit the workload. Two 2 vCPU / 4 GB workers with HA cost $65.98/month on Raff versus $88/month on DigitalOcean before storage, load balancers, and other attached services.
DigitalOcean Kubernetes and Raff both remove day-to-day control-plane administration while leaving application architecture, workload sizing, policies, and data protection with the customer. The standard control plane is $0 on both platforms, but their surrounding economics differ: Raff's 2 vCPU / 4 GB worker is $17.99/month, while DigitalOcean's Basic 2 vCPU / 4 GiB worker is $24/month. DOKS offers a wider infrastructure catalog and geographic footprint; Raff focuses on one public us-east region, $0 public egress, lower cluster-storage pricing, and a smaller operating surface for teams that do not need every cloud primitive.
DigitalOcean Kubernetes vs Raff: which is right for you?
DigitalOcean Kubernetes is the stronger choice for global placement, specialized node classes, and DigitalOcean-native infrastructure. Raff is the stronger choice when the cluster can run in us-east and monthly worker, HA, storage, and transfer costs need to stay easy to forecast.
| Decision factor | Choose Raff | Choose DigitalOcean Kubernetes |
|---|
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB worker | $17.99/month | $24/month Basic |
| HA control plane | $30/month | $40/month |
| Geography | us-east fits | You need broader DOKS region choice |
| Worker classes | General Kubernetes worker tiers fit | Dedicated CPU, storage-optimized, or GPU nodes are required |
| Public egress | You want $0 public egress | Pooled node transfer plus $0.01/GiB overage fits |
| Persistent storage | $0.10/GB-month cluster storage fits | DigitalOcean Volumes at $0.10/GiB-month fit |
| Operations | Built-in Raff cluster workflow is enough | API, doctl, Terraform, registry, VPC, and wider DigitalOcean integrations matter |
A specific first-hand decision rule from Raff's infrastructure work is to price the cluster around the steady worker floor before adding optional platform services. For a small team, two always-on workers, HA, storage, and outbound traffic usually explain more of the bill than the nominal $0 control plane.
DigitalOcean Kubernetes overview
DigitalOcean Kubernetes, or DOKS, is DigitalOcean's managed Kubernetes service. DigitalOcean operates the Kubernetes control plane while customers manage node pools, workloads, policies, application availability, persistent data, and recovery design.
DOKS worker nodes use DigitalOcean Droplet sizes. Current Basic Regular prices include $12/month for 1 vCPU / 2 GiB, $24/month for 2 vCPU / 4 GiB, and $48/month for 4 vCPU / 8 GiB. DigitalOcean also offers dedicated CPU, memory-focused, storage-focused, and GPU compute options for teams whose workloads need different node characteristics.
The standard DOKS control plane is free. The HA control plane costs $40/month and carries a 99.95% control-plane SLA. DOKS supports node-pool autoscaling, automatic version workflows, VPC networking, DigitalOcean Volumes, DigitalOcean Load Balancers, Container Registry, API access, doctl, and Terraform.
DigitalOcean's strongest advantages are its broader regional footprint, specialized worker classes, mature automation tooling, and the ability to connect Kubernetes to a larger DigitalOcean product catalog without leaving the provider.
Raff overview
Raff Kubernetes is a managed Kubernetes service with a free standard control plane, optional three-master HA, worker-node autoscaling, built-in monitoring, managed cluster networking, and a deployment workflow designed for small teams and operators that want Kubernetes without maintaining the control plane themselves.
Current worker tiers are:
| Worker | vCPU | RAM | SSD | Monthly price |
|---|
| K8s Starter | 1 | 2 GB | 50 GB | $9.99 |
| K8s Standard | 2 | 4 GB | 80 GB | $17.99 |
| K8s Performance | 4 | 8 GB | 120 GB | $33.99 |
| K8s High Memory | 8 | 16 GB | 180 GB | $71.99 |
| K8s Large | 8 | 32 GB | 240 GB | $119.99 |
| K8s Scale | 16 | 64 GB | 480 GB | $229.99 |
The standard control plane costs $0. Optional HA with three masters and etcd quorum costs $30/month. Cluster storage is $0.10/GB-month, with a 10 GB minimum, 100 GB default, and 1 TB maximum; replicated cluster storage requires at least two nodes. Cluster-to-storage traffic is not metered.
Raff Kubernetes prices public egress at $0. Raff currently reports 3,000+ customers, 15,000+ production VMs, and a 99.9% platform SLA. Raff's Trustpilot rating was verified at 4.5/5 on August 16, 2026, with G2 at 4.6/5. Raff gives up DigitalOcean's geographic and machine-class breadth in exchange for a more compact us-east operating and billing model.
DigitalOcean Kubernetes pricing vs Raff pricing
Both services charge $0 for the standard managed control plane. The meaningful price comparison therefore starts with worker nodes and then adds HA, storage, outbound traffic, load balancing, databases, and any other services the workload actually uses.
| Buying position | Raff Kubernetes | DigitalOcean Kubernetes | Decision signal |
|---|
| 1 vCPU / 2 GB worker | $9.99/month | $12/month Basic | Raff is $2.01 lower |
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB worker | $17.99/month | $24/month Basic | Raff is $10.01 lower |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB worker | $33.99/month | $48/month Basic | Raff is $17.01 lower |
| HA control plane | $30/month | $40/month | Raff add-on is $10 lower |
| Persistent storage | $0.10/GB-month | $0.10/GiB-month | Raff has the lower published unit price |
Comparison class: these rows compare published resource shapes and prices, not measured Kubernetes performance. DigitalOcean Basic workers use a shared-CPU Droplet class; Raff does not publish an identical DigitalOcean CPU-scheduling taxonomy, so vCPU counts alone are not benchmark equivalence.
A two-node 2 vCPU / 4 GB cluster costs $35.98/month on Raff and $48/month on DOKS before HA. With HA enabled, the totals become $65.98 and $88 respectively before storage and surrounding services.
Bandwidth cost math
DigitalOcean pools outbound-transfer allowances from worker nodes and charges $0.01/GiB above the pooled account allowance. A current $12 Basic worker includes 2,000 GiB, while the $24 2 vCPU / 4 GiB Basic worker includes 4,000 GiB of transfer. Raff Kubernetes prices public egress at $0.
For a two-node DOKS cluster using the $24 worker shape, the two nodes contribute 8,000 GiB of listed transfer allowance before account-level pooling effects from other eligible resources.
| Public outbound traffic | Raff egress charge | DOKS overage from an 8,000 GiB two-worker allowance |
|---|
| 4,000 GiB | $0 | $0 |
| 8,000 GiB | $0 | $0 |
| 10,000 GiB | $0 | $20 |
| 20,000 GiB | $0 | $120 |
The DOKS examples isolate worker transfer and overage. A real DigitalOcean account can pool eligible transfer across resources, so the invoice can differ from a single-cluster example.
Automated backups
Neither managed control plane should be treated as an automatic backup of Kubernetes application data. DOKS manages the control plane, but customers still need a recovery plan for PersistentVolume data, databases, object storage, manifests, secrets, and application-level state.
DigitalOcean Volumes used by Kubernetes cost $0.10/GiB-month and support snapshots, but snapshots are a separately managed protection mechanism rather than a blanket DOKS workload-backup policy. Teams running stateful workloads should define snapshot or backup schedules and test restores instead of assuming control-plane HA protects data.
Raff follows the same separation of responsibilities. Managed control-plane availability does not replace workload backups. Raff cluster storage, managed databases, object storage, and application configuration each need recovery procedures appropriate to the state they hold.
Bandwidth and transfer policy
Raff Kubernetes prices public egress at $0, and cluster-to-Raff-cluster-storage traffic is not metered. That makes outbound traffic a fixed-cost decision from the Kubernetes side rather than an additional per-GiB line item.
DigitalOcean includes outbound-transfer allowances with worker Droplets and pools eligible transfer at the account level. Basic worker allowances range by selected size; the current 2 vCPU / 4 GiB Basic size includes 4,000 GiB. Usage above the pooled allowance is billed at $0.01/GiB.
DigitalOcean's model can work well when workloads stay inside pooled allowances. Raff's model is simpler for APIs, downloads, media, package distribution, or other workloads where outbound transfer can be large or uneven from month to month.
Feature comparison: DigitalOcean Kubernetes vs Raff
| Feature | Raff Kubernetes | DigitalOcean Kubernetes |
|---|
| Standard control plane | $0 | $0 |
| HA control plane | $30/month | $40/month |
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB worker | $17.99/month | $24/month Basic |
| Node-pool autoscaling | Yes | Yes |
| Dedicated CPU worker class | No separately published class | Yes |
| GPU workers | No published Kubernetes GPU tier | Yes |
| Public regions | 1 — us-east | Broader global DOKS footprint |
| Public egress | $0 | Pooled allowance, then $0.01/GiB |
| Persistent storage | Raff cluster storage | DigitalOcean Volumes through CSI |
| Storage unit price | $0.10/GB-month | $0.10/GiB-month |
Full kubectl workflow | Yes | Yes |
| Monitoring | Built into Raff cluster workflow | DigitalOcean monitoring plus user-selected tooling |
| API / CLI / Terraform | Raff platform workflows | API, doctl, Terraform |
| Container registry | Compatible external registries | Native DigitalOcean Container Registry integration |
| Managed data options | PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse, Kafka | DigitalOcean Managed Databases catalog |
DigitalOcean wins on region choice, specialized workers, GPU availability, native registry integration, and mature DigitalOcean automation. Raff wins on the published worker examples above, HA add-on price, cluster-storage unit price, and $0 public Kubernetes egress.
Features and reliability: Raff vs DigitalOcean Kubernetes
This comparison includes 0 controlled Raff-versus-DigitalOcean Kubernetes workload benchmarks, so it does not declare either platform faster. A valid Kubernetes performance comparison would require matched CPU scheduling, Kubernetes versions, node counts, CNI behavior, storage paths, regions, Pod requests, application images, and repeated workload runs.
Control-plane reliability
DigitalOcean's HA control plane carries a 99.95% SLA, which is a stronger numerical control-plane commitment than Raff's 99.9% platform SLA. DigitalOcean should be preferred when that specific contractual figure is a hard requirement.
Raff's HA option uses three masters with etcd quorum and costs $30/month. DigitalOcean's HA control plane costs $40/month. The lower Raff price does not make application workloads automatically highly available: replica count, Pod disruption behavior, worker capacity, ingress, storage, and external dependencies still determine application resilience.
Worker and scaling choices
DigitalOcean has the wider worker catalog. DOKS can use shared Basic Droplets as well as dedicated and specialized compute families, including GPU options. This is a genuine advantage for workloads that need stronger CPU isolation, memory-heavy nodes, local-storage characteristics, or accelerators.
Raff exposes a smaller set of Kubernetes worker tiers from 1 vCPU / 2 GB through 16 vCPU / 64 GB. That narrower catalog makes ordinary small-team sizing simpler but does not cover every specialized DigitalOcean use case.
Stateful recovery
DigitalOcean Volumes and Raff cluster storage both persist independently of an individual Pod, but persistence is not the same as backup. Kubernetes operators still need to define what is copied, how often it is copied, where recovery data lives, how databases are made consistent, and how restore procedures are tested.
Trust and operating evidence
DigitalOcean has the deeper public operating history and review base. Its Trustpilot profile was 4.6/5 when checked for this refresh. Raff's current Trustpilot signal is 4.5/5, alongside 3,000+ customers and 15,000+ production VMs. The much larger DigitalOcean review sample is a genuine trust advantage; neither review score should replace architecture or SLA evaluation.
When you should choose DigitalOcean Kubernetes over Raff
Choose DigitalOcean Kubernetes when:
- Broader region choice is required. DOKS supports deployment beyond Raff's single public
us-east region.
- Dedicated CPU nodes matter. DigitalOcean offers dedicated compute families in addition to shared Basic workers.
- GPU workers are required. DigitalOcean offers GPU infrastructure that Raff Kubernetes does not currently publish.
- A 99.95% HA control-plane SLA is mandatory. Raff publishes a 99.9% platform SLA.
- DigitalOcean-native integrations reduce work. DOKS connects naturally to VPCs, Container Registry, Volumes, Load Balancers, Managed Databases, API,
doctl, and Terraform.
- A larger public review history matters. DigitalOcean's Trustpilot profile currently contains versus Raff's 16.
- Your pooled transfer allowance is sufficient. DOKS overage starts only after eligible account-level allowances are exhausted.
When you should choose Raff over DigitalOcean Kubernetes
Choose Raff Kubernetes when:
- Published worker price matters. Raff is $17.99/month at 2 vCPU / 4 GB versus $24/month for the DOKS Basic shape.
- HA cost matters. Raff's three-master HA add-on is $30/month versus $40/month for DOKS HA control plane.
- Public egress should stay at $0. DOKS charges $0.01/GiB after pooled allowances.
- Cluster storage cost matters. Raff cluster storage is $0.10/GB-month, effectively level with $0.10/GiB-month for DigitalOcean Volumes.
- The workload fits
us-east. DigitalOcean's broader region map adds little if one eastern-U.S. region already satisfies the architecture.
- A smaller product surface is preferable. Raff combines Kubernetes with VMs, managed databases, object storage, Apps, Functions, and private networking without requiring the team to choose among as many compute families.
- Built-in cluster monitoring fits the operating model. Raff packages monitoring into its managed Kubernetes workflow.
Raff currently reports 3,000+ customers and 15,000+ production VMs. For the broader decision, read Kubernetes vs Docker Compose for Small Teams and Kubernetes Cost Optimization.
Migrating from DigitalOcean Kubernetes to Raff
- Inventory the DOKS cluster. Record Kubernetes version, node pools, autoscaling limits, namespaces, Helm releases, CRDs, ingress controllers, DigitalOcean Load Balancers, Volumes, storage classes, registry integrations, secrets, policies, DNS, and external allowlists.
- Create the Raff target cluster. Select the control-plane model, worker sizes, node counts, autoscaling ranges, cluster storage, private networking, and monitoring configuration.
- Replace provider-specific integrations. Convert DigitalOcean storage classes, load-balancer annotations, registry credentials, VPC assumptions, and CSI/CCM dependencies to the Raff equivalents. Gotcha: provider-specific Kubernetes annotations can survive YAML exports and fail silently on the target platform.
- Move persistent data. Use database-native exports, application replication, backup tools, or verified copy workflows for persistent volumes. Gotcha: Kubernetes manifests recreate resource definitions; they do not contain the application data stored inside volumes or external databases.
- Deploy and verify workloads. Apply CRDs and operators first, then namespaces, configuration, workloads, services, ingress, policies, storage, and observability. Test readiness, autoscaling, jobs, restore procedures, and failure behavior on the target cluster.
- Cut over with rollback. Lower DNS TTL to 300 seconds, perform the final state synchronization, update DNS and allowlists, monitor production, and keep DOKS available until the rollback window closes.
Stateless manifests and Helm releases are usually the easiest part of a DOKS-to-Raff move. Persistent volumes, DigitalOcean-specific annotations, registry authentication, external IP allowlists, autoscaler assumptions, and version-dependent CRDs create most of the migration risk.
About DigitalOcean Kubernetes
DigitalOcean Kubernetes is the managed Kubernetes service from DigitalOcean Holdings, Inc., a publicly traded cloud company headquartered in New York. DOKS provides a managed control plane, node pools, autoscaling, persistent-volume integration, regional deployment, and connections to DigitalOcean networking, registry, database, API, CLI, and Terraform workflows.
Conclusion: DigitalOcean Kubernetes or Raff?
The DigitalOcean-Kubernetes-versus-Raff decision resolves across four measured axes: cluster cost, infrastructure breadth, reliability commitments, and transfer/storage economics.
- Cluster cost: two 2 vCPU / 4 GB workers plus HA total $65.98/month on Raff versus $88/month on DOKS before storage and surrounding services.
- Infrastructure breadth: DigitalOcean offers broader regions, dedicated CPU classes, GPU nodes, and a larger native cloud catalog; Raff deliberately exposes a smaller Kubernetes footprint in
us-east.
- Reliability: DOKS has a 99.95% HA control-plane SLA; Raff publishes a 99.9% platform SLA and offers three-master HA for $30/month.
- Transfer and storage: Raff public Kubernetes egress is $0 and cluster storage is $0.10/GB-month; DOKS uses pooled transfer with $0.01/GiB overage and DigitalOcean Volumes at $0.10/GiB-month.
Choose DigitalOcean Kubernetes when geographic reach, specialized compute, DigitalOcean-native integrations, or the 99.95% HA control-plane SLA are hard requirements. Choose Raff when us-east is sufficient and lower published worker/HA/storage prices plus $0 public egress make the cluster easier to budget.
Raff currently reports 3,000+ customers, 15,000+ production VMs, Trustpilot 4.5/5, G2 4.6/5, and a 99.9% platform SLA. Continue with Kubernetes vs Docker Compose for Small Teams, Kubernetes Cost Optimization, and K3s vs Kubernetes.
