DigitalOcean is one of the best-known developer clouds, with Droplets, managed databases, Kubernetes, App Platform, Spaces object storage, Functions and GPU instances, backed by a documentation library most providers cannot match. Raff Technologies runs the same shape of platform — VMs, managed databases, Kubernetes, object storage, Functions and Apps on one account — from a single us-east region. The two are close enough in scope that the comparison comes down to price per unit and which parts of the catalog you actually need. At the numerically comparable 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 80-unit storage shape, a DigitalOcean Basic Droplet lists $24/month and Raff General Purpose lists $17.99/month. They are not technically identical: DigitalOcean specifies disk in GiB, while Raff quotes GB, and CPU hardware and service terms may differ.
DigitalOcean VPS and Raff at a glance
DigitalOcean sells four Droplet families. Basic uses shared vCPU from $4/month; CPU-Optimized, General Purpose and Memory-Optimized all use dedicated vCPU at different memory ratios. Every Droplet includes a metered transfer allowance — 500 GB at the entry plan rising to 11 TB — with overage at $0.01 per GiB.
Around the Droplet sits a deep catalog: Spaces object storage from $5/month with a built-in CDN, App Platform from $0/month, Managed Databases from $15/month covering PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, MongoDB, Kafka and OpenSearch, Kubernetes from $12/month with a free control plane, Functions with 90,000 GiB-seconds free per month, block storage volumes, load balancers, and GPU Droplets. DigitalOcean also operates data centers across North America, Europe and Asia, and its tutorial library is a genuine asset that no comparison should pretend away.
Raff Technologies runs 15,000+ VMs for 3,000+ customers from us-east, with a 99.90% monthly uptime SLA for eligible services (excluding Cost-Optimized VMs), backed by service credits, rated 4.5/5 on Trustpilot and 4.6/5 on G2. Raff offers three Linux VM classes: Cost-Optimized (Linux only) from $9.99/month for 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 40 GB, using previous-generation DDR4 hardware, local NVMe, a 1 Gbps public port and no uptime SLA; General Purpose (shared vCPU) from $4.99/month; and CPU-Optimized (dedicated vCPU) from $15.99/month. General Purpose and CPU-Optimized use newer DDR5 hardware and 3 Gbps public ports. The contractual 99.90% monthly uptime SLA covers eligible VM families but not Cost-Optimized. VM transfer is unmetered, but hardware, public-port performance, local storage and SLA should be compared separately. Check backup and snapshot settings and costs for the selected plan.
Raff's catalog covers managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse and Kafka from $7.99/month, S3-compatible object storage at $7/month for 100 GB and 1 TB of egress, managed Kubernetes with a free control plane and workers from $9.99/month, Functions with a free monthly tier, block volumes at $0.08/GiB-month, and Raff Apps from $3/month.
DigitalOcean VPS pricing vs Raff pricing
DigitalOcean Basic Droplets use shared vCPU, a closer class-level comparison to Raff General Purpose; DigitalOcean dedicated families are closer to Raff CPU-Optimized. Hardware, storage, performance and reliability are not necessarily identical. Raff's new Cost-Optimized class uses older DDR4 hosts, local NVMe, a 1 Gbps public port and no SLA, so it is deliberately omitted from these class-matched tables. The listed DigitalOcean Basic and CPU-Optimized prices were rechecked against the official Droplet pricing table on 2026-10-25 (regular CPU variants). Verify available region, CPU variant and add-ons before buying.
Shared vCPU: Raff General Purpose against DigitalOcean Basic
| Shape | Raff General Purpose | DigitalOcean Basic |
|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU / 1 GB | $4.99 — 25 GB, unmetered | $6.00 — 25 GB, 1 TB transfer |
| 1 vCPU / 2 GB | $8.99 — 50 GB, unmetered | $12.00 — 50 GB, 2 TB transfer |
| 2 vCPU / 2 GB | $12.99 — 40 GB, unmetered | $18.00 — 60 GB, 3 TB transfer |
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB | $17.99 — 80 GB, unmetered | $24.00 — 80 GB, 4 TB transfer |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB | $33.99 — 160 GB, unmetered | $48.00 — 160 GB, 5 TB transfer |
| 8 vCPU / 16 GB | $71.99 — 240 GB, unmetered | $96.00 — 320 GB, 6 TB transfer |
Four rows match vCPU, RAM and included disk (1 vCPU / 1 GB / 25 GB; 1 vCPU / 2 GB / 50 GB; 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 80 GB; 4 vCPU / 8 GB / 160 GB). The shown Raff General Purpose prices are roughly 17% to 29% lower, depending on the row. Shared-vCPU performance and other service terms still require separate testing. The DigitalOcean plan amounts were rechecked on 2026-10-25; the four listed comparable rows share the same numerical disk-capacity figures, but Raff advertises GB and DigitalOcean lists GiB, which are different units. Verify the region, CPU variant and effective checkout total.
Dedicated vCPU: Raff CPU-Optimized against DigitalOcean CPU-Optimized
| Shape | Raff CPU-Optimized | DigitalOcean CPU-Optimized |
|---|---|---|
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB | $36.99 — 80 GB | $42.00 — 25 GB |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB | $72.99 — 120 GB | $84.00 — 50 GB |
| 8 vCPU / 16 GB | $144.99 — 180 GB | $168.00 — 100 GB |
Raff is 12% to 14% cheaper on dedicated vCPU, with two to three times the included disk at every shape.
DigitalOcean regular Basic and CPU-Optimized plan prices rechecked against the official Droplet pricing page on 2026-10-25. DigitalOcean also sells General Purpose and Memory-Optimized Droplets at higher memory ratios — from $63/month at 2 vCPU / 8 GB and $84/month at 2 vCPU / 16 GB — where Raff's closest plans are $27.99 and, above 32 GB, nothing at all.
Bandwidth cost math
DigitalOcean assigns included outbound transfer to each Droplet plan, but the allowance accrues while Droplets exist and is pooled across the team's Droplets; traffic beyond the team's accrued allowance costs $0.01/GiB. Raff General Purpose and CPU-Optimized VMs have unmetered VM transfer with a 3 Gbps public port; the separate Cost-Optimized Linux class has a 1 Gbps port and no uptime SLA.
The table is illustrative, not a universal bandwidth bill. It assumes one 2 vCPU / 4 GB DigitalOcean Basic Droplet active for the full billing cycle, its full 4,000 GiB transfer allowance accrued, no other Droplets contributing to the pool, and all specified data billed as public outbound transfer. Amounts are in GiB, not loosely interchangeable TB/TiB units.
| Monthly outbound transfer | Raff General Purpose | DigitalOcean Basic ($24/mo + 4,000 GiB included) |
|---|---|---|
| 2,000 GiB | $17.99 | $24.00 |
| 4,000 GiB | $17.99 | $24.00 |
| 8,000 GiB | $17.99 | $24.00 + $40.00 overage = $64.00 |
| 20,000 GiB | $17.99 | $24.00 + $160.00 overage = $184.00 |
A larger team-level pool, a shorter-lived Droplet, different VPC/public network paths, or a different plan changes the calculation. The pricing comparison should not assume that every team pays these overages. See DigitalOcean's bandwidth billing documentation and compare the real workload's observed outbound data before estimating savings.
Automated backups
DigitalOcean offers Basic weekly backups at 20% and daily backups at 30% of the Droplet's monthly price, plus usage-based backup plans priced per GiB of restorable data; backup retention and frequency differ. Review the official backup pricing before comparing recovery costs. Manual snapshots are a separate charge. Raff includes a free backup and snapshot storage pool — 50 GB per account plus 10–15% of each VM's disk — with Daily and Weekly schedules you configure, retention from 1 to 365 days, and uncapped snapshots. Storage above the pool is $0.06/GB-month.
DigitalOcean VPS performance vs Raff
Methodology
The only head-to-head data Raff holds against DigitalOcean is from May 2026, and it compared a dedicated-vCPU Raff benchmark VM against a shared-vCPU DigitalOcean Basic Droplet in a different region, single-pass. That class mismatch is disqualifying for a provider-level claim, so the numbers below are published as a record of that test window rather than as evidence that Raff General Purpose outperforms DigitalOcean Basic today. A matched re-run is outstanding.
Historical results — May 2026
| Benchmark | Raff (dedicated vCPU) | DigitalOcean Basic (shared vCPU) |
|---|---|---|
| sysbench CPU 1-thread | 1,663 events/s | 364 events/s |
| sysbench CPU 2-thread | 3,338 events/s | 744 events/s |
| Memory sequential read | 131,925 MiB/s | 36,709 MiB/s |
| Memory sequential write | 37,231 MiB/s | 16,449 MiB/s |
| Disk 4K random read QD32 | 74,562 IOPS | 40,679 IOPS |
| Disk 4K random write QD32 | 52,450 IOPS | 11,241 IOPS |
| Disk 1M sequential read | 2,376 MiB/s | 2,224 MiB/s |
| Redis SET | 157,356 req/s | 61,538 req/s |
| SQLite inserts | 331,110/s | 172,398/s |
What the results tell us
Read the gaps as what they are: a dedicated core will beat a shared core, and most of the CPU and Redis spread above is that difference rather than a platform difference. The one row worth attention is 1M sequential read at 2,376 against 2,224 MiB/s — nearly level, which suggests the two platforms' sequential disk throughput is comparable even when the CPU classes are not.
If you are choosing on measured performance, benchmark your own workload on both. Raff's General Purpose line is the honest comparison against a Basic Droplet, and that pairing has not been tested.
DigitalOcean vs Raff: features and reliability
Droplets and compute
DigitalOcean scales far past Raff: up to 48 vCPU and 96 GB on CPU-Optimized, 40 vCPU and 160 GB on General Purpose, and 32 vCPU with 256 GB on Memory-Optimized, plus GPU Droplets. Raff stops at 16 vCPU and 32 GB. Below that ceiling Raff resizes on demand — stop the VM, switch plan, restart, with the difference settled to the account balance and a resize API endpoint for CPU, RAM and disk.
Networking and bandwidth
Raff's General Purpose and CPU-Optimized VMs include 3 Gbps public ports, while Cost-Optimized Linux VMs have a 1 Gbps public port; VM bandwidth is unmetered. Raff also offers private networking, VPC, firewall controls and site-to-site VPN gateways. DigitalOcean includes team-pooled metered outbound transfer at $0.01/GiB overage, VPC, cloud firewalls, and load balancers with a separate price. For Raff, check current load-balancer availability and any separate charge in the actual plan; this guide does not assume it is a free, like-for-like component.
Storage and object storage
Raff separates storage into VM disk, block volumes at $0.08/GiB-month, and S3-compatible object storage at $7/month for 100 GB with 1 TB of egress.
DigitalOcean Spaces is $5/month for 250 GiB with 1 TiB of transfer, with additional storage at $0.02/GiB and transfer at $0.01/GiB — and a built-in CDN at no extra charge. On object storage DigitalOcean is straightforwardly the better deal: more storage, lower price, and a CDN Raff does not offer.
Managed databases
Raff runs PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse and Kafka from $7.99/month. DigitalOcean runs PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, MongoDB, Kafka and OpenSearch from $15/month, with free daily backups and automated failover.
Raff is roughly 47% cheaper at entry and adds ClickHouse. DigitalOcean adds MongoDB and OpenSearch, which Raff does not offer at all.
Kubernetes and App Platform
Both offer managed Kubernetes with a free control plane — DigitalOcean from $12/month for worker capacity, Raff from $9.99/month.
App Platform is a real DigitalOcean advantage: it starts at $0/month with a free tier for static sites, against Raff Apps from $3/month. If you deploy small apps and static sites, DigitalOcean's free tier is not something Raff matches.
Functions
DigitalOcean Functions includes 90,000 GiB-seconds per month free, then $0.0000185 per GiB-second, with invocations not billed separately and a 100 ms minimum billed runtime per invocation. Raff Functions meters memory and active CPU separately, with a free tier of 100,000 GB-seconds and 10,000 vCPU-seconds per month, and bills warm invocations at 30% of the standard rate.
The free tiers are close, and the metering differs — DigitalOcean charges a flat GiB-second rate with a 100 ms floor, while Raff separates memory from CPU time and discounts warm starts.
The real difference is how long a function may run. DigitalOcean caps execution at 15 minutes, including initialization, with memory from 128 MB to 1 GB. Raff Functions permit runs of up to 24 hours. That is not a pricing difference, it is a capability one: batch imports, ETL jobs, media transcoding, large report generation and long-running scrapes cannot be written as DigitalOcean Functions at all, and have to become a Droplet or a Kubernetes job instead. On Raff they stay serverless.
Support and documentation
Raff provides 24/7 human support through live chat, with a first response typically under 10 minutes. No bots triaging you first, and no support tier to buy: a single $4.99 VM reaches the same engineers as a hundred production machines.
DigitalOcean's advantage here is not the ticket queue — it is the documentation and tutorial library, which is among the best in the industry and frequently the reason developers pick it. Raff has nothing comparable in breadth, and that is worth weighing if your team leans on published guides.
When you should choose DigitalOcean over Raff
- Object storage and CDN workloads — Spaces is $5/month for 250 GiB with 1 TiB transfer and a built-in CDN, against Raff's $7 for 100 GB and no CDN
- Free-tier app hosting — App Platform starts at $0/month; Raff Apps start at $3
- MongoDB or OpenSearch — both managed on DigitalOcean, neither offered by Raff
- Large or GPU workloads — up to 48 vCPU, 256 GB RAM and GPU Droplets, against Raff's 16 vCPU / 32 GB ceiling
- Multi-region deployment — data centers across North America, Europe and Asia against Raff's single us-east region
- Teams that learn from documentation — DigitalOcean's tutorial library is a genuine and hard-to-replicate asset
When you should choose Raff over DigitalOcean
- Competitive priced shapes — checked examples put Raff General Purpose roughly 17% to 29% below the listed DigitalOcean Basic Droplets and CPU-Optimized roughly 12% to 14% below the listed dedicated shapes; not all disk capacities match (VPS for application hosting)
- Egress-heavy applications — the compared Raff General Purpose VM has unmetered transfer on a 3 Gbps public port; the illustrative 20 TB bill in this table is about 10.4 times the Raff figure, subject to DigitalOcean pooling and current rates
- Database-backed products — managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse and Kafka from $7.99/month against $15 (VPS for databases)
- Block-storage-heavy workloads — $0.08/GiB-month, below DigitalOcean's volume pricing
- Backups without an add-on — Daily and Weekly schedules on a free storage pool with 1 to 365 day retention, against backups priced as a percentage of Droplet cost
- Long-running serverless jobs — Raff Functions run up to 24 hours against DigitalOcean's 15-minute cap, so batch imports, ETL and transcoding stay serverless instead of needing a Droplet
- Kubernetes at lower cost — free control plane on both, with Raff workers from $9.99/month against $12
Migrating from DigitalOcean to Raff
- Check your egress profile first — this is usually the largest single saving. If you are paying overage on Droplet transfer, that line disappears entirely on Raff.
- Match the Droplet family to the right Raff line — Basic maps to General Purpose, CPU-Optimized and General Purpose Droplets map to Raff CPU-Optimized. Matching by price rather than class will mislead you.
- Check the ceiling — Raff stops at 16 vCPU and 32 GB. Anything above that has no Raff equivalent.
- Plan Spaces and MongoDB separately — Spaces is cheaper than Raff object storage and includes a CDN, and Raff has no managed MongoDB or OpenSearch. Decide whether those stay on DigitalOcean.
- Move data in order — files with rsync or SCP, then database dumps into managed Postgres or MySQL, then assets to object storage. Keep the Droplet running throughout.
- Cut over and destroy, don't power off — lower DNS TTL beforehand, switch, then destroy the Droplet. A powered-off Droplet still bills.
About DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean Holdings, Inc. is a US cloud infrastructure provider headquartered in New York, founded in 2012 and listed on the NYSE, serving developers and small-to-medium businesses with Droplets, managed databases, Kubernetes, App Platform, Spaces object storage, Functions and GPU instances from data centers across North America, Europe and Asia. See DigitalOcean pricing for current rates.
Conclusion: DigitalOcean or Raff?
For a provider-neutral checklist covering support, recovery, and total cost, see how to choose a VPS provider.
The comparison resolves across four axes:
- VM price — listed Raff General Purpose examples are approximately 17% to 29% below the checked DigitalOcean Basic prices, and CPU-Optimized roughly 12% to 14% below the compared dedicated tier; verify today's plan prices
- Bandwidth — Raff General Purpose/CPU-Optimized VM transfer is unmetered at a 3 Gbps port (Cost-Optimized: 1 Gbps), whereas DigitalOcean includes a team-pooled outbound allowance and charges $0.01/GiB beyond it; compare measured traffic rather than assuming overage
- Catalog breadth — DigitalOcean wins, with MongoDB, OpenSearch, GPU Droplets, a free App Platform tier, cheaper object storage with a CDN, and multiple regions
- Managed databases — Raff wins on price, from $7.99/month against $15, and adds ClickHouse
If you need MongoDB, OpenSearch, GPU capacity, a free app tier, cheap object storage with a CDN, or a region Raff cannot currently provision for you, choose DigitalOcean — and it is a genuinely strong platform, not a straw man. If your users are in North America and your bill is dominated by VMs, egress and managed databases, choose Raff: the same workload costs materially less.
Raff runs 15,000+ VMs for 3,000+ customers and is rated 4.5/5 on Trustpilot, with a 99.90% monthly uptime SLA on eligible VM classes; Cost-Optimized is excluded.
