DigitalOcean vs Fastly Comparison
Compare DigitalOcean vs Fastly features, pricing, and more.
Last updated: November 2026
DigitalOcean
6.8/10
DigitalOcean is a developer-focused cloud platform offering Droplet VMs, managed Kubernetes, databases, object storage, App Platform and GPU compute for startups and small businesses.
Fastly
6.7/10
Fastly is an edge cloud platform that combines a programmable CDN, WebAssembly serverless compute, edge storage, and web security for engineering-led businesses.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 6.8/10 | 6.7/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 5/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 7/10 | 4/10 |
| Customization | 7/10 | 9/10 |
| Security | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Reliability | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 9/10 | 4/10 |
| Analytics | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $4/mo Basic Droplet 512 MiB | $500/mo Compute Starter |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $4/mo Basic Droplet 512 MiB | Free Usage-based (free allowance) |
| Features | ||
| Managed Kubernetes | ||
| VPS Hosting | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Content Delivery Network | ||
| DDoS Protection | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| Object Storage | ||
| Serverless Functions | ||
| Automatic Backups | Not listed | |
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
DigitalOcean vs Fastly cost by team size
Fastly costs less at every team size we checked.
| Team size | DigitalOcean | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $4/moBasic Droplet 512 MiB | FreeUsage-based (free allowance) |
| 5 users | $4/moBasic Droplet 512 MiB | FreeUsage-based (free allowance) |
| 10 users | $4/moBasic Droplet 512 MiB | FreeUsage-based (free allowance) |
| 25 users | $4/moBasic Droplet 512 MiB | FreeUsage-based (free allowance) |
| 50 users | $4/moBasic Droplet 512 MiB | FreeUsage-based (free allowance) |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose DigitalOcean
- Higher Ease of Use score (9/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Cost score (7/10 vs 4/10)
- Better fit for small business (7/10 vs 4/10)
- Includes Managed Kubernetes, which Fastly lacks
- Includes VPS Hosting, which Fastly lacks
Why choose Fastly
- Has a free plan (DigitalOcean does not)
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: Free vs $4/mo
- Higher Customization score (9/10 vs 7/10)
- Higher Integration score (8/10 vs 7/10)
- Better fit for enterprise (8/10 vs 5/10)
Pros & Cons
DigitalOcean
Pros
- Flat, published hourly and monthly rates with no promotional first-term pricing or renewal price jumps.
- A $4 per month entry Droplet and per-second billing make it cheap to test and run small workloads.
- One account covers a full set of managed services, including Kubernetes, databases, Spaces with CDN, load balancers, App Platform and Functions.
- Developers can automate everything through the API, the doctl CLI and a Terraform provider, and the tutorials are widely used.
Cons
- Free support is ticket-only with a target response under 24 hours, chat starts at $99 per month, and no plan includes phone support.
- Outbound SMTP ports 25, 465 and 587 are blocked on new Droplets, so you cannot self-host email.
- Raw compute costs noticeably more than budget providers such as Hetzner.
- No refunds, and Droplets on suspended accounts are deleted after a grace period.
Fastly
Pros
- Instant Purge clears cached content worldwide in about 150 ms, which suits news and e-commerce sites that change content often.
- VCL and WebAssembly-based Compute give engineers fine control over edge logic per request.
- Real-time log streaming to more than 30 endpoints, including Datadog, Splunk, and BigQuery, is included.
- The Next-Gen WAF, from the Signal Sciences acquisition, is known for low false-positive rates (a vendor claim reported by Technologymatch).
- Self-serve sign-up includes free monthly allowances for delivery, compute, storage, and TLS.
Cons
- Reviewers describe VCL as hard to learn and say the dashboard is complex for beginners.
- Region-based bandwidth rates make monthly bills hard to predict, especially for smaller companies.
- About 76 POPs, far fewer than Cloudflare or Akamai, with no presence in mainland China, Russia, or the CIS region.
- Some PeerSpot reviewers report slow support responses.
- Bot management and the full security suites are sold by sales quote only.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
DigitalOcean scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 6.8/10 against 6.7/10 for Fastly. The largest gap is in Ease of Use: 9/10 for DigitalOcean and 4/10 for Fastly.
Fastly costs less for 10 users: free on its Usage-based (free allowance) plan, against about $4/mo on its Basic Droplet 512 MiB plan for DigitalOcean, billed monthly.
Fastly has a free plan; DigitalOcean does not list one.
Fastly is the better fit for enterprise: we rate it 8/10 for them, against 5/10 for DigitalOcean.
DigitalOcean has Managed Kubernetes and VPS Hosting, which Fastly lacks.
