Which is cheaper, AWS or DO?

DO is cheaper in 9 of 13 comparable categories, with an average price difference of 59.6%.

How do AWS and DO compare for general purpose workloads?

For general purpose workloads: AWS: $8.47/mo, DO: $6.52/mo. DO is cheaper.

AWS vs DO: Pricing Comparison (2026)

Updated Apr 4, 2026AWSDO

Overall Winner

AWS Wins

DO Wins

Ties

Pricing Analysis

DigitalOcean wins 9 of 13 price comparisons, averaging 59.6% lower prices in categories where it leads.

Prices range from $0.005000/hr to $11.48/hr across comparable tiers.

●DigitalOcean leads in EC2 (3/3 tiers, avg 49% difference)
●DigitalOcean leads in EBS (3/3 tiers, avg 88% difference)
●AWS leads in RDS (1/2 tiers, avg 66% difference)
●AWS leads in ELB (3/3 tiers, avg 57% difference)

Choose DigitalOcean

Best for EC2 workloads

Choose AWS

Best for RDS workloads

Side-by-Side Pricing

Comparing AWS and DO across 13 equivalent tiers. On-demand hourly rates are shown in USD for the default region.

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Category	AWS AWS	DO DO	Diff	Cheapest
EC2 - Accelerated Computing - 8 vCPU, 15 GB RAM	$0.6500/hr g2.2xlarge ($474.50/mo)	$0.1429/hr s-8vcpu-16gb ($104.29/mo)	+78.0%	DO
EC2 - Accelerated Computing - 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM	$0.2280/hr inf1.xlarge ($166.44/mo)	$0.1250/hr c-4vcpu-8gb ($91.25/mo)	+45.2%	DO
EC2 - General Purpose - 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM	$0.0116/hr t2.micro ($8.47/mo)	$0.0089/hr s-1vcpu-1gb ($6.52/mo)	+23.0%	DO
S3 - API Request - API Request	$0.0100/hr Retrieval-ZIA ($7.30/mo)	$0.0068/hr spaces-base ($5.00/mo)	+31.5%	DO
EBS - Compute Optimized - c5n.4xlarge	$0.8640/hr c5n.4xlarge ($630.72/mo)	$0.0137/hr vol-100gb ($10.00/mo)	+98.4%	DO
EBS - HPC - hpc7g.4xlarge	$1.6832/hr hpc7g.4xlarge ($1,228.74/mo)	$0.1370/hr vol-1000gb ($100.00/mo)	+91.9%	DO
EBS - Storage Optimized - d3.4xlarge	$1.9980/hr d3.4xlarge ($1,458.54/mo)	$0.5479/hr vol-4000gb ($400.00/mo)	+72.6%	DO
RDS - Database Instance - 8 vCPU, 32 GB RAM	$0.3780/hr db.m5.2xlarge ($275.94/mo)	$0.6575/hr db-s-8vcpu-32gb ($480.00/mo)	+42.5%	AWS
RDS - Database Instance - 16 vCPU, 64 GB RAM	$11.4752/hr db.m5.4xlarge ($8,376.90/mo)	$1.3151/hr db-s-16vcpu-64gb ($960.00/mo)	+88.5%	DO
EKS - Compute - Compute	$0.0823/hr EKS-Auto:i4i.2xlarge-management-hours ($60.09/mo)	$0.0548/hr doks-ha ($40.00/mo)	+33.4%	DO
ELB - Load Balancer-Application - Load Balancer-Application	$0.0050/hr TS-LoadBalancerUsage ($3.65/mo)	$0.0164/hr lb-regional-http ($12.00/mo)	+69.6%	AWS
ELB - Load Balancer - Load Balancer	$0.0080/hr DataProcessing-Bytes ($5.84/mo)	$0.0205/hr lb-regional-network ($15.00/mo)	+61.1%	AWS
ELB - Load Balancer-Network - Load Balancer-Network	$0.0125/hr LoadBalancerUsage ($9.13/mo)	$0.0205/hr lb-global ($15.00/mo)	+39.2%	AWS

When to Choose AWS AWS

✓RDS - Database Instance - 8 vCPU, 32 GB RAM - saves $204.04/mo (42.5% cheaper)
✓ELB - Load Balancer-Application - Load Balancer-Application - saves $8.32/mo (69.6% cheaper)
✓ELB - Load Balancer - Load Balancer - saves $9.13/mo (61.1% cheaper)
✓ELB - Load Balancer-Network - Load Balancer-Network - saves $5.84/mo (39.2% cheaper)

When to Choose DO DO

✓EC2 - Accelerated Computing - 8 vCPU, 15 GB RAM - saves $370.18/mo (78% cheaper)
✓EC2 - Accelerated Computing - 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM - saves $75.19/mo (45.2% cheaper)
✓EC2 - General Purpose - 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM - saves $1.97/mo (23% cheaper)
✓S3 - API Request - API Request - saves $2.34/mo (31.5% cheaper)
✓EBS - Compute Optimized - c5n.4xlarge - saves $620.72/mo (98.4% cheaper)
✓EBS - HPC - hpc7g.4xlarge - saves $1,128.73/mo (91.9% cheaper)
✓EBS - Storage Optimized - d3.4xlarge - saves $1,058.57/mo (72.6% cheaper)
✓RDS - Database Instance - 16 vCPU, 64 GB RAM - saves $7,416.87/mo (88.5% cheaper)
✓EKS - Compute - Compute - saves $20.07/mo (33.4% cheaper)