Azure Virtual Machines vs DigitalOcean Droplets

Azure Virtual Machines—Visit DigitalOcean Droplets—Visit

Azure Virtual Machines #2 in Ubuntu VPS Hosting not scored yet Paid Visit Azure

vs

DigitalOcean Droplets #3 in Ubuntu VPS Hosting not scored yet From $4/mo Visit DigitalOcean

• Azure Virtual Machines fits best

  Enterprise Ubuntu deployments on Azure

• DigitalOcean Droplets fits best

  Teams seeking approachable Linux VPS infrastructure

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Side by side

Feature	Azure Virtual Machines not scored yet Visit ↗	DigitalOcean Droplets not scored yet Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	—	—
Ranking	#2 in Ubuntu VPS Hosting	#3 in Ubuntu VPS Hosting
Best for	Enterprise Ubuntu deployments on Azure	Teams seeking approachable Linux VPS infrastructure
Pricing model	Paid	Paid
Starting price	Not published	$4/mo
Free plan	—	—
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Cloud	Cloud
Platforms	Web, Windows, Linux	Web, Linux
Support	Tickets, Community, Docs · 24/7	Email, Live chat, Tickets · 24/7
Compliance	SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, SSO/SAML, 2FA	SOC 2, PCI DSS
Integrations	7 integrations	2 integrations
Built for	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Solo, Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Specs
vCPU cores	Not published	Not published
RAM	Not published	Not published
NVMe storage	Not published	Not published
Bandwidth	Not published	Not published
Server locations	Not published	Not published
Managed support	Not published	Not published
DDoS protection	Not published	Not published
Our review
Pros	Choose Linux or Windows VM series, sizes and Azure regions. Scale VM instance counts with Virtual Machine Scale Sets. Connect VMs to Azure monitoring, backup and load balancing.	$4 Basic Droplet includes 1 vCPU, 10 GiB SSD and 500 GiB transfer Multiple VM types support general, CPU, memory and storage-focused workloads Control panel, CLI, API, Terraform and autoscale pools support varied operations
Cons	Costs vary by VM configuration, operating system, region and usage. No ongoing free plan is available. VMs depend on the broader Azure cloud ecosystem.	Backups and snapshots cost extra as add-ons No ongoing free Droplets plan is listed Designed for Linux workloads rather than non-Linux server environments
Our verdict	Azure Virtual Machines provides configurable Linux and Windows virtual machines on Microsoft Azure. It suits teams hosting applications, databases or high-performance computing workloads that need to select VM sizes and regions, with… Read the review →	DigitalOcean Droplets are Linux-based virtual machines running on virtualized hardware for websites, applications, databases, development environments and other cloud workloads. They suit solo developers, small teams, mid-market… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Azure Virtual Machines — where it wins

  • Choose Linux or Windows VM series, sizes and Azure regions.
  • Scale VM instance counts with Virtual Machine Scale Sets.
  • Connect VMs to Azure monitoring, backup and load balancing.

  Where it doesn't

  • Costs vary by VM configuration, operating system, region and usage.
  • No ongoing free plan is available.
  • VMs depend on the broader Azure cloud ecosystem.

• DigitalOcean Droplets — where it wins

  • $4 Basic Droplet includes 1 vCPU, 10 GiB SSD and 500 GiB transfer
  • Multiple VM types support general, CPU, memory and storage-focused workloads
  • Control panel, CLI, API, Terraform and autoscale pools support varied operations

  Where it doesn't

  • Backups and snapshots cost extra as add-ons
  • No ongoing free Droplets plan is listed
  • Designed for Linux workloads rather than non-Linux server environments

• Azure Virtual Machinesnot scored yet · Paid

  A flexible Azure VM service for teams that need scaling, monitoring and backup options.

  Visit AzureFull verdict →
• DigitalOcean Dropletsnot scored yet · From $4/mo

  Flexible Linux VPS infrastructure from $4 per month, with autoscaling and API control.

  Visit DigitalOceanFull verdict →