Same price. Different product.
DigitalOcean gives you a Droplet to manage yourself. We give you the same server, plus a team that runs it for you, plus a 500% SLA. Choose DigitalOcean if you have a sysadmin. Choose RemarkableCloud if you don't.
DigitalOcean is genuinely good at what it does.
DigitalOcean built one of the most developer-friendly cloud platforms in the world. Clean UI, excellent documentation, competitive pricing. Their Droplets are straightforward virtual machines that do exactly what they say: give you a Linux server in the cloud.
But Droplets are infrastructure as a service, not managed hosting. When you provision a Droplet, you are the sysadmin. Security patches, backups, monitoring, firewall rules, mail configuration, and incident response are all yours, indefinitely. For teams without a DevOps function, that is the wrong tradeoff.
What you get from each.
DigitalOcean and RemarkableCloud overlap in price, but not in product. Two differences matter most.
DigitalOcean gives you infrastructure.
A Droplet is a server. Patching, monitoring, security, backups, mail gateway setup, and incident response are your permanent responsibility, on top of everything else you are building.
RemarkableCloud gives you infrastructure plus a team.
The same server, patched, monitored, secured, backed up, and managed proactively 24/7. You deploy code. Server operations belong to us.
DigitalOcean's 99.99% SLA.
Credits issued only after the threshold is breached. Backups cost an extra 20% weekly or 30% daily on top of your Droplet price. Not included by default.
RemarkableCloud's 500% SLA.
1 hour down equals 5 hours credited. From minute one, automatically. Daily snapshots and 2× NVMe disk size in free S3 backup storage, included on every plan.
Same specs, lower cost, more management.
For DigitalOcean's $63 General Purpose Droplet, RemarkableCloud offers the same 2 vCPU and 8 GB RAM with 4× more NVMe storage and full management for $36 per month. Or twice the RAM with dedicated CPU for $79. Daily backups, mail gateway, monitoring, and a 500% SLA are included at no additional cost on every Cloud Cube plan.
2 vCPU · 8 GB RAM · 25 GB SSD · 4 TB transfer
Standard SSD, not NVMe. Self-managed. Backups, mail gateway, and control panel sold separately.
per month, compute only
- No server management, you are the sysadmin
- Backups cost extra: $12.60 weekly or $18.90 daily
- No mail gateway, configure SMTP yourself
- 99.99% SLA, credits only after threshold breached
- Standard SSD, NVMe is a Premium upsell
With daily backups, the real monthly cost is approximately $82. Migration, monitoring team, panel, and 500% SLA are not available at any tier.
2 vCPU · 16 GB RAM · 200 GB NVMe · 40 TB transfer
Dedicated CPU cores. 100% NVMe storage. Fully managed. 2× the RAM, 8× the NVMe, 10× the transfer compared to DigitalOcean's $63 Droplet.
per month, annual billing, everything included
- Full server management by RC team, 24/7
- Daily snapshots plus 400 GB free S3 storage
- MailChannels SMTP and Rspamd mail gateway
- 500% SLA, automatic credits from minute one
- Free migration from DigitalOcean
2 vCPU · 8 GB RAM · 100 GB NVMe · 20 TB transfer
Same vCPU and RAM as DigitalOcean's $63 Droplet, with 4× the NVMe storage, 5× the transfer, and full management at 43% lower cost.
per month, annual billing, everything included
- Full server management by RC team, 24/7
- Daily snapshots plus 200 GB free S3 storage
- MailChannels SMTP and Rspamd mail gateway
- 500% SLA, automatic credits from minute one
- Free migration from DigitalOcean
Performance, side by side.
DigitalOcean's standard Droplets run on a mixed fleet with SSD storage and 1 to 10 Gbps networking. Every RemarkableCloud Cloud Cube runs on current-generation enterprise hardware with 100% NVMe storage and a 50 Gbps DDoS-protected network, on every plan including the $8/month Basic tier.
DigitalOcean infrastructure
Mixed CPU generations
Droplets are placed across DigitalOcean's mixed fleet. Your VM may land on a current-generation processor or an older one depending on datacenter availability at provisioning time. CPU generation is not guaranteed in any tier.
SSD standard, NVMe is a Premium upsell
Basic and standard General Purpose Droplets use SSD storage. NVMe is restricted to Premium variants, which cost 20 to 30% more than the standard equivalent. No NVMe option exists on the entry-level Basic Droplets.
1 to 10 Gbps network, plan dependent
Standard Droplet networking caps at 1 to 2 Gbps. Premium plans reach up to 10 Gbps. No DDoS scrubbing is included on standard plans. Network performance varies meaningfully between tiers and locations.
Basic Droplets share CPU in a burst model
Basic tier Droplets share CPU using a credit-burst system. Sustained CPU usage exhausts the credits and throttles performance. Only CPU-Optimized and General Purpose tiers use dedicated vCPUs at full price.
RemarkableCloud infrastructure
Current-generation enterprise CPUs at 3 GHz+
Every Cloud Cube runs on current-generation enterprise Intel and AMD processors at 3 GHz or higher. Dedicated CPU is available on Shared CPU and Dedicated CPU tiers. No mixed-generation fleet, no hardware lottery at provisioning.
100% NVMe storage on every plan
NVMe storage is included on every Cloud Cube, from the $8/month Basic 2 GB plan to the 128 GB Dedicated CPU tier. Faster database reads, faster file I/O, faster everything. No Premium tier required to access fast disk.
50 Gbps DDoS-protected network
Every Cloud Cube plan runs on a 50 Gbps network with built-in DDoS scrubbing at the edge. Attack mitigation is on by default. No add-on, no premium tier, no separate firewall service to configure.
Never oversold, allocation guaranteed
RAM, CPU allocation, and NVMe are dedicated to your Cloud Cube. Resources are never shared with neighbors on the same physical host. No burst credits, no throttling thresholds, no noisy-neighbor risk on any plan.
Pick your Cloud Cube.
The comparison above showed two specific Cloud Cubes against DigitalOcean's $63 General Purpose Droplet. Here is the complete RemarkableCloud lineup, from the 2 GB Basic tier at $8 per month with annual billing to the 128 GB Dedicated CPU tier. Every plan, regardless of size, includes the same full management, daily snapshots with offsite S3 backup storage, MailChannels SMTP and Rspamd mail gateway, RemarkablePanel, and the 500% SLA. No setup fees, no premium tier gates on features.
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- Inbound & Outbound Mail Gateway
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- Inbound & Outbound Mail Gateway
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- Inbound & Outbound Mail Gateway
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- Inbound & Outbound Mail Gateway
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- Inbound & Outbound Mail Gateway
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- Inbound & Outbound Mail Gateway
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- Inbound & Outbound Mail Gateway
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- Inbound & Outbound Mail Gateway
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Reserved CPU, no sharing or bursting
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Reserved CPU, no sharing or bursting
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Reserved CPU, no sharing or bursting
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- Reserved CPU, no sharing or bursting
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- High-Capacity NVMe, 2x per GiB RAM
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- High-Capacity NVMe, 2x per GiB RAM
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- High-Capacity NVMe, 2x per GiB RAM
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- 500% SLA Guarantee
- Fully Managed, server, mail, security
- High-Capacity NVMe, 2x per GiB RAM
- Daily Snapshots & Remote Backups
- Free S3 Storage, 2x your NVMe disk
- 500% SLA Guarantee
DigitalOcean vs RemarkableCloud across 19 categories.
RemarkableCloud leads on 16 of 19 comparison categories. DigitalOcean leads on 2: breadth of managed cloud services and global region count. One category, per-second billing, is context-dependent. Every other row covers what changes when you replace an unmanaged Droplet with a fully managed Cloud Cube.
| Feature | DigitalOcean | RemarkableCloud |
|---|---|---|
| Server management | Self-managed, customer handles all server administration | Fully managed by RC team, 24/7 RC wins |
| OS and security patching | Customer responsibility, manual | Managed proactively by our team RC wins |
| Proactive monitoring | Self-watch via Droplet metrics dashboards | RC team monitors and resolves before customer impact RC wins |
| 24/7 human support | Tickets, 24/7 only on premium support plans | 24/7 human support on all plans RC wins |
| Uptime SLA | 99.99% with threshold-based credits | 500%, 1 hr down equals 5 hrs credited automatically from minute one RC wins |
| DDoS protection | Basic cloud firewall, limited mitigation | 50 Gbps network-level scrubbing, always on RC wins |
| CPU hardware | Mixed generations, hardware assignment varies by datacenter availability | Current-gen enterprise Intel and AMD at 3 GHz or higher RC wins |
| Storage type | SSD standard, NVMe restricted to Premium tiers | 100% NVMe on every plan, no Premium upsell required RC wins |
| Network speed | 1 to 10 Gbps, varies by plan | 50 Gbps DDoS-protected on every plan RC wins |
| Resource overselling | Basic Droplets share CPU via a burst-credit model | Never oversold, allocation guaranteed RC wins |
| Backups | Weekly snapshots add 20% to Droplet price, daily add 30% | Daily snapshots and offsite S3 storage, both free RC wins |
| Offsite backup storage | Spaces Object Storage, billed per GB stored | 2× NVMe disk size in S3 included free on every plan RC wins |
| Mail gateway | Not included, customer configures SMTP and IP reputation | MailChannels SMTP and Rspamd antispam included free RC wins |
| Control panel | None included, install and license separately | RemarkablePanel free on every Cloud Cube RC wins |
| Free migration | Not included, DIY or paid third-party service | Full server migration by RC team, free RC wins |
| In business since | 2012 | 2001 RC wins |
| Managed services breadth | Extensive: Kubernetes, managed databases, CDN, serverless, GPU droplets | VPS-focused, Cloud Cubes only They win |
| Global data centers | 15+ regions worldwide | Single US East location They win |
| Per-second billing | Per-second with monthly cap, optimal for ephemeral workloads | Monthly plans, optimal for persistent workloads context-dependent |
Three steps to leave DigitalOcean.
RemarkableCloud handles the full migration from any DigitalOcean Droplet at no cost. Most migrations complete in 2 to 24 hours with no downtime planned. You stay on DigitalOcean until we confirm the new server is verified and ready.
Order your Cloud Cube
Pick a Cloud Cube plan and complete the order. We provision the new server and send migration credentials within minutes. Your DigitalOcean Droplet stays running and serving traffic. No reconfiguration on the DO side.
We migrate your full stack
Our team copies files, databases, mail accounts, DNS records, and SSL certificates from the DigitalOcean Droplet to the new Cloud Cube. We test everything on a staging URL before cutover. You review and approve. No surprises, no rushed migrations.
Coordinated cutover, then go live
When you approve, we point your domain DNS to the Cloud Cube during a coordinated window. Final database sync, DNS propagation, post-migration verification, then you cancel the DigitalOcean Droplet. You are fully live on RemarkableCloud.
Four reasons teams move from DigitalOcean to RemarkableCloud.
Teams running production workloads on DigitalOcean Droplets move to RemarkableCloud for four consistent reasons: they want their engineering hours back, they want a predictable bill without backup and panel add-ons, they want a free migration handled by humans, and they want 24 years of managed hosting experience instead of a self-serve cloud platform.
Engineering hours back, every week.
On DigitalOcean, OS patching, kernel upgrades, mail-server configuration, log rotation, firewall rules, intrusion monitoring, and incident response are recurring work for your team. On RemarkableCloud, all of that is included and performed by our staff. Your developers ship product instead of running a sysadmin rotation.
One predictable bill, no add-on creep.
DigitalOcean's headline Droplet price excludes backups (20% weekly or 30% daily), Spaces Object Storage for offsite copies, Premium-tier upgrades for NVMe, and any third-party panel license. On RemarkableCloud, daily snapshots, offsite S3 backup storage at 2× your NVMe disk size, the mail gateway, the control panel, and the 500% SLA are included on every Cloud Cube. The price you see is the bill you pay.
Free migration, performed by our team.
DigitalOcean does not offer a managed migration service for Droplets. You either DIY the move or pay a third-party service. RemarkableCloud migrates your full server stack from any DigitalOcean Droplet at no cost: files, databases, mail, DNS cutover, and post-migration verification. Most migrations complete in 2 to 24 hours with zero data loss and a coordinated cutover window.
Managed hosting since 2001, not 2012.
DigitalOcean launched in 2012 as a developer-first self-serve cloud platform. RemarkableCloud has operated as a managed hosting company since 2001. That difference shows in support response times, in incident handling, in how we run mail reputation, and in the fact that a real person answers your ticket at 3 AM, every time, on every plan, with no premium support tier required.
When DigitalOcean is the right choice. When RemarkableCloud is.
DigitalOcean is the wrong answer for some buyers and the right answer for others. Same for RemarkableCloud. The honest version of this page is which one matches the shape of your team and your workload. Here is the test.
Choose DigitalOcean when
- You have a sysadmin or DevOps engineer who can operate Linux servers in production.
- Your workloads are short-lived or ephemeral and per-second billing matters more than monthly cost.
- Your stack depends on DigitalOcean's broader services like Kubernetes, managed databases, or GPU Droplets.
- You need data centers in many global regions to serve users with regional proximity.
- You provision infrastructure with Terraform or Pulumi and want full API-driven workflows.
- You are comfortable owning your own incident response, on-call rotation, and patch schedule.
Choose RemarkableCloud when
- You run a production workload but do not have a dedicated sysadmin and do not want to hire one.
- You want one predictable monthly bill with daily backups, mail gateway, control panel, and 500% SLA included.
- You want your engineering team shipping product, not patching servers and rotating logs.
- You are migrating from cPanel shared hosting or another managed VPS and want the migration handled for you.
- You want a real human answering your ticket at 3 AM on every plan, not just on a premium support tier.
- You value 24 years of managed hosting operational experience over a self-serve cloud platform.
RemarkableCloud vs DigitalOcean, your questions answered.
Can I migrate my DigitalOcean Droplet to RemarkableCloud for free?
Yes. RemarkableCloud includes free migration from any DigitalOcean Droplet on every Cloud Cube plan, with no engineering work required on your side. Our team copies your files, databases, mail accounts, DNS records, and SSL certificates from the Droplet to your new Cloud Cube, tests everything on a staging URL, then coordinates a cutover window with you. Most migrations complete in 2 to 24 hours with no planned downtime, and you stay on DigitalOcean until we confirm the new server is verified.
Is RemarkableCloud actually cheaper than DigitalOcean for managed hosting?
For comparable specs with management included, yes, by a wide margin. DigitalOcean's $63 General Purpose Droplet (2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 25 GB SSD) is self-managed and excludes backups. The equivalent RemarkableCloud Shared CPU 8 GB Cloud Cube costs $36 per month with annual billing and includes 100 GB NVMe storage, daily backups, mail gateway, control panel, and the 500% SLA. Factor in DigitalOcean's daily backup add-on of approximately $18.90 per month, and RemarkableCloud is 56% lower for an equivalent operationally-ready setup.
Does RemarkableCloud offer managed Kubernetes, managed databases, or GPU servers like DigitalOcean?
No, and that is the honest answer. RemarkableCloud is a managed VPS hosting specialist. We do not offer managed Kubernetes clusters, managed database services, GPU Droplets, or serverless functions. If your stack depends on any of those services specifically, DigitalOcean is the right choice. If you need a managed VPS where someone else handles the server administration, RemarkableCloud is built exactly for that workload.
How is RemarkableCloud's 500% SLA different from DigitalOcean's 99.99% SLA?
DigitalOcean's 99.99% SLA issues credits only after uptime drops below the threshold for that billing month, and only on services that breach the threshold. RemarkableCloud's 500% SLA credits you automatically from minute one of any downtime: one hour down means five hours of service credited back to your account. There is no threshold to breach, no claim form to file, and no support ticket required. The credit is calculated and applied to your next invoice automatically.
Does RemarkableCloud have global data centers like DigitalOcean's regions?
No. RemarkableCloud operates from a single US East data center, while DigitalOcean has more than 15 regions globally. DigitalOcean is the right choice if you need to serve users with regional proximity in Asia, Europe, or other geographies and your application architecture depends on multi-region deployment. RemarkableCloud's single-region focus lets us run a tightly-managed infrastructure with consistent performance and 24 by 7 human support, but multi-region serving is a real tradeoff to consider for geographically distributed workloads.