DigitalOcean vs Fly.io: pricing, quotas & features (2026)
The developer cloud — Droplets, Kubernetes, Managed DBs, App Platform
vs. Run your app close to users, globally
Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated June 2026
Summary
DigitalOcean and Fly.io are both hosting platforms, addressing the same core use case with different implementation philosophies and trade-offs. Both offer a free tier, making it easy to prototype without a credit card. Fly.io's paid plans start at $2/month, lower than DigitalOcean's entry point at $4/month. Both have 14 documented features in Staxly's catalog. Budget-sensitive teams will find Fly.io easier to justify early on. All pricing and quota data below is sourced from DigitalOcean and Fly.io's official documentation — not generated by AI or estimated.
DigitalOcean vs Fly.io: Comparativa de precios, cuotas y características (2026)
En esta comparativa analizamos DigitalOcean y Fly.io lado a lado — incluyendo precios mensuales, límites del tier gratuito, características técnicas, cuotas de uso (almacenamiento, transferencia, usuarios activos mensuales) y los interfaces de desarrollo disponibles. Todos los datos proceden de la documentación oficial de cada proveedor, no de respuestas generadas por IA.
DigitalOcean es una plataforma de la categoría hosting — The developer cloud — Droplets, Kubernetes, Managed DBs, App Platform. Ofrece 12 tiers de precio: Functions (Serverless) gratuito, App Platform — Free gratuito, Droplet — Basic 512MB desde $4/mes, Spaces Object Storage desde $5/mes. Su catálogo en Staxly documenta 14 características y 6 interfazes para desarrolladores.
Fly.io pertenece a la categoría hosting — Run your app close to users, globally. Ofrece 7 tiers de precio: Pay-as-you-go gratuito, Shared CPU 1x — 256 MB desde $2/mes, Performance 1x — 2 GB desde $32/mes, Reservation — Shared (1 yr) desde $36/mes. Su catálogo documenta 14 características y 4 interfazes para desarrolladores.
A continuación encontrarás los tiers de precio completos de ambas plataformas, una matriz de cuotas del tier gratuito (transferencia, almacenamiento, MAU, llamadas a la API y otros límites), el listado completo de características y los interfaces (CLI, SDKs, REST, GraphQL, MCP) disponibles para integrar cada servicio.
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Pricing tiers
DigitalOcean
Fly.io
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing functions on DigitalOcean vs pay-as-you-go on Fly.io.
| Metric | DigitalOcean | Fly.io |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
DigitalOcean · 14 features
- App Platform — Heroku-style PaaS. Deploy from Git. Auto-HTTPS, auto-scale, zero-downtime deploy…
- Backups — Weekly automated backups (20% of Droplet cost). Manual snapshots.
- Block Storage Volumes — SSD block storage attachable to Droplets. Snapshot support.
- DNS — Free DNS hosting for your domains.
- DOKS (Kubernetes) — Managed Kubernetes. Free control plane. Node auto-repair.
- DigitalOcean GenAI Platform — Managed AI agents, model-as-a-service (Llama, Mistral), knowledge bases.
- Droplets — Virtual machines with shared or dedicated CPU. 20+ one-click Marketplace images.
- Functions — Serverless functions. Node, Python, Go, PHP, Ruby. Pay-per-execution.
- Load Balancers — Layer 4/7 load balancing with HTTP/3 + Let's Encrypt.
- Managed Databases — Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Kafka, OpenSearch, Valkey. Automated backups + …
- Marketplace — 300+ one-click Droplet + Kubernetes apps.
- Monitoring — Built-in metrics + alerts for Droplets, DBs, Load Balancers.
- Spaces — S3-compatible object storage with built-in CDN.
- VPC — Private networking. Free. Automatic default VPC per region.
Fly.io · 14 features
- Auto Stop/Start — Machines auto-stop when idle, start on request (like scale-to-zero).
- Certs — Let's Encrypt + wildcard certs managed.
- Fly GPU — A100/L40S/A10 on-demand GPU machines.
- Fly Kubernetes (FKS) — Managed Kubernetes on Fly machines.
- Fly Machines — Firecracker microVMs. Start in <1s. Run any Docker image.
- Fly Postgres — Managed Postgres via Supabase partnership (2024). Also legacy self-run Postgres …
- Fly Volumes — Persistent SSD attached to a Machine. Encrypted at rest.
- Global Anycast — Single IP routes to the closest region automatically.
- LiteFS — Distributed SQLite with primary/replica across regions.
- Private Networks — 6PN WireGuard mesh. Connect machines across regions privately.
- Secrets — Encrypted env vars propagated to all regions.
- Tigris (partner) — S3-compatible storage for Fly apps. By partner.
- Upstash Redis (partner) — Managed Redis via Upstash.
- fly-replay headers — Route request to another region at app level.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | DigitalOcean | Fly.io |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | doctl CLI | flyctl CLI |
| SDK | godo (Go), pydo (official py), python-digitalocean | — |
| REST | DigitalOcean REST API | Machines API |
| GRAPHQL | — | Fly GraphQL API |
| MCP | DigitalOcean MCP | — |
| OTHER | — | Fly Postgres (wire) |
Key takeaways
- Both DigitalOcean and Fly.io offer a free tier — DigitalOcean ("Functions (Serverless)") and Fly.io ("Pay-as-you-go") — with no credit card required to start.
- The entry-level paid plan is $4/month for DigitalOcean (Droplet — Basic 512MB) vs. $2/month for Fly.io (Shared CPU 1x — 256 MB).
- Both platforms have 14 documented features in Staxly's catalog.
- Developer integrations differ: only DigitalOcean offers MCP/SDK; only Fly.io offers GRAPHQL/OTHER.
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