Microsoft Azure vs DigitalOcean

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We have tested 10 VPS plans from Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean. We'll show which one is best based on a detailed performance analysis, on features and prices.


Microsoft Azure

Azure

Microsoft Azure was founded in 2008.
It is headquartered in the USA.
It offers VPS, Database, Storage and Networking hosting products.

It has datacenters in:
  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • China
  • France
  • Germany
  • India
  • Norway
  • Singapore
  • Singapore
  • South Africa
  • South Korea
  • Switzerland
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United Kingdom
  • United States

DigitalOcean

DOcean

DigitalOcean was founded in 2012.
It is headquartered in the USA.
It offers VPS, Database, Storage and Networking hosting products.

It has datacenters in:
  • Canada
  • Germany
  • India
  • Netherlands
  • Singapore
  • United Kingdom
  • United States

VPS Plans

Plan Name Monthly Price CPU cores Memory (GB) Disk Space (GB) Data Transfer (GB) Latest trial
Basic Regular 2GB 1 core $12.00 1 2.0 50 2000 Dec 01 2021
Basic Regular 4GB 2 cores $24.00 2 4.0 80 4000 Apr 03 2023
Basic Premium AMD 4GB 2cores $28.00 2 4.0 80 4000 Oct 14 2022
D2plds v5 $56.06 2 4.0 75 0 Mar 04 2023
D2as v5 $62.78 2 8.0 30 0 Apr 15 2022
General Purpose 2 cores $68.00 2 8.0 50 4000 May 15 2022
D2s v5 $70.08 2 8.0 30 0 Oct 05 2022
D2ads_v5 (Off rankings) $75.19 2 8.0 75 0 Aug 23 2022
D4ads_v5 (Off rankings) $150.38 4 16.0 150 0 Aug 23 2022
D8ads_v5 (Off rankings) $300.76 8 32.0 300 0 Aug 25 2022

Compare specs for all plans from all providers

Note: "Off rankings" plans are not included in the Screener and are not considered for Best VPS rankings. They may either be previews where the VPS have been directly provisioned by the provider, they may be too old or they may exceed the maximum number of plans that can be listed for each provider.

Performance Grades

To summarize the performance of each VPS plan, we generated grades based on the various tests that were run: web, sysbench, endurance and remote timing tests. Each grade focuses on one aspect of the VPS speed or stability (cpu, disk IO, network IO...) and is made of one or more metrics measured during the tests.

Grades are evenly distributed between A and F. A is best, F is worst.

Follow the letter links to find the test results backing the grade.

How are grades calculated?

Screen all VPS from Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean
Plan Name Web Perf Raw CPU Power Perf Stability Disk IO Perf Network Perf
Basic Regular 2GB 1 core
$12.00
F E E D C
Basic Regular 4GB 2 cores
$24.00
E D E D C
Basic Premium AMD 4GB 2cores
$28.00
E D D C C
D2plds v5
$56.06
E D B F C
D2as v5
$62.78
B C D E C
General Purpose 2 cores
$68.00
C D D B B
D2s v5
$70.08
B D E F C
D2ads_v5 (Off rankings)
$75.19
B D D F C
D4ads_v5 (Off rankings)
$150.38
B B C E C
D8ads_v5 (Off rankings)
$300.76
A A B B C
Show Price Weighted Grades   

Features and Datacenters

This list is a subset of the features each provider may offer.

Microsoft Azure DigitalOcean
Backups  Yes Yes
Block storage  Yes Yes
Object storage  Yes Yes
Load balancer  Yes Yes
DDoS protection  No Yes
Hourly Billing  Yes Yes
SSH Keys Setup  Yes Yes
Total Number of Datacenters  12 40
Number of Datacenter Continents  3 5
Compare more Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean Features

CPUs

These are the CPUs we have seen in Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean instances in the past 18 months.

Microsoft Azure DigitalOcean
All Microsoft Azure CPUs by plan All DigitalOcean CPUs by plan
AMD EPYC 7763 64-Core Processor
Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8370C CPU @ 2.80GHz
Neoverse-N1
DO-Premium-AMD
DO-Regular
Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8280 CPU @ 2.70GHz

Performance Consistency

The provider consistency score shows how much variation can be expected between 2 servers of the same type at the same provider. A high consistency score (>65) means the performance of all servers of the provider is consistent over many trials and many plans.

Providers who don't have enough data yet at VPSBenchmarks don't have a consistency score.

Microsoft Azure DigitalOcean
Consistency Score 42 54

Screenshots


VPS Instance Provisioning Time

This is the average time it took to create an instance for Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean from instance order to instance accepting connections.

All VPS provisioning times

Microsoft Azure DigitalOcean
Number of instance creations in sample 6 4
Average provisioning time 60s 38s

Performance in Depth...

These are some of the test results that are used to determine the grades above.

Web Response Times

We ran a database intensive web application at various levels of load on cloud servers from Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean. This is the average response time measured locally on the VPS for each plan we tested.



Local Response Time per Plan

Lower is better


Maximum HTTP Load

We ran a database intensive web application at various levels of load on cloud servers from Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean. This is the maximum rate of HTTP requests that each server handled without timing out.



Maximum HTTP request rate

Higher is better


During the Web Test, we collect response time metrics, rate metrics and CPU metrics. All of those are measured locally on the VPS running the web server. All metrics can be compared on the Web Performance Comparison page.

Sysbench CPU Performance

We ran the full suite of Sysbench tests on VPS plans of Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean. These are the Sysbench CPU test results:



Rate of operations

Higher is better


Sysbench Disk IO Performance

We ran the full suite of Sysbench tests on VPS plans of Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean. These are the Sysbench Disk IO Random Read test results:



Rate of operations

Higher is better

Sysbench test results are also available for random disk IO tests, sequential disk IO tests and memory tests.
Review and compare all Sysbench numbers on the Sysbench Comparison page for Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean.

Network Transfers

We have performed large file transfers from the Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean VPS and we measured the speed of downloads and uploads.

The transfers involve multiple files, 10 threads and last for at least 10 seconds at maximum speed. The transfers are repeated 3 times from different servers and only the fastest transfer is reported here.


Download Speed per Plan

Higher is better

Network Transfers measurements including download and upload speeds can be compared for Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean on the Network Transfers Comparison page.

Sustained CPU Endurance Tests

We pushed the CPU of those VPS plans hard for 24 hours straight.

This test shows how fast the VPS can go for long periods of time, how stable the performance is and it also gives clues on how overallocated the VPSs may be.


Average number of operations per hour

Higher is better

Review and compare endurance test results for Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean on the Sustained CPU Endurance Comparison page.

Having trouble finding the VPS that fits your needs?

Use the VPS Screener to quickly zero in on the specifications, performance and price that you're looking for.


Compare Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean against other providers



Run VPSBenchmarks on your own servers

With "Private Trials", the same benchmarks that run on all VPS at vpsbenchmarks.com will run on the servers of your choice. The results are private and you will be able to compare them to any other public benchmark on this website.

Run your first Private Trial for just $4.



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