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
Microsoft Azure was founded in 2008.
It is headquartered in the USA.
It offers VPS, Database, Storage and Networking hosting products.
- Australia
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- France
- Germany
- India
- Norway
- Singapore
- Singapore
- South Africa
- South Korea
- Switzerland
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- United States
DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean was founded in 2012.
It is headquartered in the USA.
It offers VPS, Database, Storage and Networking hosting products.
- 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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Basic Regular 2GB 1 core | $12.00 | 1 | 2.0 | 50 | 2000 | Dec 01 2021 |
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Basic Regular 4GB 2 cores | $24.00 | 2 | 4.0 | 80 | 4000 | Apr 03 2023 |
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Basic Premium AMD 4GB 2cores | $28.00 | 2 | 4.0 | 80 | 4000 | Oct 14 2022 |
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D2plds v5 | $56.06 | 2 | 4.0 | 75 | 0 | Mar 04 2023 |
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D2as v5 | $62.78 | 2 | 8.0 | 30 | 0 | Apr 15 2022 |
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General Purpose 2 cores | $68.00 | 2 | 8.0 | 50 | 4000 | May 15 2022 |
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D2s v5 | $70.08 | 2 | 8.0 | 30 | 0 | Oct 05 2022 |
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D2ads_v5 (Off rankings) | $75.19 | 2 | 8.0 | 75 | 0 | Aug 23 2022 |
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D4ads_v5 (Off rankings) | $150.38 | 4 | 16.0 | 150 | 0 | Aug 23 2022 |
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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.
Screen all VPS from Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean| Plan Name | Web Perf | Raw CPU Power | Perf Stability | Disk IO Perf | Network Perf | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
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Basic Regular 2GB 1 core
$12.00 |
F | E | E | D | C |
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Basic Regular 4GB 2 cores
$24.00 |
E | D | E | D | C |
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Basic Premium AMD 4GB 2cores
$28.00 |
E | D | D | C | C |
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D2plds v5
$56.06 |
E | D | B | F | C |
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D2as v5
$62.78 |
B | C | D | E | C |
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General Purpose 2 cores
$68.00 |
C | D | D | B | B |
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D2s v5
$70.08 |
B | D | E | F | C |
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D2ads_v5 (Off rankings)
$75.19 |
B | D | D | F | C |
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D4ads_v5 (Off rankings)
$150.38 |
B | B | C | E | C |
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D8ads_v5 (Off rankings)
$300.76 |
A | A | B | B | C |
Features and Datacenters
This list is a subset of the features each provider may offer.
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.
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.
| 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
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
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
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
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