DigitalOcean Droplets vs Heroku
Pricing data as of 2026-06-09 · refreshed weekly
DigitalOcean Droplets (vps) and Heroku (paas) overlap on 15 stacks. The table below shows the cheapest fitting plan on each for a typical startup workload (~50,000 visits/month) — list prices, no promos.
DigitalOcean Dropletsvps
| Basic 512MB | $4/mo |
| Basic 1GB | $6/mo |
| Basic 2GB | $12/mo |
| Basic 4GB | $24/mo |
Herokupaas
| Eco | $5/mo |
| Basic | $7/mo |
| Standard-2X | $50/mo |
Cheapest fitting plan per stack (startup traffic)
| Stack | DigitalOcean Droplets | Heroku | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Next.js | $4 (Basic 512MB) | $5 (Eco) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| Nuxt | $4 (Basic 512MB) | $5 (Eco) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| Astro | $4 (Basic 512MB) | $5 (Eco) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| SvelteKit | $4 (Basic 512MB) | $5 (Eco) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| Remix / React Router | $4 (Basic 512MB) | $5 (Eco) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| Node.js API | $4 (Basic 512MB) | $5 (Eco) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| Django | $6 (Basic 1GB) | $50 (Standard-2X) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| FastAPI | $4 (Basic 512MB) | $5 (Eco) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| Laravel | $6 (Basic 1GB) | $50 (Standard-2X) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| Ruby on Rails | $12 (Basic 2GB) | $50+ (Standard-2X) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| Spring Boot | $12 (Basic 2GB) | $50+ (Standard-2X) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| WordPress | $6 (Basic 1GB) | $50 (Standard-2X) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| Ghost | $6 (Basic 1GB) | $50 (Standard-2X) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| Strapi | $6 (Basic 1GB) | $50 (Standard-2X) | DigitalOcean Droplets |
| Static site | $4 (Basic 512MB) | $5 (Eco) | DigitalOcean Droplets |