Compare DigitalOcean and Google Compute Engine free tiers side by side. Pricing, limits, change history, and risk assessment for developers.

DigitalOcean vs Google Compute Engine

Side-by-side free tier comparison. Catalogue dates here run to 2026-09-16.

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Verdict

Google Compute Engine offers a free tier ("Always Free"). We are not publishing a free-tier verdict for DigitalOcean. Offer expired on 2026-06-30. We are not publishing a stability rating for DigitalOcean. We are not comparing the two pricing histories.

A verdict here is not a fixed property of the vendor. A one-off pricing event demotes a vendor while its recorded date falls in the last 180 days and then lapses on its own, with nothing about the vendor having changed; a standing condition — a free tier withdrawn, a product retired — does not lapse with time. A badge carrying a date states the record it rests on; a badge with no date rests on no record in force.

DigitalOcean

Risk
CategoryCloud IaaS
TierCredits
Verified2026-08-18
Last read2026-09-19
Changes5 recorded
$200 credit for 60 days for new accounts. Basic Droplets from $4/mo (1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, 10 GB SSD — 20% price cut Jan 2026). Per-second billing (min 60s or $0.01). App Platform: 3 free static sites (1 GiB outbound/mo each). Functions: 25,000 GiB-seconds/mo free. Spaces: 250 GB + 1 TB transfer for $5/mo. Managed databases start at $15/mo (not free). No perpetual free compute tier

Google Compute Engine

Riskstable
CategoryCloud IaaS
TierAlways Free
Verified2026-09-16
Last read2026-09-16
Changes0 recorded
Always Free: 1 non-preemptible e2-micro VM (us-west1, us-central1, or us-east1), 30 GB standard persistent disk, 1 GB North America egress. GPUs/TPUs excluded

Pricing Change History

DigitalOcean

increased discovered 2026-09-19 · effective date unknown medium impact
The page does mention a $5 free credit. Details are limited. App Platform is free for 3 static sites. Functions are free up to 90,000 GiB-seconds/month. Spaces pricing is $5/month for 250 GB + 1 TB transfer. Source ↗
restricted discovered 2026-08-28 · effective date unknown medium impact
The description of credits has been updated. GPU Droplets are now explicitly excluded from core credits, and a separate application process is required for GPU credits. The program now has a $10,000 monthly credit limit. Source ↗
corrected effective 2026-03-21 medium impact
Managed databases are not part of the free tier. Pricing starts at $15/month. Previous listing incorrectly included '1 basic cluster' as a free tier benefit Source ↗
increased effective 2026-01-01 medium impact
20% price cut on Basic Droplets (cheapest now $4/mo from $5/mo). Per-second billing introduced (minimum 60 seconds or $0.01). Functions free tier increased to 25,000 GiB-seconds/mo Source ↗
increased effective 2025-01-22 medium impact
Hatch startup program expanded to up to $100K compute credits plus up to 3 months free H100 GPU access for AI/ML startups Source ↗

Google Compute Engine

No recorded pricing changes for Google Compute Engine.

Watch Both Vendors for Pricing Changes

We do not push notifications. Every change we record is readable the moment it lands, and the JSON answer carries an ETag — send it back as If-None-Match and an unchanged answer costs one 304.

curl https://agentdeals.dev/api/changes?vendor=DigitalOcean curl https://agentdeals.dev/pricing-changes/feed.xml?vendor=DigitalOcean curl https://agentdeals.dev/api/changes?vendor=Google%20Compute%20Engine curl https://agentdeals.dev/pricing-changes/feed.xml?vendor=Google%20Compute%20Engine

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