DigitalOcean vs DreamHost
Both ladders below were read from the vendors’ own pricing pages, in this market, on the dates shown. Nothing is converted: what you see is what each page showed a reader here.
What each one is
DigitalOceansite ↗pricing ↗
Cloud infrastructure aimed at developers and small teams, priced simply against the larger clouds. Paid plans start at $4/mo (Droplets); a free plan exists. The ladder we hold runs 7 paid tiers, topping out at $15/mo (Managed Databases). Its published prices moved on 2026-09-24 — the change log holds the rows.
DreamHostsite ↗pricing ↗
A hosting company offering shared, VPS and managed WordPress plans. Paid plans start at $2.89/mo (Web Hosting Launch); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 4 paid tiers, topping out at $14.99/mo (DreamPress 1). Its published prices moved on 2026-10-03 — the change log holds the rows.
The two ladders
DigitalOceansite ↗pricing ↗
read 2026-09-06 · USD
| Plan | Price | What the page says |
|---|---|---|
| Droplets | $4/mo | 'Starting at $4 /month'. Per-second billing with a 60-second minimum, 'or $0.01, whichever is higher'. |
| Kubernetes | $12/mo | 'Starting at $12 /month'. Managed Kubernetes. |
| App Platform | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. Fully-managed infrastructure. |
| Functions | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. Serverless computing. |
| Managed Databases | $15/mo | 'Starting at $15 /month'. |
| Cloudways Managed Hosting | $11/mo | 'Starting at $11 /month'. |
| Spaces (object storage) | $5/mo | 'Starting at $5 /month'. |
| Volumes (block storage) | $10/mo | 'Starting at $10 /month'. |
| Network File Storage | Custom | 'Starting at $0.15 /per GiB/month'. |
| Load Balancers | $12/mo | 'Starting at $12 /month'. |
| Container Registry | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. |
| Virtual Private Cloud | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. |
| Uptime monitoring | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. |
| Support Plans | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. Unlimited tickets on the free tier. |
| GPU Droplets | Custom | 'Starting at $1.91 /GPU/hour* — based on multi-month contractual commitment. On-demand pricing from $0.76 /GPU/hour.' |
| AI/ML Inference | Custom | 'Starting at $0.05 /M tokens'. |
DreamHostsite ↗pricing ↗
read 2026-10-13 · USD
| Plan | Price | What the page says |
|---|---|---|
| Web Hosting Launch | $2.89/mo | Yearly term: 'First year at €2.89 /mo SAVE 75%', 'Auto-renews at €10.99 /mo after 1 year.' Monthly term (read 2026-09-07): 'First 3 months at €4.99 /mo', 'Auto-renews at €11.99 /mo after 3 months.' 25 websites, 40k monthly visits, 25 GB NVMe SSD. |
| DreamPress 1 | $14.99/mo | Yearly term: 'First year at €14.99 /mo SAVE 40%', renews '€19.99 /mo'. Monthly term (read 2026-09-07): 'First 3 months at €19.99 /mo SAVE 20%', renews '€24.99 /mo after 3 months'. Managed WordPress, 1 website, 15 GB. |
| Managed VPS Hosting | $13.75/mo | |
| Stack 4 | $6.99/mo |
Where they differ
- Cheapest way in: DreamHost at $2.89/mo, against DigitalOcean at $4/mo. That is the entry price in this market on the dates shown, not a judgement about which suits you.
- Free plans: only DigitalOcean publishes one — a plan priced at zero, not a trial.
- How far each ladder goes: DigitalOcean tops out at $15/mo, DreamHost at $14.99/mo. A deeper ladder is not a worse deal — it is a bill that keeps climbing if you keep growing.
- Recently moved: DigitalOcean (2026-09-24), DreamHost (2026-10-03). A change only counts once a second clean read agrees.
How to choose in this category
- Match the tier to the sites and storage you actually use — the levels here divide on resources, not features.
- Introductory terms in this set run one to four years; a lower monthly figure often buys a longer lock-in.
- Every row links the host’s own pricing page. Open it and read the renewal line before you commit to a term.