Compare / Azure App Service vs DigitalOcean App Platform
Azure App Service vs DigitalOcean App Platform
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — Azure App Service checked 2026-08-06, DigitalOcean checked 2026-08-06.
The short version
DigitalOcean App Platform wins more of our comparison points, but Azure App Service still fits if teams in the Microsoft ecosystem — .NET shops, enterprise-adjacent projects, or anyone whose employer already pays for Azure describes you.
Price DigitalOcean App Platform
DigitalOcean App Platform is cheaper at every stage we model — about $24/mo even for a growing project.
Ease DigitalOcean App Platform
DigitalOcean App Platform is easier to get running: connect the Git repo or a container image; App Platform builds, deploys, and scales it.
Features Tie
Feature coverage is even: each wins 2 of the 15 rows we track.
What developers say about this matchup
We couldn't find a substantive first-person discussion comparing this exact pair. We leave the section empty instead of filling it with vendor marketing or generic SEO comparisons.
At a glance
| Azure App Service | DigitalOcean App Platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Teams in the Microsoft ecosystem — .NET shops, enterprise-adjacent projects, or anyone whose employer already pays for Azure. | Apps that want git-push deploys inside a provider they can grow with. |
| How deploys work | Connect GitHub Actions from the portal, push to a local git remote, or run `az webapp up` — runtime stacks for Node, Python, .NET, PHP, and Java are built in. | Connect the Git repo or a container image; App Platform builds, deploys, and scales it. |
| The tradeoff | Capable and git-friendly, but you pay PaaS prices per plan and navigate the most complicated tier system here. | Weaker compute per dollar than a Droplet — the convenience premium is real. |
| Free tier | F1 Free tier: 1 GB RAM, 60 CPU-minutes/day, no custom domain or SLA. Plus a $200/30-day new-account credit. | Free tier: 3 apps with static sites, 1 GiB of outbound transfer each per month. Extra static-site apps cost $3/month. |
What you'd realistically pay
Azure App Service DigitalOcean App Platform
| Project stage | Azure App Service | DigitalOcean App Platform | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just starting | ≈$13.14/mo B1 Basic (Linux) — 1 core, 1.75 GB RAM, 10 GB storage, custom domains and SSL, 99.95% SLA. West Europe pricing. | ≈$5/mo 1 shared vCPU / 512 MiB — Includes 50 GiB of outbound transfer; billed per second. | DigitalOcean App Platform |
| Steady traffic | ≈$32/mo B1 + managed PostgreSQL — ~$13 B1 Linux plus ~$19 for the cheapest PostgreSQL Flexible Server (B1ms + 32 GiB storage). | ≈$12/mo 1 shared vCPU / 1 GiB — Includes 150 GiB of transfer; a managed database adds more. | DigitalOcean App Platform |
| Growing | ≈$84/mo P0v3 + managed PostgreSQL — ~$65 Premium P0v3 (1 vCPU, 4 GB, autoscale and slots) plus ~$19 for managed PostgreSQL. | ≈$24/mo Two 1 GiB containers — Horizontal scaling; database and extra transfer on top. | DigitalOcean App Platform |
Azure App Service pricing notes
- Prices are West Europe, per App Service Plan (~730 h/month); they vary by region.
- Windows plans cost roughly 4× Linux at the Basic tier because the license is baked in.
- Bandwidth: first 100 GB/month free, then about $0.087/GB.
- Savings plans and reservations cut Premium prices by up to ~55%.
DigitalOcean App Platform pricing notes
- Billed per second with a one-minute minimum.
- Web services can scale to zero, idling at 10% of the standard price.
Our ratings
Ease of use DigitalOcean App Platform
Pricing clarity DigitalOcean App Platform
Free tier Azure App Service
Scaling Azure App Service
Control
Feature by feature
Azure App Service wins 2, DigitalOcean App Platform wins 2, with 11 even.
Deploy workflow
| Azure App Service | DigitalOcean App Platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | Yes GitHub Actions wired from the portal, local git push, or ZIP deploy. | Yes Connect GitHub or GitLab; pushes build and deploy automatically. |
| Preview deploys | Partial Deployment slots (Standard tier and up) give staging environments, but no automatic PR previews. | No No automatic per-PR preview environments. |
| Official CLI | Yes `az webapp up` deploys an app in one command. | Yes doctl manages apps, Droplets, and databases from one CLI. |
| Instant rollbacks | Partial Slot swaps revert instantly on Standard+; Basic and Free redeploy the old build instead. | Yes Roll back to a previous deployment from the dashboard. |
Platform
| Azure App Service | DigitalOcean App Platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Yes Custom domains with managed certificates from the B1 tier up. | Yes Custom domains with managed TLS certificates. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | Partial Azure Front Door / CDN integrate but are separate billed services. | Partial Static assets go through a CDN; dynamic services run in one region. |
| Serverless functions | Partial Azure Functions is a sibling product and can even run on the same plan, but it is not part of App Service itself. | Partial DO Functions exist within App Platform but are a minor, less-loved product. |
| Docker containers | Yes Custom containers are first-class on Linux plans. | Yes Deploy from a Dockerfile or any container registry. |
| SSH / shell access | Partial Browser and CLI SSH into the app container — not a VM you own. | Partial A web console reaches the running container; no true SSH. |
| EU hosting region | Yes West Europe, North Europe, Germany, France, Sweden, Poland, Italy, Spain, and more. | Yes Amsterdam and Frankfurt at identical US prices. |
Runtime & operations
| Azure App Service | DigitalOcean App Platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | Partial Rule-based autoscale from the Standard tier; smarter automatic scaling needs Premium. | Partial CPU-based autoscaling on dedicated instances only. |
| Scale to zero | No Paid plans bill continuously; only the free F1 tier unloads idle apps (with cold starts). | Partial Web services can idle at 10% of price, not zero. |
| Scheduled jobs | Yes WebJobs run scheduled and background tasks inside the plan. | Partial Job components run at deploy events; scheduled cron needs a worker workaround. |
| Managed database | Yes Azure Database for PostgreSQL/MySQL from ~$19/month, plus SQL Database and Cosmos DB. | Yes DO Managed Databases (Postgres, MySQL, Redis-compatible) attach directly. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Yes Application Insights is deeply integrated — but ingestion bills per GB. | Yes Insights graphs, runtime logs, and alert policies built in. |
Watch out for
Azure App Service
- A Windows B1 plan costs ~$55/month versus ~$13 for the same tier on Linux — and default tooling sometimes nudges you toward Windows.
- You pay per App Service Plan, not per app: a second plan doubles the bill even if both are nearly idle.
- The free F1 tier has a hard 60 CPU-minutes/day quota that silently stops your app when exhausted.
- Ride-along services (Application Insights ingestion, Defender for Cloud) show up as surprise line items.
- The spending cap only exists on credit subscriptions (free trial, MSDN) — pay-as-you-go has alerts only.
DigitalOcean
- App Platform containers are small for the money — $12/month buys 1 GiB of RAM, while a $24 Droplet has 4 GiB.
- Managed databases bill separately from both products.
- Bandwidth allowances pool at the team level; overage is $0.02/GiB on App Platform and $0.01/GiB on Droplets.
Read the full reviews: Azure App Service and DigitalOcean. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.