Compare / DigitalOcean App Platform vs Deno Deploy
DigitalOcean App Platform vs Deno Deploy
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — DigitalOcean checked 2026-09-15, Deno Deploy checked 2026-09-15.
The short version
DigitalOcean App Platform and Deno Deploy split our comparison — the right pick depends on what your project values.
Price Tie
Deno Deploy costs less while you're starting out, but DigitalOcean App Platform works out cheaper once traffic grows.
Ease Tie
Both take similar effort to get a first deploy live.
Control DigitalOcean App Platform
DigitalOcean App Platform gives you more control over the stack — the flip side of the convenience trade.
Features Deno Deploy
Deno Deploy comes out ahead on 5 of the 15 features we track, versus 2.
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
| DigitalOcean App Platform | Deno Deploy | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Apps that want git-push deploys inside a provider they can grow with. | JavaScript and TypeScript sites, full-stack framework apps, and APIs that benefit from built-in previews, databases, cron, caching, and telemetry. |
| How deploys work | Connect the Git repo or a container image; App Platform builds, deploys, and scales it. | Connect GitHub for builds on every push or run deno deploy from the CLI; framework presets configure common JavaScript stacks automatically. |
| The tradeoff | Weaker compute per dollar than a Droplet — the convenience premium is real. | It runs the Deno runtime, not Node itself, and its two-region managed footprint and metered Active CPU, memory, and egress trail broader competitors for heavy traffic. |
| Free tier | Free tier: 3 apps with static sites, 1 GiB of outbound transfer each per month. Extra static-site apps cost $3/month. | Free: 1M requests, 20 GiB egress, 10 Active CPU hours, 150 GiB-hours of memory time, 10 active apps, 5 custom domains, and 1 GiB of KV storage per month. |
What you'd realistically pay
DigitalOcean App Platform Deno Deploy
| Project stage | DigitalOcean App Platform | Deno Deploy | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just starting | ≈$5/mo 1 shared vCPU / 512 MiB — Includes 50 GiB of outbound transfer; billed per second. | Free Free — A small app can stay inside the monthly allowance; it pauses if any enforced Free limit is exhausted. | Deno Deploy |
| Steady traffic | ≈$12/mo 1 shared vCPU / 1 GiB — Includes 150 GiB of transfer; a managed database adds more. | ≈$20/mo Pro — Includes 5M requests, 200 GiB egress, 50 Active CPU hours, and 750 GiB-hours of memory time. | DigitalOcean App Platform |
| Growing | ≈$24/mo Two 1 GiB containers — Horizontal scaling; database and extra transfer on top. | ≈$30/mo Pro + request usage — A representative 10M-request month is $20 plus $10 request overage, before any CPU, memory, storage, or egress overage. | DigitalOcean App Platform |
DigitalOcean App Platform pricing notes
- Billed per second with a one-minute minimum.
- Scale to Zero is a private preview for web services. Sleeping services bill at 10% of the standard price.
Deno Deploy pricing notes
- Pro overages are $2 per million requests, $0.20 per GiB of egress, $0.10 per Active CPU hour, and $0.025 per GiB-hour of memory.
- Active CPU bills only while code runs — waiting on requests or network I/O does not consume the CPU meter.
- Pro includes 5 GiB of sandbox volume storage and 5 GiB of Deno KV; extra storage and KV operations have separate usage rates. Free has no volume storage.
- Free has no paid overage: applications pause when an allowance is exhausted. Free and Pro do not include a reliability SLA.
Our ratings
Ease of use
Pricing clarity
Free tier Deno Deploy
Scaling Deno Deploy
Control DigitalOcean App Platform
Feature by feature
DigitalOcean App Platform wins 2, Deno Deploy wins 5, with 8 even.
Deploy workflow
| DigitalOcean App Platform | Deno Deploy | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | Yes Connect GitHub or GitLab; pushes build and deploy automatically. | Yes Link GitHub and every pushed commit triggers an integrated build with streamed logs and caching. |
| Preview deploys | No No automatic per-PR preview environments. | Yes Every Git branch has its own timeline and URL, and every revision receives an immutable preview URL. |
| Official CLI | Yes doctl manages apps, Droplets, and databases from one CLI. | Yes The deno deploy command creates, configures, and deploys applications from a terminal or CI pipeline. |
| Instant rollbacks | Yes Roll back to a previous deployment from the dashboard. | Yes A timeline can be locked to any previous revision to restore it without rebuilding the application. |
Platform
| DigitalOcean App Platform | Deno Deploy | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Yes Custom domains with managed TLS certificates. | Yes Custom domains include automatic Let’s Encrypt certificates; wildcard domains require Pro or higher. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | Partial Static assets go through a CDN; dynamic services run in one region. | Yes A built-in HTTP edge cache respects standard cache headers and supports tag-based global invalidation. |
| Serverless functions | Partial DO Functions exist within App Platform but are a minor, less-loved product. | Yes JavaScript and TypeScript applications run in isolated serverless environments that start on demand. |
| Docker containers | Yes Deploy from a Dockerfile or any container registry. | No Deno Deploy builds source code for its own Deno runtime and does not accept arbitrary Docker images. |
| SSH / shell access | Partial A web console reaches the running container; no true SSH. | No There is no interactive SSH shell; use build logs, runtime logs, traces, metrics, or the CLI. |
| EU hosting region | Yes Amsterdam and Frankfurt at identical US prices. | Yes Applications can run in the managed Europe execution region, although database residency depends on the selected database. |
Runtime & operations
| DigitalOcean App Platform | Deno Deploy | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | Partial Request-based autoscaling works on shared and dedicated plans. CPU-based autoscaling requires dedicated CPU. | Yes The platform automatically starts multiple isolated application instances across or within regions as traffic requires. |
| Scale to zero | Partial Private preview for web services. Sleep costs 10% and cannot be combined with request-based autoscaling. | Yes Idle apps shut down after about 20–30 seconds per the pricing page, so memory time stops while scaled to zero. |
| Scheduled jobs | Yes Scheduled jobs run every 15 minutes or more and bill only while running. | Yes Deno.cron jobs are discovered at deploy time, scheduled by the platform, and monitored in the dashboard. |
| Managed database | Yes DO Managed Databases (Postgres, MySQL, Redis-compatible) attach directly. | Yes Provision Deno KV or managed Prisma Postgres, or attach an externally hosted PostgreSQL database. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Yes Insights graphs, runtime logs, and alert policies built in. | Yes Logs, OpenTelemetry traces, request and outbound-call metrics, filtering, and dashboards are included. |
Watch out for
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.
Deno Deploy
- Applications run on Deno rather than Node itself. Node and npm compatibility is broad, including native add-ons and subprocesses, but framework-specific edge cases still exist.
- The managed platform currently has two execution regions, the US and Europe; Deploy Classic had a broader footprint before it shut down in July 2026.
- Free and Pro have no published reliability SLA; a 99.95% SLA is reserved for Enterprise.
- Free-tier apps pause when the monthly allowance is exhausted; there is no paid overage on Free.
- Active CPU bills only while code runs, not while waiting on I/O, but Free includes only 10 Active CPU hours per month.
Read the full reviews: DigitalOcean and Deno Deploy. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.