In-depth comparisons of available CPU Droplet plans, including hardware and software, an explanation of shared CPU and dedicated CPU plans, and how to make a data-driven decision on which plan is best for your use case.
Droplet Features
Validated on 21 Mar 2025 • Last edited on 26 Mar 2025
DigitalOcean Droplets are Linux-based virtual machines (VMs) that run on top of virtualized hardware. Each Droplet you create is a new server you can use, either standalone or as part of a larger, cloud-based infrastructure.
CPU Droplet Plans
The Droplet plan you choose determines the amount of resources (like CPU, RAM, disk storage, and network bandwidth) allocated to your Droplet. You can choose shared or dedicated CPUs.
We offer the following Droplet plans:
Droplet Plan | CPU | vCPUs | Memory |
---|---|---|---|
Basic | Shared | 1 - 8 | 1 - 32 GB RAM |
General Purpose | Dedicated | 2 - 48 | 8 - 240 GB RAM 4 GB RAM / vCPU |
CPU-Optimized | Dedicated | 2 - 48 | 4 - 120 GB 2 GB RAM / vCPU |
Memory-Optimized | Dedicated | 2 - 32 | 16 - 384 GB RAM 8 GB RAM / vCPU |
Storage-Optimized | Dedicated | 2 - 32 | 16 - 384 GB RAM 8 GB RAM / vCPU 146 - 225 GB SSD / vCPU |
These Droplets can have Regular CPUs or Premium CPUs. You can choose between Intel and AMD for Premium CPUs. Droplets with Premium CPUs are guaranteed to use one of the latest two generations of CPUs we have, NVMe SSDs, and have higher network throughput speed.
GPU Droplet Plans
We offer GPU Droplets with the following hardware configurations:
GPU | NVIDIA H100 | NVIDIA H100x8 | NVIDIA L40s |
---|---|---|---|
Size Slug | gpu-h100x1-80gb |
gpu-h100x8-640gb |
gpu-l40sx1-48gb |
GPUs per Droplet | 1 | 8 | 1 |
GPU Memory | 80 GB | 640 GB | 48 GB |
Droplet Memory | 240 GiB | 1,920 GiB | 64 GiB |
Droplet vCPUs | 20 | 160 | 8 |
Boot Disk | 720 GiB NVMe | 2 TiB NVMe | 500 GiB NVMe |
Scratch Disk | 5 TiB NVMe | 40 TiB NVMe | None |
Maximum Bandwidth | 10 Gbps public 25 Gbps private |
10 Gbps public 25 Gbps private |
10 Gbps public 25 Gbps private |
Transfer Allowance | 15 TB | 60 TB | 10 TB |
Price | $3.39 per hour | $23.92 per hour | $1.57 per hour |
Like CPU Droplets, all GPU Droplets have a boot disk, which is a local, persistent disk on the Droplet to store data for software like the operating system and ML frameworks. Additionally, some GPU Droplets have a scratch disk, a local, non-persistent disk to store data for staging purposes, like inference and training. Non-GPU Droplets do not have a scratch disk.
We provide an AI/ML-ready image for GPU Droplets that has NVIDIA drivers and software preinstalled, or you can use existing Droplet images and manually install the drivers and software necessary to use the GPU.
Create and configure GPU Droplets, which are powered by NVIDIA GPUs.
Linux Distributions
We support the following Linux distributions:
Ubuntu | Debian | CentOS | AlmaLinux | Rocky Linux | Fedora |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
24.10 x64 24.04 (LTS) x64 22.04 (LTS) x64 20.04 (LTS) x64 |
12.0 x64 11.0 x64 |
9 Stream x64 8 Stream x64 |
8.6 9 |
8 x64 9 x64 |
40 x64 41 x64 |
See the full list of distributions and Marketplace images:
Reference tables for available Linux images for Droplets, including the image IDs and API/CLI slugs.
Tags
Tags are custom labels you apply to Droplets that have multiple uses:
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Filtering. Tagging multiple Droplets with the same label lets you organize your resources and view a filtered list of Droplets that share that particular tag.
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Automatic inclusion in firewall rules and load balancer backend pools. Automatically include Droplets in a firewall or load balancer configuration by tag, minimizing administration overhead when adding new Droplets to your infrastructure.
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API call execution on multiple Droplets at once. Initiate an action across all Droplets with the same tag using the DigitalOcean API. Identifying groups of Droplets and administering all of them at once reduces the time required to manage resources.
Autoscale Pools
Droplet autoscale pools enable automatic horizontal scaling for a pool of Droplets based on resource utilization or a fixed size.
Reserved IPs
DigitalOcean Reserved IPs are publicly-accessible static IP addresses that you can assign to Droplets. A reserved IP provides an additional static address you can use to access a Droplet without replacing or changing the Droplet’s original public IP address.
Volumes Block Storage
DigitalOcean Volumes Block Storage is a flexible, convenient way of managing additional storage (in units called volumes) for your Droplets. Volumes are independent resources that you can move between Droplets within the same region. You can increase the size of a volume without powering down the Droplet it’s attached to. They’re most useful when you need more storage space but don’t need the additional processing power or memory that a larger Droplet would provide.
Firewalls
DigitalOcean Cloud Firewalls are a free, network-based, stateful firewall service for your DigitalOcean Droplets. They block all traffic that isn’t expressly permitted by a rule. You can define the Droplets protected by a firewall individually or by using tags.
Load Balancers
DigitalOcean Load Balancers are a fully-managed, highly available load balancing service. Load balancers distribute traffic to groups of Droplets, which decouples the overall health of a backend service from the health of a single server to ensure that your services stay online.