Azure Blob Storage vs DigitalOcean Spaces
DigitalOcean Spaces is cheaper across every workload modelled here.
List prices checked
Rate cards side by side
Only the axes at least one of them bills on. A dash means that provider does not charge for it.
| Billing axis | Azure Blob Storage | DigitalOcean Spaces | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | — | $5.00/mo | — |
| Storage | $0.018/GB-mo | $0.020/GB-mo | 1.1× Azure Blob Storage |
| Data transfer out | $0.087/GB | $0.010/GB | 8.7× DigitalOcean Spaces |
| Free tier | Yes | No | — |
Source: Microsoft pricing (May 2026) · DigitalOcean pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.
Monthly cost for three real workloads
The rate cards applied to identical usage. This is where the winner changes.
| Workload | Azure Blob Storage | DigitalOcean Spaces | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process. | $9.06 | $0.40 | DigitalOcean Spacessaves $8.66/mo (96%) |
| Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers. | $96 | $10 | DigitalOcean Spacessaves $86/mo (90%) |
| Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought. | $906 | $130 | DigitalOcean Spacessaves $776/mo (86%) |
Workload definitions are identical on every comparison page, so figures here can be read against any other pair in the same category.
What each one is for
Azure Blob Storage
by Microsoft
Microsoft's object store with hot, cool, cold, and archive tiers. Moving between tiers carries its own transaction cost that is easy to miss when modelling the bill.
Free tier: 5 GB of hot block storage for 12 months
DigitalOcean Spaces
by DigitalOcean
A flat $5 per month covers 250 GB of storage and 1 TB of transfer, which makes small buckets cost nothing extra and large ones uncompetitive.
Common questions
- Is Azure Blob Storage or DigitalOcean Spaces cheaper in 2026?
- DigitalOcean Spaces is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.
- What is the difference in egress cost between Azure Blob Storage and DigitalOcean Spaces?
- DigitalOcean Spaces charges $0.010 per GB against Azure Blob Storage's $0.087, roughly 8.7× cheaper. Egress usually dominates the bill once traffic is measured in terabytes.
- Which has the better free tier, Azure Blob Storage or DigitalOcean Spaces?
- Azure Blob Storage does — 5 GB of hot block storage for 12 months. DigitalOcean Spaces bills from the first unit of usage.
- What do these estimates not include?
- Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.