DigitalOcean App Platform vs Fly.io
DigitalOcean App Platform 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 | DigitalOcean App Platform | Fly.io | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | $5.00/mo | $3.19/mo | 1.6× Fly.io |
| Data transfer out | $0.020/GB | $0.020/GB | Same |
| Free tier | Yes | No | — |
Source: DigitalOcean pricing (May 2026) · Fly.io 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 | DigitalOcean App Platform | Fly.io | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process. | $5.00 | $5.19 | DigitalOcean App Platformsaves $0.19/mo (4%) |
| Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers. | $23 | $23 | DigitalOcean App Platformsaves $0.19/mo (1%) |
| Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought. | $203 | $203 | DigitalOcean App Platformsaves $0.19/mo |
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
DigitalOcean App Platform
by DigitalOcean
Managed application hosting on DigitalOcean's infrastructure, with flat per-container pricing and bandwidth an order of magnitude cheaper than the frontend-focused platforms.
Free tier: Three free static sites
Fly.io
by Fly.io
Containers run as Firecracker VMs across dozens of regions, billed per second, with the cheapest egress of any application platform by a wide margin.
Common questions
- Is DigitalOcean App Platform or Fly.io cheaper in 2026?
- DigitalOcean App Platform is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.
- Which has the better free tier, DigitalOcean App Platform or Fly.io?
- DigitalOcean App Platform does — Three free static sites. Fly.io 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.