DigitalOcean built the modern VPS market. They were first to make per-hour billing feel obvious, first to publish a decent API, first to bundle Docker tutorials with their hosting brand. Asking "why not just use DO?" is fair, and we should answer it honestly.
This is written by RareCloud, keep the bias in mind. The numbers below are factual (pulled from public pricing pages the day this published); the opinions are ours.
TL;DR
Use DigitalOcean if: you need a managed Postgres / MySQL with backups, a managed app platform (build β deploy β autoscale), Spaces (S3-compatible object storage), or a large catalog of "click and deploy" 1-click apps. Their docs are also unbeatable for beginners.
Use RareCloud if: you want raw VPS price/performance well below DO's tiers, EU presence in The Hague / Frankfurt / Bucharest, real EU VAT invoices your accountant books directly (DO invoices from a US entity mean reverse-charge paperwork), crypto as a payment option, or your tooling is AI-heavy: we ship an official MCP server so Claude, Cursor or any MCP client can manage your infrastructure under scoped tokens.
Pricing, same spec, side by side
Numbers below are launch-period pricing at the time of writing. Always verify on the live pricing pages before committing.
Core Plus Pro Elite
1 vCPU / 2 GB 2 vCPU / 4 GB 4 vCPU / 8 GB 4 vCPU / 16 GB
βββββββββββββ βββββββββββββ βββββββββββββ ββββββββββββββ
RareCloud β¬5.50/mo β¬9.50/mo β¬19.50/mo β¬34.50/mo
(annual) β¬3.75/mo β¬7.92/mo β¬16.25/mo β¬28.75/mo
DigitalOcean $12/mo $24/mo $48/mo $96/mo
(annual save) no annual disc. no annual disc. no annual disc. no annual disc.
DigitalOcean doesn't offer annual discount; their list price is the price. RareCloud's annual plans are dramatically cheaper per-month if you commit. Monthly-to-monthly we're still a few euros below.
What you're trading off: DigitalOcean's entry droplets include 1-2 TB transfer; ours include a comparable per-plan transfer allowance. Spec-for-spec, the hardware is comparable (both use KVM, both run on modern Intel/AMD silicon).
Locations
DigitalOcean: datacenters across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. NYC, SF, Toronto, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Bangalore, Singapore, Sydney, and others.
RareCloud: 12 locations across Americas, Europe, and Asia. Silicon Valley, Phoenix, Dallas, New York, London, The Hague, Frankfurt, Bucharest, TimiΘoara, ConstanΘa, Hong Kong, Tokyo. Strong on EU coverage (6 European cities), strong on US East/West, decent APAC coverage via Hong Kong + Tokyo.
If your users are in SΓ£o Paulo, Sydney, or Bangalore, DigitalOcean has presence we don't. For most European or US-East workloads our coverage is adequate.
Billing model
DigitalOcean: strictly per-hour, with a monthly cap. You pay for what you used, capped at the monthly list price even if you ran for the full month.
RareCloud: dual model. Classic VPS plans are prepaid: billed monthly/quarterly/annually in advance. Cloud plans (Cloud VM from β¬3.99/month, Kubernetes workers, volumes, load balancers) are billed hourly from your credit balance with an automatic monthly cap, the same cap philosophy as DO, minus the surprise post-paid card charge: your balance is a hard ceiling, so an empty balance is the worst case. Pick the model that matches your usage: prepay annual for always-on infra, hourly for ephemeral.
API and developer experience
Both have a public REST API with token auth.
DigitalOcean is mature, doctl CLI is great, the pulumi/digitalocean and DigitalOcean Terraform provider are well-maintained, the SDKs cover Python / Go / Ruby / Node out of the box.
RareCloud is younger. Our CLI and Terraform provider are in beta; SDKs are auto-generated from our OpenAPI spec. Our API surface is dramatically smaller than DO's, easier to navigate, faster to learn end to end. Two things DO doesn't have: API tokens with granular scopes, expiry dates AND per-token rate limits, and an official MCP server, so AI assistants can manage your infrastructure under scoped tokens. There's also a full customer activity log in the dashboard and API.
If "I want to write a script that provisions infrastructure" is your primary lens, both work. If "I want every operation available as a turn-key SDK in my language" is critical, DO is currently ahead.
Managed products
Where DigitalOcean genuinely outshines us at launch:
- Managed Databases (Postgres, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, Kafka) with automated backups, point-in-time restore, replication. We don't have an equivalent yet.
- App Platform, git push to deploy, autoscale, log aggregation. We don't have an equivalent.
- Spaces (S3-compatible object storage). We don't have an equivalent.
- Functions (serverless). We don't have an equivalent.
If your architecture leans on these managed building blocks, DigitalOcean reduces operational work substantially. If you prefer to run your own Postgres in Docker on a VPS, both providers are equivalent.
Where each one wins
DigitalOcean wins for:
- Beginner-friendly documentation (the Community Tutorials library is unparalleled)
- Mature managed-product catalog
- App Platform / Spaces if you want to outsource ops
- Locations outside our footprint (South America, Australia, India)
RareCloud wins for:
- Raw price-per-spec on KVM VPS (often half the cost), plus hourly cloud from β¬3.99/month
- EU-heavy presence (Romania, Netherlands, Germany, UK) and EU VAT invoices, no reverse-charge paperwork
- Annual pricing. DO doesn't offer it; we do, deeply discounted
- Crypto payments alongside card, PayPal and bank transfer
- MCP server + scoped expiring API tokens, built for AI-assisted workflows
- Direct support, small team, fast responses; DO's faster-response support tiers are a paid add-on
If you're cost-sensitive and infrastructure-comfortable, try RareCloud: hourly billing means testing the equivalent workload costs cents. If you need the managed-services ecosystem and are budget-flexible, DigitalOcean is the proven choice.