DigitalOcean App Platform vs Droplets (via Teploy)
DigitalOcean's App Platform is convenient but expensive. Managing Droplets via Teploy gives you 50% cost savings and more power.
We love DigitalOcean. They simplified the cloud. But they have two products that compete:
- Droplets: Raw VPS. Cheap, powerful.
- App Platform: Managed PaaS. Convenient, expensive.
Teploy lets you use the Droplets but get the experience of App Platform.
The Pricing Gap
App Platform "Pro"
To get a dedicated instance that doesn't sleep:
- 1 vCPU / 1GB RAM: $12/month
- Database (Dev): $15/month
- Total: $27/month
Droplet (Regular Intel)
- 1 vCPU / 1GB RAM: $6/month
- Database: Host it yourself on the Droplet (Included)
- Total: $6/month
Savings: ~78%
The "Build" Charge
App Platform charges you for build minutes after a certain allowance. Droplets don't. You can build as often as you want using your server's own CPU.
Control
App Platform restricts:
- No SSH access to the running container (mostly)
- Ephemeral filesystem (can't save local files easily)
- Limited port exposure
With Teploy on a Droplet:
- Full Root SSH access
- Permanent Disk (NVMe) attached
- Expose any port (TCP/UDP)
Why use App Platform?
Honestly? Just for the git-push flow. But Teploy provides that exact same flow.
Conclusion
DigitalOcean is an amazing infrastructure provider. But their PaaS markup is high. By using Teploy as your interface layer, you extract the raw value of their Droplets without sacrificing the modern deployment workflow. It's the best way to use DigitalOcean.