DigitalOcean vs Shakti Cloud: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of DigitalOcean and Shakti Cloud to help you choose the right tool for your business.
Last updated: November 2026
DigitalOcean
7.1/10
DigitalOcean is a developer-focused cloud platform offering Droplet VMs, managed Kubernetes, databases, object storage, App Platform and GPU compute for startups and small businesses.
Shakti Cloud
5.8/10
Shakti Cloud is Yotta Data Services' sovereign GPU cloud in India. It offers H100, L40S and B200 virtual machines, bare metal, clusters and serverless inference for AI teams.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.1/10 | 5.8/10 |
| Analytics | 6/10 | 4/10 |
| Cost | 7/10 | 5/10 |
| Customization | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 9/10 | 5/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Support | 5/10 | 5/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $4/mo Basic Droplet 512 MiB | ₹197,000/mo AI Lab (1x H100 80GB workstation) |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $4/mo Basic Droplet 512 MiB | ₹197,000/mo AI Lab (1x H100 80GB workstation) |
| Features | ||
| Automatic Backups | Not listed | |
| Cloud Compute | ||
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| DDoS Protection | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| API and CLI | ||
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Serverless Functions | ||
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
DigitalOcean vs Shakti Cloud cost by team size
| Team size | DigitalOcean | Shakti Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $4/moBasic Droplet 512 MiB | ₹197,000/moAI Lab (1x H100 80GB workstation) |
| 5 users | $4/moBasic Droplet 512 MiB | ₹197,000/moAI Lab (1x H100 80GB workstation) |
| 10 users | $4/moBasic Droplet 512 MiB | ₹197,000/moAI Lab (1x H100 80GB workstation) |
| 25 users | $4/moBasic Droplet 512 MiB | ₹197,000/moAI Lab (1x H100 80GB workstation) |
| 50 users | $4/moBasic Droplet 512 MiB | ₹197,000/moAI Lab (1x H100 80GB workstation) |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose DigitalOcean
- Higher Ease of Use score (9/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Analytics score (6/10 vs 4/10)
- Better fit for developers (9/10 vs 6/10)
- Better fit for startups (9/10 vs 6/10)
Why choose Shakti Cloud
- Higher Scalability score (8/10 vs 7/10)
- Better fit for enterprise (9/10 vs 5/10)
Pros & Cons
DigitalOcean
Pros
- Flat, published hourly and monthly rates with no promotional first-term pricing or renewal price jumps.
- A $4 per month entry Droplet and per-second billing make it cheap to test and run small workloads.
- One account covers a full set of managed services, including Kubernetes, databases, Spaces with CDN, load balancers, App Platform and Functions.
- Developers can automate everything through the API, the doctl CLI and a Terraform provider, and the tutorials are widely used.
Cons
- Free support is ticket-only with a target response under 24 hours, chat starts at $99 per month, and no plan includes phone support.
- Outbound SMTP ports 25, 465 and 587 are blocked on new Droplets, so you cannot self-host email.
- Raw compute costs noticeably more than budget providers such as Hetzner.
- No refunds, and Droplets on suspended accounts are deleted after a grace period.
Shakti Cloud
Pros
- It publishes INR prices for VMs, bare metal and clusters, so Indian buyers avoid exchange-rate risk and can estimate costs without a sales call.
- Data centres in Navi Mumbai and Greater Noida keep data in India for DPDP Act compliance.
- It covers the full range from hourly single-GPU VMs to 256-plus-GPU H100 clusters over InfiniBand, as one of NVIDIA's Cloud Partners.
- Unlimited ingress and egress are included on VMs, and data transfer is included on bare metal and clusters.
- It bundles NVIDIA AI Enterprise and NIM, plus OpenAI-compatible serverless endpoints for hosted open models.
Cons
- The on-demand H100 VM, at 356 rupees per hour, costs more than Cyfuture AI (329) and JarvisLabs (about 330), according to a comparison article.
- It is limited to GPU and AI workloads. It has no general web hosting, managed databases, object storage pricing or CDN.
- InfiniBand and the Kubernetes control plane cost extra, and term discounts are not published.
- Independent user reviews are scarce, and sources disagree on whether access is self-serve or quote-based.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
DigitalOcean scores higher on our AI Software criteria: 7.1/10 against 5.8/10 for Shakti Cloud. The largest gap is in Ease of Use: 9/10 for DigitalOcean and 5/10 for Shakti Cloud.
No, neither DigitalOcean nor Shakti Cloud lists a free plan.
Shakti Cloud is the better fit for enterprise: we rate it 9/10 for them, against 5/10 for DigitalOcean.
