DigitalOcean App Platform vs Peon: Managed PaaS or Your Own Droplet?

DigitalOcean offers two distinct ways to deploy your applications: App Platform and Droplets with Peon.

App Platform is a managed platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that provisions, deploys and maintains your apps for you. Pricing is based on a per-component monthly rate, starting at $5 for web services, with additional costs for workers, databases, and memory. For example, three small apps with shared Postgres and Redis would cost around $37 a month on App Platform.

On the other hand, using Droplets with Peon allows you to provision limitless services on your existing Droplet. This approach requires self-managing your infrastructure, but provides more flexibility and cost savings, especially as you add more services. For instance, a $12 Droplet with Peon can host three projects using 2 GB of memory, costing around $18 a month. Adding more apps only increases costs by a small amount, as the additional Droplet resources are already included in the price.

Both options offer similar features, such as Git push deployment, automatic HTTPS for custom domains, and zero downtime rollouts. However, App Platform provides added benefits like OS patching, insulation from Docker daemon issues, and automatic restarts in the event of hardware failure. Droplet with Peon allows for SSH access, cronjobs, custom packages, auto-scaling, and more control over your infrastructure.

In summary, if you only have one small application and want to minimize infrastructure concerns, App Platform’s $5 plan is a suitable choice. But for multiple services, database needs, and more control over your infrastructure, Droplet with Peon becomes significantly cheaper as you add more services, while also providing additional features and flexibility.