GPU cloud · head to head

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets vs Vultr Cloud GPU

What each costs, whether there's a free plan, and what each is best for, from prices checked on their own sites.

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets and Vultr Cloud GPU at a glance
Fact	DigitalOcean GPU Droplets	Vultr Cloud GPU
From	$0.76/hr	$1.67/hr
Free plan	No · New-account credit; GPU use not confirmed	No · New-customer promo credit; GPU use not confirmed
Best for	On-demand GPU Droplets (virtual machines) from DigitalOcean, which now includes Paperspace.	Cloud GPU instances in Vultr's global data centres.
Checked	Oct 17, 2026	Oct 17, 2026
Website	Visit	Visit

The difference in short

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets costs less to start: $0.76/hr against $1.67/hr for Vultr Cloud GPU.
Neither has a free plan; you pay from the start.

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets pricing

All about DigitalOcean GPU Droplets

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets plans and prices
Plan	Price	Specs / includes	Notes
HGX H200 141GB	$4.47/hr	H200 (HGX) · 24 vCPU · 240 GB RAM	Per GPU. 1 or 8 GPUs per Droplet. vCPU/RAM as listed for the Droplet (RAM 240 GiB). 720 GiB NVMe boot disk + 5 TiB NVMe scratch, 15,000 GiB transfer.
HGX H100 80GB	$4.41/hr	H100 (HGX) · 20 vCPU · 240 GB RAM	Per GPU. 1 or 8 GPUs per Droplet. Page says 'NVIDIA HGX H100' and does not say SXM explicitly. RAM 240 GiB.
L40S 48GB	$1.57/hr	8 vCPU · 64 GB RAM	1 GPU per Droplet. RAM 64 GiB, 500 GiB NVMe boot disk, 10,000 GiB transfer.
RTX 6000 Ada 48GB	$1.57/hr	8 vCPU · 64 GB RAM	1 GPU per Droplet. RAM 64 GiB.
RTX 4000 Ada 20GB	$0.76/hr	8 vCPU · 32 GB RAM	1 GPU per Droplet. RAM 32 GiB.
AMD Instinct MI300X 192GB	$2.59/hr	AMD MI300X · 20 vCPU · 240 GB RAM	AMD, not NVIDIA. Per GPU, 1 or 8 GPUs per Droplet. MI325X 256GB is $3.80/GPU/hr (20 vCPU, 164 GiB RAM).

Vultr Cloud GPU pricing

All about Vultr Cloud GPU

Vultr Cloud GPU plans and prices
Plan	Price	Specs / includes	Notes
L40S 48GB (1 GPU)	$1.67/hr	16 vCPU · 180 GB RAM	Same $1.671 per GPU for 1, 2, 4 and 8 GPU plans. 1-GPU plan: 16 vCPU, 180 GB RAM, 1.20 TB storage, 10 TB bandwidth.
A100 80GB PCIe (1 GPU)	$2.40/hr	A100 PCIe · 12 vCPU · 120 GB RAM	1-GPU plan: 12 vCPU, 120 GB RAM, 1.40 TB storage, 10 TB bandwidth. 8-GPU PCIe A100 node is $19.178/hr total. HGX A100 80GB SXM (8-GPU node) 'starting at' $2.800/GPU/hr.
A40 48GB (1 GPU)	$1.71/hr	24 vCPU · 120 GB RAM	1-GPU plan: 24 vCPU, 120 GB RAM, 1.40 TB storage, 15 TB bandwidth. 4-GPU plan $6.849/hr total.
HGX H100 80GB SXM (8-GPU node)	$2.30/hr	H100 SXM · 27 vCPU · 239.25 GB RAM	Per GPU, sold as an 8-GPU node (216 vCPU, 1914 GB RAM, 640 GB GPU RAM; vCPU/RAM above are the exact per-GPU share). The page's Cloud GPU section says 'pricing shown is on-demand', but the same $2.300 appears in the Bare Metal section where 'starting from' is stated to be for pre-paid contract terms. The public Vultr API (api.vultr.com/v2/plans) lists this plan at $23.92/hr per node ($2.99/GPU) with deploy_ondemand=false and a preemptible rate of $18.40/hr ($2.30/GPU). Treat $2.30 as a 'starting at' price and confirm the self-serve on-demand rate before quoting it as a flat price.
HGX B200 192GB (8-GPU node)	$3.50/hr	31 vCPU · 353.25 GB RAM	Per GPU, sold as an 8-GPU node (248 vCPU, 2826 GB RAM; per-GPU share shown). Same caveat as H100: the Bare Metal section says 'starting from' prices are for pre-paid contract terms. The public Vultr API lists the node at $68.00/hr ($8.50/GPU) with deploy_ondemand=false and a preemptible rate of $25.60/hr ($3.20/GPU), which does not match the page's $3.50, so the page figure and API disagree.

Other GPU cloud options

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FAQ

Which is cheaper, DigitalOcean GPU Droplets or Vultr Cloud GPU?

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets costs less to start: $0.76/hr against $1.67/hr for Vultr Cloud GPU. Prices checked Oct 17, 2026 on each company's own site.

Do DigitalOcean GPU Droplets and Vultr Cloud GPU have a free plan?

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets: No free plan. New-account credit; GPU use not confirmed. Vultr Cloud GPU: No free plan. New-customer promo credit; GPU use not confirmed.

What else should I compare with DigitalOcean GPU Droplets and Vultr Cloud GPU?

Other GPU cloud options we've checked: RunPod ($0.34/hr), TensorDock ($0.35/hr), Vast.ai ($0.49/hr), Modal ($1.10/hr).

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Built from the prices and facts we checked on each company's own site. We haven't tested either hands-on.How we work