Comparing prices across every provider we track...
CloudHosting.ioCloudHosting.io
App Platform · $5/mo (512 MB RAM, 1 vCPU, 50 GB transfer)
DigitalOcean App Platform at $5/mo is price-competitive and has fewer hidden gotchas than most alternatives. Heroku Eco matches the price but imposes personal-account-only restrictions and sleep penalties. Render and AWS Lightsail cost $2 more monthly but offer better uptime SLAs and more generous transfer allowances, though both carry their own overage traps.
Matches DigitalOcean's $5/mo price with identical RAM and vCPU specs.
Caveat: Personal accounts only, sleeps after 30 min inactivity, and Postgres Essential tier has a 99.5% SLA with no fork/follow or HA—a significant reliability cliff if you need a database.
Includes 500 GB transfer (vs. DigitalOcean's 50 GB), higher 99.9% SLA, and predictable per-region overage rates ($0.09-$0.132/GB).
Caveat: Costs $2 more per month; transfer overage rates vary by region and are higher than DigitalOcean's $0.01/GB.
99.95% SLA (higher than DigitalOcean), second-based billing allows true scale-to-zero, and no per-GB bandwidth overage cap published.
Caveat: Costs $2 more; persistent disk storage ($0.25/GB/mo), bandwidth overages (~$0.15/GB), and custom domain overages ($0.25 each) can add up quickly; exact bandwidth allowance not clearly documented.
Before you switch
Heroku
AWS Lightsail
Render
View DigitalOcean's plan