The European DigitalOcean alternative
For teams on App Platform and Managed Databases who want an EU-incorporated provider, a cheaper Postgres with failover, and one flat invoice in euros.
By Michael Michelsen, Founder of HostStack · Updated October 2026
DigitalOcean prices checked 12 October 2026 against its public pricing pages.
The short answer
DigitalOcean App Platform and HostStack sell the same thing at the app layer: connect a repo, get a running service with HTTPS, workers and scheduled jobs. Prices are close there — a 512 MB app is $5 on DigitalOcean and €5 here. The differences are the database, and the company.
Managed Postgres starts at €4/mo on HostStack and $15.15/mo on DigitalOcean, and automatic failover is included on HostStack’s €15 Standard plan (beta) where DigitalOcean’s smallest primary-plus-standby is $60/mo — and from 30 November 2026 a new DigitalOcean cluster needs Advanced Edition for a standby, from $260/mo. DigitalOcean’s database does more for the money: seven days of point-in-time recovery, read-only nodes in other regions and PgBouncer. DigitalOcean is a US company with Amsterdam and Frankfurt datacenters; HostStack is a Danish company running in Helsinki.
Stay on DigitalOcean if you need regions outside Europe, point-in-time recovery, or the rest of a cloud — Droplets, Kubernetes, Kafka, OpenSearch — next to your app.
HostStack or DigitalOcean? Pick by workload
| Your app | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Customer data that must stay with an EU company | HostStack | Danish operator, data in Helsinki. DigitalOcean is a US company even in Frankfurt. |
| A small team’s app plus Postgres with failover | HostStack | Failover is included from the €15 plan instead of a second $30 node. |
| Data that cannot lose more than a few minutes of writes | DigitalOcean | Seven days of point-in-time recovery. HostStack restores from nightly dumps. |
| Users in the Americas or Asia-Pacific | DigitalOcean | Sixteen datacenters worldwide. HostStack runs in Helsinki only today. |
| An app that also needs VMs, Kubernetes or Kafka | DigitalOcean | They are on the same account. HostStack is a PaaS, not a cloud. |
Where HostStack differs from DigitalOcean
- EU-incorporated (Denmark). DigitalOcean, LLC is a US company, so the US CLOUD Act reaches it whichever region your data is in
- Managed Postgres from €4/mo with storage included, against $15.15/mo for DigitalOcean’s smallest node
- Automatic failover from €15/mo: a three-node Patroni cluster on Standard and Pro at no extra cost (beta). DigitalOcean’s smallest HA cluster is a $30 primary plus a $30 standby, and new clusters lose that option on 30 November 2026 (Advanced Edition, from $130 per node, after that)
- Preview environments per pull request built in. On App Platform they run through a GitHub Actions workflow you set up
- Autoscaling on CPU, memory or requests on every size. On App Platform, CPU-based autoscaling needs a dedicated-CPU plan
- An always-on Pico service for €1/mo, and 200 GB of bandwidth per team before €0.01/GB, against $0.02/GiB on DigitalOcean
Features: HostStack vs DigitalOcean
| Feature | HostStack | DigitalOcean |
|---|---|---|
| Git-push web services | ||
| Background workers | ||
| Scheduled jobs | Cron services (standard cron, UTC) | Scheduled jobs, at most every 15 min |
| Preview per pull request | Built in | Via a GitHub Actions workflow |
| Autoscaling | CPU, memory or requests, any size | Requests on any plan; CPU on dedicated only |
| Custom domains + automatic TLS | ||
| Rollback to an earlier deploy | ||
| Managed PostgreSQL | Versions 15–18 | Versions 15–18 |
| Postgres failover | 3-node Patroni, no add-on (beta) | Paid standby nodes; Advanced Edition only for new clusters from 30 Nov 2026 |
| Point-in-time recovery | 7 days | |
| Read replicas | Read-only nodes, other regions too; Advanced Edition only for new clusters from 30 Nov 2026 | |
| Connection pooling (PgBouncer) | ||
| Other managed engines | MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Redis | MySQL, MongoDB, Valkey, Kafka, OpenSearch |
| Legal incorporation | EU (Denmark) | US (DigitalOcean, LLC) |
| Regions | 1 live (Helsinki, FI) | 16 datacenters; EU: Amsterdam, Frankfurt |
| IaaS beside the PaaS | Own hardware, not VMs | Droplets, Kubernetes, more |
| CLI + Terraform | CLI; Terraform in preview |
Pricing: HostStack vs DigitalOcean
| Tier | HostStack | DigitalOcean |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 1 Nano service + 1 Starter Postgres per user, no expiry | 3 static-site apps |
| Cheapest always-on app | €1/mo Pico (128 MB) | $5/mo (512 MiB, shared vCPU) |
| 512 MB app | €5/mo Micro | $5/mo |
| 2 GB app | €20/mo Standard | $25/mo |
| Cheapest managed Postgres | €4/mo Micro (256 MB, 1 GB storage) | From $15.15/mo (1 GiB, single node) |
| Postgres with automatic failover | €15/mo Standard, 3 nodes (beta) | $60/mo ($30 primary + $30 standby); new clusters from 30 Nov 2026: Advanced Edition, from $260/mo ($130 + $130) |
| Dev database | €7/mo Starter (free for one per user) | $7/mo App Platform dev database (512 MB, not for production) |
| Bandwidth | 200 GB/team free, then €0.01/GB | 50–900 GiB included depending on plan, then $0.02/GiB |
What a month costs: worked examples
List prices before tax, in each provider's own currency. DigitalOcean figures checked 12 October 2026.
An app, a worker and Postgres with failover
A 2 GB web app, a 512 MB worker, and a Postgres that fails over automatically, in Europe.
| Line item | HostStack | DigitalOcean |
|---|---|---|
| Web app (2 GB) | €20 Standard | $25 |
| Worker (512 MB) | €5 Micro | $5 |
| Postgres with failover | €15 Standard, 1 GB, 20 GB storage, 3 nodes (beta) | $60 ($30 primary + $30 standby) |
| Total / month | €40 | $90 |
HostStack is less than half the price, almost all of it in the database — and the gap widens on 30 November 2026, when a new DigitalOcean cluster with a standby has to be Advanced Edition, from $260/mo. DigitalOcean’s database brings seven days of point-in-time recovery and PgBouncer that HostStack does not have; if you need those, the difference buys them.
A small app and a dev-grade database
One 512 MB app and a small Postgres for a side project.
| Line item | HostStack | DigitalOcean |
|---|---|---|
| App (512 MB) | €5 Micro | $5 |
| Database | €0 (the free Starter Postgres) or €4 Micro | $7 dev database, or $15.15 managed |
| Total / month | €5–€9 | $12–$20.15 |
Close on the app, cheaper on the database. DigitalOcean recommends its dev database for development only; HostStack’s Starter is the same managed database as every other plan.
When NOT to choose HostStack
DigitalOcean is the better fit in some cases. Here's when we'd tell you so.
Your users are outside Europe. DigitalOcean has sixteen datacenters across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia; HostStack runs in Helsinki today.
You need point-in-time recovery, read-only replicas in another region, or PgBouncer managed for you. DigitalOcean’s Postgres has all three; HostStack’s has none yet.
You use Droplets, Kubernetes, Kafka or OpenSearch alongside App Platform and want them on one account.
You are on a negotiated DigitalOcean contract, where the list prices above do not apply.
Migrate from DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean concepts, translated
| On DigitalOcean | On HostStack |
|---|---|
| App (app spec) | A project with services in it; hoststack.yaml describes them in the repo. hoststack.yaml |
| Web service / worker component | A web service or worker service, each with its own size and instance count. Deploying |
| Scheduled job | A cron service: one command on a standard cron schedule, in UTC. Cron jobs |
| PRE_DEPLOY job | A pre-deploy command on the service, set with the CLI or SDK. Deploying |
| Managed database + attach to app | A managed database linked to a service; DATABASE_URL is injected on the next deploy. Managed databases |
| Standby node | A three-node Patroni cluster on Standard or Pro, same price (beta). High availability |
| Trusted sources | External access with mandatory TLS and an IP allowlist; private by default. External access |
| doctl | The hoststack CLI, including hoststack env import for a .env file. CLI |
Open a HostStack account
Sign up with an email — no card needed to try it. Create a project in the Helsinki region.
Connect the repo
Connect the same GitHub repository App Platform builds from. HostStack detects the framework, or builds your Dockerfile.
Carry over env vars
Export the app’s environment variables to a .env file and run hoststack env import svc_… .env, which previews the change until you add --apply.
Move the database
Create a managed Postgres, turn on its external access, and pipe pg_dump from your DigitalOcean database into it. Link it to the service so DATABASE_URL is injected.
Cut over DNS
Point your domain at HostStack and wait for the Let’s Encrypt certificate, then destroy the App Platform app and the old database cluster.
Reference for the move: environment variables (including hoststack env import for a .env export), managed databases, the CLI and, to script the whole thing, the TypeScript SDK.
Frequently asked questions
Is DigitalOcean an EU company? Does it have EU regions?
DigitalOcean has EU datacenters in Amsterdam (AMS3) and Frankfurt (FRA1), plus London (LON1) in the UK, and App Platform and Managed Databases are available in them. The company is not European: its contracting entity is DigitalOcean, LLC in Broomfield, Colorado, under Delaware law, and its DPA relies on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses. HostStack is operated by MICCI, a Danish company, with data in Helsinki, Finland.
Is HostStack cheaper than DigitalOcean App Platform?
At the small end it is about level: a 512 MB app is €5/month on HostStack and $5/month on App Platform. HostStack goes lower (Pico, 128 MB, €1/month) and is cheaper at 2 GB (€20 against $25). The bigger gap is the database: managed Postgres starts at €4/month on HostStack against $15.15/month on DigitalOcean, and a cluster with automatic failover is €15/month (beta) against $60/month for DigitalOcean’s smallest primary-plus-standby. That $60 cluster is going away for new databases: from 30 November 2026 (15 October for accounts that have never created one) a new Standard Edition cluster cannot have a standby, and failover needs Advanced Edition, from $130/month per node.
Does DigitalOcean Managed PostgreSQL have features HostStack lacks?
Yes. DigitalOcean keeps seven days of point-in-time recovery, offers read-only nodes in other regions, and pools connections with PgBouncer. HostStack keeps nightly dumps (the last seven), has no read replicas and no managed pooler yet. If those matter to you, DigitalOcean’s database is the stronger product.
How do I move an app from App Platform to HostStack?
Connect the same GitHub repository; HostStack detects the framework or builds your Dockerfile. Carry your environment variables over with hoststack env import, create a managed Postgres and restore a pg_dump of your DigitalOcean database into it, link the database so DATABASE_URL is injected, then move your DNS. Scheduled jobs become cron services with a standard cron expression.
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